ESTEVAN — Despite the traditional slowdown in winter, the Estevan real estate market still sees sales.
Coldwell Banker Choice Real Estate agent Amanda Mack says it's still a buyers' market in some segments, but it is now more balanced than a few years ago, and there are a lot of people outside the community waiting for their new homes to come up on the Estevan market.
"I'd say probably 70 per cent of buyers that I have right now waiting for inventory are from Ontario or British Columbia," she said.
"We're still seeing fairly low prices right now. But it's a strange market; it depends on what price range you're in. Inventory is quite crowded with homes under $200,000, but some of the higher-end homes, $300,000-plus ones, there's nearly nothing on the market, so sellers seem to be getting more of what they're asking. But then under the $200,000, that's definitely a buyer's market still."
Houses under or at the $100,000 mark mainly sell as investments for rental properties since the rental market is still quite good in Estevan, Mack said.
She noted that the market seems to have started balancing out after the last boom-bust cycle.
"We did see a massive pendulum swing in prices, obviously, when the oilfield slowed down and then COVID hit and things went crazy with prices; they were so, so low," Mack said. "We have gained a little bit of that back price-wise. But I don't think that it will ever get as out of reach as it was during the boom.
"I like that we're seeing that it's starting to balance itself out. There are cons and pros to both ways, but when you have a more balanced market, price-wise, and more people are actually able to get themselves into a home, I think that that's a massive plus over getting a crazy, crazy amount for your home, because it does price a lot of people out of the market."
With 68 residential properties up for sale in Estevan as of Feb. 1, and only 41 of them being single-detached homes, the inventory was generally quite low. Mack noted that out of the 41, seven were over $300,000 and just three were in the $400-plus category, so for a lot of buyers there were not too many options at the moment.
Real estate firms are expecting a lot more people to list during what's known as a spring rush.
"Already I'm starting to get calls from people, just giving a heads up that they're thinking about listing in the spring and asking for advice on what they need to do to get ready to do that. Most people list in mid-March to mid-April. A lot of people list April 1," Mack said, sharing experience from previous years.
While interest rates are higher than they were not that long ago, they are still below average, Mack noted, but buyers are shopping around more.
"Most people typically would stay with their home bank, but now we're seeing a lot of people reach out, shop around multiple different banks, different mortgage brokers and take their time in finding the best deal for themselves. And I think that that's certainly important," Mack said.
"The first little while when interest rates started to go up, they hindered buyers from looking and actually making a purchase. But now, I think the people that are going to buy are going to buy anyway. It is kind of our new normal, and interest rates are probably going to stick around this point for a little while.
"But real estate market prices are dictated by what's going on all over; it depends on the economy and how much confidence people have. And it constantly changes. So, it's very hard to predict what's going to happen."
She noted that the stabilization of the market positively affected sales outside Estevan. During and right after the pandemic, there was a long period when nothing would happen with properties in smaller satellite communities.
"I think a big part of that was because in the city, prices adjusted to so low that people were able to stay in the city, whereas before a lot of times they would reach out to the smaller areas to get more bang for their buck. But now that inventory is a little lower in Estevan and prices have recovered a little bit, we are seeing some action in the smaller towns. I have listings in Lampman Torquay, Midale, Macoun, Bienfait, and all of those places have seen showings in recent weeks," Mack said.
"That's something that there hasn't been much of the last couple of years. It's been a tough road for the sellers in the rural areas, but there's a lot of benefits in going to these communities."
She noted that rural communities are family-friendly and community-oriented, offering buyers more for their money in comparison to Estevan and typically larger lot sizes, but they still have value to them.
