Soft Regina housing market leaves sellers in the lurch

“We just want it to be gone.”

That’s how Kaitlin Stocks feels about her condo in Harbour Landing. It’s clean, in listing condition and it’s only a few years old; but she’s finding it incredibly difficult to sell.

“Endlessly” frustrating is how she described the process.

Stocks bought the condo for herself and lived there a few years, then she moved in with her partner, so she began to rent the condo out.

It went alright for a while, she said. “We were shooing people away.” But then the rental market started to relax and she had a bad experience with a tenant.

The condo sat empty for a few months, then she decided in November 2017 to put it on the market.

The ensuing year was a bit of a bust. Stocks said there have been open houses where no one showed up; she’s had to reduce the price four times, now by about $20,000 less than the original price.

And she said she’s only had one offer.

“It was a lowball offer. Part of me wishes we would have taken it, but I guess you never know in the real estate world.”

Stocks’ story isn’t that unusual in Regina lately.

A report out from the Association of Regina Realtors on Thursday said the total number of residential sales for 2018 in the Regina area was the lowest since 2005.

It’s the first time the total sales for the area dropped below pre-2007 levels, which is when the market hit a new plateau.

In December in Regina, the MLS Home Price Index listed the benchmark residential price as down 5.2 per cent from the same time in 2017. It was also 11 per cent below the composite price from December of 2013.

The association blames the price drop on things like slowing demand, a glut of properties on the market and the new federal income testing rules for mortgages, which came in over the past couple years.

The number of properties on the market is something Stocks has noticed.

“My condo is in Harbour Landing, so every time I drive down there, there seems to be a new development being built, and why would you want to buy used when you can buy new?”

Stocks said she’s going to give it another week or two, then she’s going to get more aggressive in trying to sell.