(EP: 147) Winnipeg Real Estate Market Update January 2021

Jan7thEpisode

Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:00:00] Welcome to the first episode of Winnipeg's real estate podcast for 2021. Today, we're going to look at the January market update and have a quick call with Mike Schroeder of mortgage architects. All coming up,

[00:00:15] you're listening to the bone knows real estate podcast tips and advice for home buyers, sellers, and owners with award-winning Remax agent B0 Kauffman.

[00:00:31] All right. Happy new year, everybody. This is Bo Kauffmann Remax performance Realty. And welcome to the first episode of 2021. This is Winnipeg's real estate podcast and the first one in the month, we always do our market update and that's coming up next. I'll give you a little hint there. There's some awesome numbers.

[00:00:49] Some very interesting numbers coming out, especially after the listings expired on December 31st. That's usually a big day when listenings expire. And you're going to be surprised by how few listings there are on the market right now. Drives to any neighborhood and you're going to be hard pressed to find for sale signs right now.

[00:01:05] That is, this is probably the the tightest that the market has been in the 16 years that I've seen him. But first up, we're going to call my buddy Mike Schroeder of mortgage architects. I've asked him to prepare a feel, good story, something that happened in 2020, where he helped somebody get a mortgage.

[00:01:21] Or helped somebody out that couldn't be helped anywhere else. And so let's see what he has to say. I think we start the year off on a positive note here. Let's see what he has to say.

[00:01:33] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:01:33] Hello.

[00:01:35] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:01:35] Hey Mike, happy new year. It's both coffin calling.

[00:01:38] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:01:38] Hey, happy new year to you as well.

[00:01:40] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:01:40] How are you doing by the way? My friend.

[00:01:42] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:01:42] I'm doing great. How about yourself?

[00:01:44] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:01:44] Good. Good. Did you do a lot of partying over the rivers? I don't think you did, right?

[00:01:49] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:01:49] No, but you know what? We did get to get a side, enjoy some of that beautiful weather we've been having lately.

[00:01:54] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:01:54] Yeah, this is awesome. Yesterday, it was like, plus two, whatever in January. And it just gets us that much closer to the spring.

[00:02:01] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:02:01] Exactly. Which, that means spring market time.

[00:02:05] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:02:05] Oh, that's right. And I've just written an article about what people should do to prepare. And we talked about that a culture a couple of weeks ago, but now I'll tell you, I'm just going to call you and reach out and see if you've got a feel, good story for us.

[00:02:17] Something that worked out well or somebody you made happy to end 2020. I do actually.

[00:02:24]Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:02:24] So I have an existing client and what I like to do, I like to keep in touch with my clients about once a year or so. And I noticed that one of my clients from about two and a half years ago was paying an interest rate of over 3% now.

[00:02:37] And to think we thought that was actually a good rate. Not that long ago.

[00:02:41]

[00:02:41] And so I give them a phone call. I said, look, let's do the math and see, does it make sense for you to break her mortgage? Yes or no. And so what we did when we did the math, they did have to pay a penalty, but they had a lot of equity in their home.

[00:02:52] And we found that not only were we able to save a buck $150 a month on their mortgage payment, But we were able to roll their car payment into their mortgage. So now instead of paying their mortgage, plus another $550 a month for their car, we saved $150 a month on my mortgage payment, save them father and $50 a month in the vehicle payment.

[00:03:13] So a family of four is now going to be saving $700 a month that they can also

[00:03:18] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:03:18] use for saving for retirement. Let's let me ask you to put some numbers on it. Like how high quote unquote was their mortgage, like not the dollar amount, but the percentage.

[00:03:29] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:03:29] Sure. So they're interested. They're paying was about 3%.

[00:03:31] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:03:31] Okay. And what are you able to get people now?

[00:03:35] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:03:35] Right now for them, we've got to run a 1.6, 5%.

[00:03:38] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:03:38] Is that locked in or is that flexible?

[00:03:40] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:03:40] So it's actually unique product where it's a variable mortgage, but the payment amount doesn't change. If interest rates go up, what happens is if interest rates go up, the payment stays the same, a little bit less.

[00:03:52] The payment goes towards principle a little bit more towards interest. So this family can set their budget for the next five years is

[00:03:57] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:03:57] beautiful. I remember actually talking about that a couple of episodes ago, you are a big proponent of having an open mortgage especially when it's something like this, where.

[00:04:08]It's the lowest rate and let it fluctuate a little bit because let's face it three or two years ago, we thought 3% that's as low as it's ever going to go. And it isn't. So this has worked out well.

[00:04:20]Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:04:20] One of the reasons I like the variable is that it gives you the lowest penalty and you have to break your mortgage.

[00:04:24] As we like to say, life is variable. Your mortgage should

[00:04:26] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:04:26] be two. Okay. Awesome. So you ended up saving them 700 bucks a month, and really there was nothing they had to do other than to meet with you and sign some papers.

