Mortgage 101 – Why Spring is the Best Time to List Your Home

Clinton Wilkins and Dan Ahlstrand discuss the busy spring real estate market with guest Alex Tremblay from Century 21 Optimum.

<strong>Spring Market and Real Estate Trends</strong>

Dan Ahlstrand
And welcome back to this edition of Mortgage 101. I’m Dan Alstrand with Clinton Wilkins, and we’re springing into home ownership here in the March edition of the program. And Clinton, as has become tradition here on the show, you brought with you somebody who’s going to teach us some stuff.

Clinton Wilkins
Today I brought a guest because I love having experts who come in. I can talk about mortgage lending for hours on end. And I was, I always joke, I’m like, I could do a three-hour show on mortgage lending. I don’t know if our listeners would want to dig that deep into it, but I’m very passionate about it.

Dan Ahlstrand
We never would have guessed.

Clinton Wilkins
And what our listeners are continuing to turn in. So we brought a local realtor in, and when we talk about homeownership, and we talk about spring and spring and homeownership, there’s no one better to give us some real stats, and we can talk about why? Why do buyers think spring is a good time to buy a home? So I’m gonna let our guest introduce himself so I don’t mess it up. But we have done some business here with this brokerage from Century 21 Optimum, and they were so gracious to have someone come and give some expert advice.

Alex Tremblay
Thank you for having me. So my name is Alex Tremblay. I’m your local realtor. I’m originally from Quebec, but then moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the early 2000s, so I’ve been here for just about 20 years. This is home, and I’m personally very excited about the spring market.

Dan Ahlstrand
I’ve been here just about as long as you have, I guess. Let’s start. We asked the question during the last segment about spring and why spring is a busy time. Why is it that people tell you that it’s in March and into April is the time that they start looking for a house?

Alex Tremblay
So I think there are quite a few reasons to be honest. And if we start by people getting out of their winter season and hibernation, like all across the city, people, people are getting out of restaurants or restaurants are busier, and even retail, retail stores are getting busier, busier. So in terms of real estate, when we work with clients for listings, the best time of the year is spring, there’s no doubt about it. There’s more activity from buyers already. Like Clinton, you were mentioning all the pre-approval that you’ve been working on. It’s wild.

Clinton Wilkins
I have more pre-approvals right now than we would typically have at any other time of the year. That’s because they’re all gearing up.

Alex Tremblay
They’re getting ready. When we work on listings, the best time of the year is spring. So, there are more buyers, the quality of the listings is better, and they’re staged or prepped. So there are more quality listings, and we get more qualified buyers in there.

Clinton Wilkins
And then, because it’s almost like they’re waiting for March 20 or 21st, like you see them going on, though, kind of the weekend before spring ends up hitting, I think around that same time.

Alex Tremblay
Exactly, I agree. So, it’s very much like a blueprint, right?

Clinton Wilkins
It’s almost like, and I might be exaggerating, but it almost feels like the amount of listings just suddenly doubled. I know it may not be double, but it just, it’s almost that extreme that you see this huge uptick in quantity, for sure.

<strong>Balanced Market and Inventory Levels</strong>

Alex Tremblay
I agree. If you’re strategic about it, you listen to spring. In fact, one of the key indicators is days on the market. And for example, through 2025, the days on the market would have been like, maybe right around 60, slightly above. But during those spring months, like March, April, May, leading into June, it’s right around 30. And then July was below 30. So, a clear trend like the days on the market really go down. They tighten up during the spring market, and then they revert back to more of a balanced market for the remainder of the year. So in the late season for the winter, for instance, last year was closer to the 55s and 60s.

Dan Ahlstrand
Okay. Interesting. We also talked in the first bit of the segment here about supply and how many, how many properties are out there on the market. You’re in the market every day. Are we starting to see this market maybe start to shift away from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market, or where do you think that will be?

Alex Tremblay
Oh, that’s a great question. So we’re 100% in a balanced market, and it’s a key indicator.

Clinton Wilkins
That’s a good place to be. I saw it the other way, like I saw that the vendors were holding all that power and wheeling that power kind of over these buyers. I’m happy to hear that it’s more balanced, like, that’s kind of what I’ve been talking about. I don’t know, officially know that.

Alex Tremblay
And one of the key indicator we that we use is the months, the months of inventory. And we’re at 3 months, okay? So, a slight increase from last year and anywhere between three to six months. It’s, it’s a balanced market, so obviously moving towards the six more leaning towards the buyer’s market, right?

