THUNDER BAY — The president of the Thunder Bay Real Estate Board says it's unsurprising to see a prediction that house prices in Thunder Bay will dip slightly over the next five years.
Andrew Lawrence was responding to a forecast issued by Moody's Analytics and RPS Real Property Solutions.
Their five-year outlook for 33 Canadian cities shows the average annualized single-family house price in Thunder Bay, between the second quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2023, falling by 0.4 per cent.
The forecast calls for price growth to slow down in most markets, however Thunder Bay, Windsor, Regina and Calgary are the only cities where prices are expected to decline.
"We were on a tear for a good 10 years...I've been saying that things are going to flatten out, and that's basically what that is," Lawrence told Tbnewswatch.
"The craziness has stopped. Listings are sitting a little bit longer now...We're going back to a more normalized market."
According to Lawrence, this means houses may take "60, 90, 180 days to sell. Buyers will look a little more. They won't just jump at the first thing they see because they're afraid they're going to lose it."
He said that in the Thunder Bay market right now, there is nothing that's stimulating growth.
"We've gone off of an 8-to-10 year run where we've had really remarkable growth...faster than we would have ever expected to happen."
Lawrence added that "It's never good when you're on a tear. Very few people benefit from that."
The city's housing market, he said, is entering a stage where it will be more balanced and fairer both to buyers and sellers,
A report released last month by Zoocasa showed that Thunder Bay currently has the most affordable housing among 28 markets in Ontario, with an average selling price in August of about $228,000.
