SIMCOE.COM31 - Barrie Advance - Thursday JU

NE 9, 2016

JENNI DUNNINGjdunning@simcoe.com

Between a “rundown shack” for $700,000 in Toronto or a two-storey home with modern finish-ings in Barrie, the choice was easy for Aleksandra and Marek Krupa.

The former Brampton couple moved to Barrie in December – part of a wave of homebuy-ers fleeing north from the Greater Toronto Area’s higher housing prices.

The Krupas say many of their friends in their 30s are getting mar-ried and want to buy houses, but options can be limited if their bank accounts are not bulging.

“Some of them have bought con-dos that cost more than our house,” said Aleksandra.

“For $600,000, $700,000, they’d get basically a rundown shack,” added Marek. “There’s still a mental block about Barrie. I don’t know why. Once they start having kids, that little one-bedroom condo won’t be so nice.”

The Krupas have friends and family members who also recently moved to Barrie because the homes are less expensive, bigger and new-er than many of those available in the GTA.

And with their first child due in September, Barrie also offers more nature and outdoor living for the couple’s active lifestyle.

They both work from home, so commuting is not a problem, but Hwy. 400 makes the GTA easily accessible.

“(Friends) say, ‘Barrie is so far.’ Then they say, ‘Oh, how much do you say houses are?’ once they see the price in Woodbridge and Maple,” Marek said. “The new house gave us everything we wanted.”

But buying your dream home in Barrie and parts of Simcoe County is not as easy as it once was, partly because of competi-tion from buyers leaving the GTA

seeking more affordable housing options, said Mark Faris, CMO and broker of Royal LePage First

Contact Realty The Faris Team Brokerage.

Anyone seeking to buy a house

in the Barrie area, for example, can expect to pay at least $5,000 to $10,000 over the asking price and potentially face bidding wars on multiple homes before making a deal, he said.

“The higher-end market is see-ing movement … and there’s a whole lot more confidence in the entry market. That’s where you see bidding wars,” he said. “Typi-cally now, the list price is where you start. I’ve seen anywhere from $20,000, $30,000, even $40,000 over list.”

For the past 10 years, Faris said, it took local agents an average of four months to sell four months’ worth of inventory. In the past year, that changed to less than two months to sell the same number of units.

“If you’re comparing homes to 2015, it’s not the same market. Even (compared to) January (2016).”

In Barrie, the average price is now $275,000 to $350,000 for a townhouse, $425,000 for a three-

bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath-room detached home and $600,000 to millions for an estate home on the water, Faris said.

Areas such as Vaughan are be-coming pricier, so many people are looking north, he said.

“Newmarket prices, Bradford prices are starting to get to a level that Barrie is seen as affordable,” Faris said. “There’s a perspec-tive change (among) people living south of here that Barrie is a cool place to be.”

In April, Barrie’s housing mar-ket tied with Toronto for having the third-highest year-over-year price increase in Canada, accord-ing to a recent Re/Max survey by Leger, a market research firm. Housing prices jumped 14 per cent in the Barrie and District area and in Toronto during the first quarter this year, behind Fraser Valley and Greater Vancouver in B.C.

RED HOT MARKETBarrie’s real estate market

draws GTA, international buyers

Aleksandra and Marek Krupa moved to Barrie from Brampton, in large part, because prices are lower here. JENNI DUNNING PHOTO

Mark Faris, CMO & broker of Royal LePage First Contact Realty The Faris Team Brokerage, said homebuyers can expect to pay at least $5,000 to $10,000 above the asking price and potentially face a bidding war.

EXPERT OPINION

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SIMCOE.COM33 - Barrie Advance - Thursday JU

NE 9, 2016

“The ripple effect on the housing markets outside of Toronto and Vancouver is quite significant when you look at the Canadian housing market overall,” said Elton Ash, RE/MAX of Western Canada’s regional execu-tive vice-president.

The markets in Vancouver and Toronto created competition among buyers and po-tentially discouraged sellers from listing their properties, he said. That led to a lower inventory, which may have impacted the numbers.

The same thing is happening here, accord-ing to Barrie and District Association of Re-altors president Michael Douglas.

“Sometimes buyers are having to bid on four or five homes before they get one,” he said. “It’s never been like this in Barrie, as far as my recollection goes. The bottom line is, there an imbalance between the inven-tory and the number of buyers.”

He said sellers love the market right now, but buyers are having a tough time finding homes in their price range.

According to the survey, the Barrie and District area saw the selling price of the av-erage home jump from $352,124 in 2015 to $401,801 this year.

“The interest rates are quite low, which means people can afford reasonable mort-gages,” Douglas said. “But there’s not enough properties for sale to accommodate that many buyers.”

Douglas said the market should eventually balance out, but he isn’t sure when that will happen.

Along with new buyers from the GTA and lower inventory and interest rates, the low Canadian dollar is also attracting interna-tional buyers, with more people from Europe and China snapping up Barrie-area proper-ties, said Faris.

This means greater competition for buyers and for real estate agents, who are increas-ingly expanding marketing strategies and us-ing online tools to showcase homes, he said.

“Gone are the days you take a shot of the house and stick it up online. You can’t just stick a sign on your lawn and expect maxi-mum dollar,” he said, adding tools such as 3D tours, videos and live chats with real es-tate agents are being used.

“(Barrie has) been a market that hasn’t seen the kind of increases our southern brothers have recorded. Now, it’s starting to see in-creases,” Faris said.

“Barrie deserves it.”

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MAY 2016 AVERAGE SELLING PRICES

Detached: $459,132Townhouse, Link and Semi: $322,184

Condominium: $253,411

Detached: $505,585

Detached: $494,397

Detached: $630,115

Detached: $593,436Source: Barrie & District Association of Realtors

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Low dollar attracts investors to Barrie