The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Out-of-province buyers keep N.S. home prices high
One Nova Scotia realtor says the red-hot market in the province is taking a bit of a summer vacation.
There are currently 242 listings in the province with an asking price of more than one million dollars, and 196 listings over a million have been sold in Nova Scotia in the last 12 months.
“I would say the amount of activity today, July 26, is slower than it was,” said Donna Harding, partner at Engel & Völkers Nova Scotia. “If you go back to January to April of this year, it was crazy, crazy busy and then the third wave came, and it kind of slowed our market a little bit.
It's going to pick back up and I see it happening already, but I think a lot of people are trying to visit family they haven't seen, they're trying have a bit of a summer, so I think that's why the amount of activity is down a bit.”
Statistics from Engel & Völkers show that out-ofprovince buyers account for almost half of the home purchases over $1 million, many of whom have sold homes in B.C. and Ontario and can afford more, compared to a local buyer.
Many of those homes are being bought sight unseen.
“It's happening in all different pockets; it can happen in Annapolis Royal, in Inverness, it can happen in Halifax, it's dependent on the property. If it looks really good, then out of towners
are quite interested in it, and driving lots of bids,” Harding said.
In Waverley, a property listed for $649,900 sold for $912,000, $262,100 over the asking price. Harding said part of the reason houses are going for above asking is that they're priced too low to reflect the way the market has changed.
“Nova Scotia has always been on the map for those from the U.S. and overseas, but I think what happened during COVID is it made the ability to work from home much easier,” she said. “And that's going to continue with many companies and their employees, so while we've always had downsizers coming in from Vancouver and Toronto, COVID kind of pushed that. A lot of people now can move
and work from home, so the numbers grew really quickly.”
Harding says one thing that hasn't changed is that people from other parts of Canada usually first ask about living on the South Shore.
“Chester, Lunenburg, Hubbards, and Liverpool is starting to become quite an interesting area,” she said. “I'd say the South Shore is probably the most attractive from a numbers perspective, but we're seeing people in Yarmouth, they're in Clare, they're coming into Annapolis Royal, into Inverness, Baddeck. Up on the North Shore, we've seen quite a few out of province buyers this year, in areas like Tatamagouche and north of Antigonish.”
And “everybody” from Ontario or B.C. or Europe or the U.S. considering a move here wants to live on the water, or with a view of the water.
“We're a novelty if you think about it, because we have so much oceanfront and yet, inside the province, what is there, three thousand lakes in Nova Scotia, so we have a lot of lake properties as well,” said Harding, estimating that 60 per cent of prospective buyers want to be on the ocean or have an ocean view, with 40 per cent wanting to be on a lake.
“It's always about water. And when it comes to amenities, a lot of people coming in don't need to be right in Lunenburg, they're fine if they're outside Lunenburg or Chester or Halifax or Musquodoboit Harbour. It's really about basic amenities like groceries, and internet. Every single buyer asks about internet speed.”