What goes up should come down. Or will it?

Luxury home sales surge

Luxury real estate in both cities broke local records last year, with sales of mansions priced over C$10 million growing nearly 240%, faster than anywhere else in Canada. Those transactions included the highest price ever paid for a single-family Vancouver home, cited at nearly $42 million.

High-end real estate has been buoyed by the same pandemic-led forces that have made Canada’s overall housing market one of the hottest in the world: low interest rates and high interest in living spaces. Demand for luxury housing has been juiced even further by the surging stock market, making many rich Canadians richer.

But Canada hasn’t built enough houses, big or small, in recent years to keep up with this surging demand or with population growth. The number of properties listed for sale nationally has plunged to a record low. In Vancouver, about 5,000 homes were for sale at the end of last year, the fewest in data going back 30 years.

In the luxury segment, houses worth $10 million or more are staying on the market for a shorter time, weeks rather than months. One factor holding down inventories is that luxury home buyers, seizing on record-low mortgage rates, are holding onto their old properties longer. Rather than put their homes up for sale in tandem with their search for a new one, these buyers are holding onto their old ones, too, and slowing down the turnover process.

A luxury homeowner does not want to leave their luxury home because they don’t know where else they would go.
A look ahead
 
Luxury home sales surge
New home buyers are counting on the Canadian housing market cooling off temporarily with the anticipated rise in interest rate this year. But if recent history is anything to go, the real estate market is almost like the Canadian weather – it keeps changing.
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