By Zenab Bagha
A hot housing market has some Centretown property owners jumping to take advantage of the high prices.
“It’s been a long eight years,” says Kin Tue-Fee.
“I’ve invested in real estate for years and I’ve waited a long time for it to pick up.
The Transport Canada employee recently put his 50-year-old four-bedroom brick house on Booth Street on the market and he says he is hoping for a quick sale.
“Would I have sold it last year?” he asks.
“No. Last year, the market wasn’t as good as it is this year. Right now, the market is doing really well.”
According to Statistics Canada, the new-home price index in the Ottawa-Hull region was 14.4 per cent higher in January than it was a year ago. That’s compared to an overall increase across Canada of two-and-a-half per cent.
“Today across the city, it’s a ‘seller’s market,’ ” says Wendy Camp, a real estate sales representative at Re/Max Metro-City Realty Ltd.
The scarcity of housing has led to a “phenomenal increase” in housing prices in certain neighbourhoods in the city, including Centretown’s “Golden Triangle” area, says Camp.
Homeowners are receiving more money today for their houses than they would have a few years ago.
Linda McCallum, a real estate sales agent at Faulker Real Estate Ltd., gives an example of a house on Frank Street that sold for $395,000 in February. The owner had originally paid only $255,000 for the house three years ago.
Jeffrey Rosebrugh, a real estate sales agent at Royal LePage, says housing prices in Centretown have risen substantially.
He adds that while Centretown may not be as popular as the Glebe or Lindenlea, it has a “very vibrant (housing) market” because of the large amount of people who want to live downtown.
“The important thing about Centretown is that there is only so much land available, and so people will have to be prepared to pay more if they want to be closer to the shops and restaurants downtown,” he says.
And there’s more good news for homeowners hoping to sell their properties.
According to Rosebrugh, housing prices aren’t likely to come down soon.
But he adds that the high prices aren’t turning away prospective buyers.
“In the past, an extremely over-priced house would sit for three or four months without being sold.
“Now (over the last year), even these overpriced properties are taking less time to sell,” he says.
However, both Rosebrugh and Camp say that a change in lifestyle is still the main reason why most homeowners decide to sell their properties.
But some homeowners are taking advantage of the hot housing market to get out of their mortgages, says Camp.
“If your home is in a nice area you might get more money for it,” she says.
“That would allow you to pay off your mortgage and still have a bit of money left over to buy a smaller place.”
Tue-Fee hopes the money from the sale of his house will allow him to recoup some of his loses due to the recent slump in the high-tech sector.
“Of course, I’ll still continue to invest in high-tech, but I’d rather have (real estate) right now than high-tech,” he says.