WINNIPEG - The Canadian Real Estate Association says, with home builder permits on the rise, Winnipeg is now one of the hottest real estate markets in the country - but a new study by Equipfax suggests that many new buyers may have lied to get their mortgage approved. While there were few real estate sellers near the end of 2020, CREA data is now showing home sales are catching up, with new listings overtaking the number of sales seen in February.
Canada’s Sales to New Listings Ratio is still high nationally, but dropped sharply to 84% in February, down by 7.2 points from the previous month. But Winnipeg’s “seller’s” real estate market has shown the second-fastest growth in Canada, with a ratio of 90 per cent, up 5.4 points from from the month before. The SNLR is one way the real estate industry analyzes its success. A low ratio means more the supply of available homes to buy is higher. A high ratio - which shows less homes are available for sale - suggests that demand is high. If the SNLR is higher than 60%, it’s a seller’s market, and prices go up. If the ratio is under 40%, it’s a buyer’s market, and prices go down. Anything in between will have prices balanced for win-win real-estate transactions.
Meanwhile, a new report from Equifax suggests that credit fraud is rampant in the country, with 1 in 10 Canadians saying they either approve of lying to get approved for a mortgage, or have actually admitted to lying or otherwise committing fraud to get credit.
Equifax has constantly been finding evidence that Canadians think mortgage fraud is OK, with their latest survey showing that 16 per cent of Millennials approve of the practice of exaggerating their income on a credit application, seven points higher than the rate for the general population. The agency also discovered that 11 per cent of Canadians think mortgage fraud is a victimless crime.
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