[00:04:35] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:04:35] Exactly it took maybe an hour and a half of work. They're going to save the money.

[00:04:39] The clients are very happy, a little bit more of a cap off. The gentleman works in the healthcare industry, so it's been a very stressful year for him to say a lot of long hours, a lot of suffering they've seen. And so to really brighten their day at Christmas really meant a lot to me as well.

[00:04:53] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:04:53] Yeah.

[00:04:53]That's those kind of things that make us all feel good when we can help somebody. Everybody needs help, but that's really a nice touch there with the health care service that I like that.

[00:05:03] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:05:03] Yep. It was a nice capper to a very busy year for us.

[00:05:05] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:05:05] What are you? I see happening in the next couple of months you probably, I don't know if or not, but the number of listings are way down.

[00:05:12] Are you seeing buyer activity? Has it dropped off? Is it starting to pick up? What are you seeing right now?

[00:05:17] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:05:17] So I have a lot of clients who've been pre-approved who are struggling to find the right house. So they're struggling to find a place that where they're actually accepted where their offers are getting accepted.

[00:05:26] And so there's a lot of buyers who want to buy a home. They see the value in buying a home, but they're not finding the right place. So their thought of putting your home on the market, it could be a good opportunity for that.

[00:05:36]Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:05:36] And I, I said that in my recent podcast, I think a week ago, I said the first few houses.

[00:05:41] Now, once they start coming on the market, they should see some really good. Activity on their listing. So if you're listening to this, if you've got a house or even a condo, but a house especially in that 200 to two 50 range or five, 400,000, any anything in there it's there's gotta be some good activity on it.

[00:06:00] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:06:00] One other thing to consider is that either if you own a rental property right now, or if you've ever thought about owning a rental property, we've got rental rates right now in the 1.7 to 1.8 range. And the best part is you can pay it off over 30 years. And so you can get a very low payment on it.

[00:06:16] And there's a lot of demand right now for rental. So it could be very profitable, tiny than to buy rental property or to refinance your rental property, lower your payment, pull some equity out and make you more on it every month.

[00:06:27] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:06:27] Yeah, that's good. And again, if you can find a property, that's the problem.

[00:06:31]I looked at it a couple of days ago. Last year, this time we had 1100 houses on the market. Do you want to guess how many we had January 1st? This year?

[00:06:40] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:06:40] I'm going to guess maybe a 10th of them.

[00:06:42] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:06:42] Oh, no, it's not that big a drop, but instead of 1100, we had 480. That's the lowest that's in the entire city of Winnipeg in all price ranges.

[00:06:52] So that's way, way down. Normally we would be around a thousand. 900, 1,011 hundred. So be that low it's tough for anybody to find a house. So even for investors who want to buy a rental property and condos is the same picture. Last year, we had 506 available on January 1st, this year, 380. Oh, my goodness.

[00:07:15] Yeah. So anyway, so I great. It was great talking to you and we'll keep doing this again throughout the year. I know people are listening cause I had a couple of phone calls and they said  yeah, we need to get ahold of this mic guy. So that's good. It's obviously working. What

[00:07:30] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:07:30] I offer is mortgage education.

[00:07:31] So they would have a mortgage question. Always feel, reach out to me. I'm here to answer them as best I can.

[00:07:36] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:07:36] Awesome. Thanks a lot, Mike. And we'll talk to you soon.

[00:07:38] Mike Schroeder, Mortgage Broker: [00:07:38] Sounds good. Take care.

[00:07:40] Bo Kauffmann - Real Estate Agent: [00:07:40] Bye-bye. And that was Mike Schroeder of mortgage architects. You can get ahold of him on his cell@twoohfourtwotwoninethreetwoonefouroremailhimatmortgageatmikeschroeder.ca.

[00:07:54] And of course the link will be in the show notes. All right. So let's take a look at it. General market overview of Winnipeg's real estate market. The first thing we need to look at is how many houses and condos are available right now. And a total number of houses available in Winnipeg right now is 479.

[00:08:13] I believe that's the lowest numbers in many years that I can remember compared that to 1100 houses available last year, same time. Similar pictures and condos, not quite as extreme. There are four, 341 condos available right now compared to five Oh six last year. Same time next. Let's take a look at how many houses and condos have sold over the past month.

[00:08:37] And the biggest chunk of the market over 50% of all sales are houses between two 50 and 500,000. Those was houses in that price range that we sold 219. The next biggest piece of the pie is 106 houses under $250,000. And a smaller slices are the condo sales, still fairly robust for a condo market. We've got condos under a quarter million.

