Halifax Real Estate Podcast

OSFI (The office of superintendent of Financial Institutions) has told all lenders that they are to change the way that they use rental income to qualify purchasers of real estate in Canada. Essentially, OSFI has told Canadian real estate investors in Canada that they can no longer use rental income to qualify these purchases. It has to be off the strength of their income from their job. Why?  As...

It's my pleasure to introduce you to Sidney Doucette. Sidney is a local real estate investor here in Nova Scotia, and he got into real estate investing for the soul purpose of being able to retire his father. Over the last 5 and a half years Sidney and his father have scaled their real estate portfolio up to 41 units, including the 20 unit building they just purchased in Digby Nova Scotia. Sidneys...

So since the start of the year we've been talking about, speculating about, and gossiping about the Toronto real estate market over the course of this year. From reading off statistics we've seen, rumours we've heard from other professionals in that market, and headlines you see in the news about Toronto. Toronto real estate is ALL BAD, it's crashing, the correction after a 25 year bull run is her...

Quick little public service announcement from your favourite Realtor! If you are selling your home this spring, CALL YOUR REALTOR.  Why?  Average time it takes for a home to get ready for market is 2-3 months.  There's decluttering There's touch ups and painting There's staging There's photography Pre Inspections And navigating your everyday life while you try to tackle all of those things!! So if...

Welcome back!! This episode of the podcast is a little different. Matt Legatto & I were invited to record a live episode of the Halifax Real Estate Podcast at the Halifax Fall Home Show earlier this month. So we thought the best way to do this would be to do a live Q&A with questions from our listeners, attendees at the Infinity Real Estate Group booth, and some questions from the 3 people...

Today's guest is Annapolis Valley's own Kane Smith! A 3 time winner of the top 100 Realtors in North America at his brokerage, Exit Realty, for 2022, 2023, & 2024. Kane and I will be discussing his career in real estate, from the early beginnings of his move to the valley from Ontario, the start of his bartending business, his decision to get his real estate license, and growing his Kane is th...

Hey guys,  I know it's been a while since I did a monthly market stat breakdown for Halifax, but here I am back again! Few things to note.  Average home price was $597,168.00 which is only the second time this year that the average home price in Halifax dropped below $600,000.00 (the only other time was July 2025.) So that means 2 times in the last 3 months has the average home price dropped below...

Hey guys! I have some exciting news, Matt Legatto and I will be recording a live episode of the Halifax Real Estate Podcast this Sunday, October 5th from 11am-12pm on the main stage at the Halifax Fall Home Show!! After talking to Matt about what topic we should do, we decided it was best to do a live Q&A with the audience, AKA YOU GUYS!! So if you have any questions you would like answered ab...

Is Halifax's real estate market cooling? Since the start of the year Halifax has only seen an increase of the number of homes for sale. For example in January 2025, we had 792 homes for sale, and today we have 1320 homes for sale in all of Halifax Regional Municipality. Which, fun fact, is actually more homes for sale at one time than at any given time duirng the last 5 years, including COVID!! Bu...

Today's guest is Deny Sullivan! Deny is a local economist in Halifax, and Deny has taken a fascination with Halifax's and Canada's housing market, whether that is homeownership for homebuyers or people in the rental market looking for potential markets.  On today's episode Deny and I discuss the impacts Toronto and Vancouver's economies and housing markets have on the rest of Canada. The impact of...

Hello and welcome back to the Halifax Real Estate Podcast after our 2 month hiatus!! You know how the saying goes, Halifax homes are at record high prices!! Halifax's apartment costs are simply unaffordable!!  How do people afford to live in Halifax these days!?! Well, Halifax's vacancy rate hit a healthy 3.1% this year, and Halifax has any many units (homes) for sale as we did before the start of...

CMHC has released the details of their 2025 Mortgage Consumer Survey, and they are fascinating! Engaging with roughly 4000 homeowners across Canada, CMHC was able to gain some insight into homebuyers and their experiences purchasing a home and owning a home within the last 18 months.  A few things to note that come out of the survey.  1.) 65% of first time home buyers paid the maximum they could a...

