Central Saanich’s Marc Tardif has been trying to sell his renovated two-storey house with four bedrooms and three bathrooms for two years. No offers have come.
The price has been knocked down to $399,000 from $499,000. It’s now below the $466,000 assessed value.
What’s going on?
Well, it might be that Tardif’s house is in Quebec City, where the housing market is markedly different from the super-charged scene on B.C.’s West Coast.
For 12 years, Tardif split his time between Quebec City and Victoria and hotels in between. Tardif is a professional magician who performs around the country.
A year ago, he relocated to the capital region to be here full time with partner Anne Louise McFarlane. They live in a townhouse on the Saanich Peninsula.
He shakes his head ruefully at the chasm between housing markets. In the first quarter, Quebec City’s average price for a single-family house was $269,011.
When real estate giant Re/Max looked at luxury homes in Quebec City, it referred to houses priced at $500,000.
That figure is well below Greater Victoria’s $684,900 benchmark price for a typical house in April. And with May’s real estate data out today, the chasm between markets is expected to get even wider.
Different factors affect real estate around the country. A condominium building boom is one factor in the Quebec City market. As well, potential buyers have more choice, as do renters, Tardif said. Quebec City’s rising rental vacancy rate was four per cent in 2015, up from 3.1 per cent in 2014.
He calls the city’s rental market dead.
“They built so many condominiums in Quebec and they are still building like crazy.”
He wants a reliable tenant who will take good care of his “beautiful” house. Basic expenses for the mortgage, taxes and insurance were barely covered by his most recent renter, who has moved out. The real estate situation is frustrating and he is losing money carrying the house, Tardif said.
In Victoria, a rental vacancy rate of 0.6 per cent means it can be difficult to find a place.
The Victoria Real Estate Board’s monthly sales and prices have been breaking records as buyers rush to snap up properties in a seller’s market.
There’s no reason to expect the latest statistics will alter that trajectory. Lineups for open houses and multiple offers are common in Greater Victoria as the average price for single-family home sales through the board in April was $737,902.
Vancouver is leading the way in B.C., where the average price of a house is more than $1 million.