[00:09:04] We sold 43 condos over a quarter million was sold 34 and that's all the way up to the highest price range. Okay. Let's see how those sales compare against last year. Over the past month, we sold 106 houses under a quarter million, and that's quite a bit more than the 69 we sold last year. Same time. The 219 houses we sold between the two 50 and $500,000 range.

[00:09:30] That's nearly doubled our one 24 of last year condos, similar picture condos under a quarter million. The 43 we sold in a month of December is nearly double the 23. We sold the previous year. And condos over a quarter million, we sold 34 of those compared to five. Last year, listings are down, sales are up.

[00:09:52] So you can imagine what happens to the prices. Lots of bidding Wars and increased prices. Okay. So let's break that down into the four different categories houses under a quarter million dollars. Currently we have 136 available compared to last month, which was two 27. The most important comparison I feel is always against the last year, same time period.

[00:10:16] So last year, same time we S we had available 312 houses. Median days on Mark, and I'm just starting to track that this month that's the first time I'm tracking. It was 42 days on market. Now the old houses under a quarter million dollars to 106, we sold in December compares to 142 the previous month, but it also compares quite well against the 69 was sold last year, December.

[00:10:44] Inventory days currently are 40 days compared to 48, the previous month, but that's way down from 140, the previous year and inventory days basically means the lower, the number, the hotter, the market average sold price in December in this price range was 185,700 down, slightly from the previous month and actually down from about a year ago.

[00:11:08] And the average days on market till it got sold was 29 days, which is quite reasonable considering it was December. Now let's move on to houses in the quarter million to half million dollar range. We have 195 available right now compared to 306, the previous month and way down from last year's 521. And the average days, median days on market is 37.

[00:11:33] I am going to track that over the next few months. Sold houses in this price range between a quarter and a half million dollars. That 219 we sold during December is down from the three 14 in November. But again, it's way up from the one 24, the previous year and inventory days, you can see last couple of months, 28, 29.

[00:11:54] That's a very hot market compared to 130 a year ago. Average sold price in December was 355,000 in that price range. And the days on market is 20. Which is relatively low compared to last year in January last year, we had 44 and moving up to condos under a quarter million dollars. The 193 that we've got available right now is way down from the two 78, the previous month and down from the two 72 last year.

[00:12:22] Same time. Median days on market right now is 53 for those condos. Now, as far as condo sales go in the past month, we sold 43 condos under $250,000. That's exactly the same amount as the previous month. And it's nearly double the previous year that makes our inventory at 139 days, which is fairly fast for condos.

[00:12:43] It's much faster than November was because there are less condos available and it's way down from the 366 days the previous year. So in other words, a year ago, it would have taken a full year to sell all the condos that are out there right now. It only takes 139 days. Average sold price for those condos was 169,200, which is down quite a bit.

[00:13:05] So there are many of the cheaper condos being sold, lower price condos days on market only took 36 days. That's fairly fast for condominiums in Winnipeg. Now looking at all available condos. Over $250,000 to infinity. There are 148 available that's way down from two 25 last month and two 34 last year.

[00:13:27] As far as sales go, we sold 34 condos in this higher price range compared to 22 the previous month and only five. Last year. So the inventory days right now sits at 135 days, three Oh seven was the previous month and last year because we only had five sales and we had tons available at that 1400 per 50 days is really an outlier.

[00:13:49] Normally  at this price range, you're looking at 400 to 500 days as the maximum range. And the average condo that's sold in this price range was 346,000. And it was 36 days on market, which has held steady for the last three months. I do hope you've enjoyed this audio presentation and starting this year with this first report, I've got a great new way of presenting the market updates.

[00:14:14] They are now in a downloadable PDF format multimedia. And once you open the PDF, it actually plays the audio to describe the various graphs or charts that you're looking at. It's a really neat little thing, and it's really easy to get on any device, computer, desktop, or phone, go to Boknows.homes/PDF

[00:14:35] and you'll be able to read it. If it's on a small device, like a handheld phone, I say, turn it sideways so you can actually flip the pages. It's really cool. Really neat. Let me know what you think and that's it for this week. And I look forward to talking to you again next week. Bye bye. I hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode as much as I've enjoyed creating it.

[00:14:52] Cause I really do love it. If you found the information helpful, why not download my free podcasting app that way you never miss another episode and I've made it super simple to just go to Bono's dot homes slash apps. That's eight PPS available for Apple and Android devices. If you just want to see the show notes or read the transcript, go to Bono's dot homes slash one four, three.

[00:15:20] That's this episode's number there. You can also click on the little microphone button and record a question or comment. And finally, please give this podcast a five star rating again. We've made it super simple. Just go to love the podcast.com/boknows. Thank you so much for listening. Let's do this again next week.

[00:15:46] You've been listening to Bo Kauffman of Remax performance Realty. Are you thinking of buying or selling a house or a condo in Winnipeg? Call Bo at (204) 333-2202. Remember Bo knows real estate.