Hello and welcome back to our monthly breakdown of Halifax's real estate stats! May 2025 was BUSY!!  Recorded a new all time high sales price, an eye watering  $636,592!! (which is up from $614,548 in April 2025) Here's the interesting thing though. If you've been following real estate at all over the past 5 years, I'm sure you've heard the following phrase.  "it's a supply problem, not enough hom...

Congratulations Canada, we have a new Liberal minority government! Matt Legatto is back on the Halifax Real Estate Podcast to help me break down the Liberal government's plan to bring affordable and accessible housing to Canadians across Canada! Here is the link so that you can follow along with what we are talking about as well! https://liberal.ca/housing-plan/ Jason Paul 902-220-7357 jason@infin...

Hello and welcome back to the Halifax Real Estate Podcast, and your monthly market stats in Halifax! Few things to note, yes, I am aware that I missed the March 2025 market stats. It was a hectic month with Halifax's spring market moving into full effect, family vacation, and children! But I'm back! And I've had a hard look at the March & April 2025 market statistics and I noticed a trend that...

Today I've got the entire Indi Commercial Mortgage team to break down everything about Commercial Financing! The differences between Commercial & Residential Financing (And there are a lot!) What lenders require for approving a commercial financing deal, how long the due diligence/conditions requirements must be for commercial deals, the power and flexibility commercial investing can provide r...

If you are a real estate investor, or someone looking to purchase a cottage in Nova Scotia, be careful because as of TODAY the province of Nova Scotia has increased the deed transfer tax for non-residents from 5% to 10% of the total purchase price.  THIS IS AN ADDITIONAL EXPENSE ON TOP OF THE DEED TRANSFER TAX CHARGED BY INDIVIDUAL MUNICIPALITIES IN NOVA SCOTIA.  What does this mean? If Halifax ch...

Mortgage delinquencies increased over 90% in Q4 in Ontario in 2024!  Is this a sign of things to come to Nova Scotia? Why are delinquencies on the rise? Is it because of Ontario's high home prices and the rise of interest rates? Are mortgage renewals at a higher interest rate effecting homeowners ability to make their mortgage payments? Is it the cost of living crisis? Is this a blip? Is this a ca...

If you're a long time listener of the podcast, you may remember my close friend Chris Johnson came on the podcast as a guest a few years ago in our First Time Home Buyer episode! At the time, Chris was getting ready to buy his first home, and wanted to learn as much as he could about the process.  A few years and a lot of home searches later, Chris finally bought a home! Chris is back on to talk a...

Hello and welcome back to the Halifax Real Estate Podcast! Today's episode is a little different than our usual content, I'm the subject of today's podcast! I was lucky enough to have been invited to be a guest on a social media collaboration with content creator, Jitakshi, and we talk my experiences over the last 8 years as a Realtor in Halifax, my thoughts on work life balance, business, and a f...

Did you know that about 60% of mortgages in Canada are up for renewal in 2025 and 2026? And these are mortgages from 2020 and 2021, when people locked in historically low interest rates of 1.5-2.5%. That means they'll be renewing new mortgage terms with interest rates in the 4s! What's the impact the new interest rates will have on people's monthly mortgage payments? Will we see more people return...

Just a little public servicement announcement about how to navigate your mortgage renewals this year. It's important that you know you can negotiate the interest rate with your bank. And especailly important for you to know that you can in fact shop around for the best interest rate possible.  I know it's not always about the rate when it comes to finding the right place to park your mortgage, but...

Welcome back!  If you're in the world of real estate investing, you've probably heard of seller financing/vendor takeback on other podcasts, other platforms, and it sounds amazing! You as the seller, essentially becoming the bank and holding the note for the mortgage and the buyer pays you every month, interest included. But you might be curious as to how seller financing/vendortakeback works, wha...

The February 2025 market stats in Halifax came out this past weekend and they are interesting! In January 2025 we had an all time high sales price of $617k, and February 2025 had a small drop off for an average sale price of $609k. It's interesting because January almost felt like an anomoly in a sense because home prices had been declining in Halifax steadily since May 2024. We had a sudden jump...

Is Canada too obsessed with real estate? With over 20% of Canada's GDP tied up in the housing market, it's a question Matt Legatto and I are tackling on today's podcast. From your parents, to social media influencers, to real life examples in our everyday lives, real estate is a wealth generator, especially in the last 5 years.  Real estate prices and accessibility are causing such a hot button to...