Clinton Wilkins
I mean, we need more inventory. What would we ever do? It was so low for so long here that I think it was just so challenging. I know from realtors that we do business with all the time that they were making sometimes upwards of 20 offers for one buyer client before they would get an accepted offer.

Alex Tremblay
So competitive, and so so challenging, I think, so challenging for the buyers.

Clinton Wilkins
And I think some people got frustrated, and I think even from the people that we had pre-approved, like, the last couple of years, like, I kind of mentioned that they were almost sitting on the fence, they were waiting. They’re like, Oh, are the rates going to go down, or is the price of the real estate going to go down? And, rates have now plateaued. So I don’t know if you’re talking to buyers every day. I hear from them, but maybe they don’t always tell me you’re hearing from them as they’re going to buy. How is the sentiment around mortgage rates and pricing now?

<strong>Mortgage Rates and Buyer Sentiment</strong>

Alex Tremblay
I think there’s a clear optimism that people are feeling, if you’re very optimistic about the razor stabilizing a little bit, and then the increase in supply is good as well. And there’s simply more purchasing power, right? More of the power has been balanced, balanced to the buyer. It’s a lot better at 4% than it was at 6%.

Clinton Wilkins
Let’s be honest. I think especially when we start getting into these rates that start with a three, like a 399 and below, like, that’s almost to the point of that being a little bit more motivating to buyers. What’s the difference between a 3.9 and a 4.01% interest rate? Really not very much. But I think it’s almost like a psychological look at where they are on the pricing.

Dan Ahlstrand
Yeah, absolutely looks better. We also talk a lot about the sort of the price point, where you can expect a property to be. And I know that there are different areas of HRM, different parts of Nova Scotia, but in the urban areas, what’s your experience? What can, what do you can you expect to pay for a house if you’re just getting into the market?

Alex Tremblay
Yeah, so the, the the average across Nova Scotia is right around 4.9, so that’s an increase of 11% from last year. So that’s, that’s a good increase, right? So the price went up a little bit. The inventory is up in the days on the market, or a little bit, they’re extended as well. The House are stayed longer on the market. So I think in Halifax, Dartmouth, we have the average detached home right around $600,000, like, maybe a little bit more. So, for people to get a detached, a single detached family home in Halifax Dartmouth, they can expect to pay $600,000.

<strong>Government Programs and Market Competition</strong>

Clinton Wilkins
Yes, and maybe much more. And I would say even that sub 600,000 is very is one more a more competitive price point. So we talked, last month, around the province of Nova Scotia, doing a pilot program where they were going to do these government backed by the province mortgages through credit unions only, and they’d only require these buyers to put down 2% but they had capped the price in HRM at 570,000 I can tell you, at least from the transactions that we’re seeing, there’s not a lot of homes under that 570 Mark, unless you’re going to get into that condo market.

Alex Tremblay
Yeah, I agree. The condo market and semi-detached and a little bit outside the city.

Clinton Wilkins
Yeah, you’re not getting something in the core for sub 570 at least.

Alex Tremblay
Not right now, no. And I could add that that segment is more competitive, of course, especially with the 2%.

Dan Ahlstrand
Everybody’s gonna try and get into that market, especially first-time homebuyers, right?

Alex Tremblay
But certainly some folks were waiting on the sideline, and they’re ready to get back in. So as much as we were forecasting a balanced market, like a fully balanced market, all across all segments.

Clinton Wilkins
Maybe that lower price point is still more of a seller’s market.

Clinton Wilkins
I think so. I think so for sure. Yeah, I think that’s a little bit of my concern, is, do we need that increased demand? Because I think the demand is still pretty good, at least from what we’re seeing, we had our best year ever in business last year, doing a lot of transactions. Obviously, the rate started coming down, which I think, again, is motivating, but the inventory was starting to come up. And, I think that’s what a balanced market is better. For everyone, if you’re a seller or you’re a buyer, I think it’s just easier to transact, at least from this side of the marketplace. And I mean, we’re talking to buyers every day. You’re dealing with them every single day, and the emotion sometimes can be high.

Dan Ahlstrand
So you think it was an unintended consequence that when the. The premier rolled out this program that we’re going to put maybe too much pressure on that, that lower end of the I think so we don’t have the inventory, and I kind of spoke to it.

Clinton Wilkins
I think that program works the best outside of HRM, right? It’s in the more rural areas. A, not a lot of mortgage brokers in rural Nova Scotia and B, not a lot of bank branches in rural Nova Scotia.

Dan Ahlstrand
We’re going to continue the conversation, but we need to take a break first. You’re listening to mortgage 101, we’re back in a minute.