Cooling housing market helps first-time homebuyers in St. John's

There are some stormy clouds hovering over the housing market in St. John's.

With the Newfoundland and Labrador economy slumping, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) says prices are at the lowest point since 2009, and the market is uncertain.

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But for one young St. John's couple, the downward trends have an upside.

Thanks to falling prices, 23-year-old Kelsey Guy and 24-year-old Russell Sooley say they were able to get into their very first home at a discount rate.

Guy and Sooley got the keys to their new place in the Southlands area of the city this past week.

The five bedroom home needs a bit of work, they admit, but comes at a price they find nice at $350,000.

"What you could get for your money was a lot better now than it was two years ago," said Sooley.

"It's a buyer's market now, we could pretty much name our price on this."

Long road to ownership

Sooley and Guy have been together since junior high school, and have dreamed of home ownership for a while.

Scrimping and saving — living in their parents' homes until they had enough for a down payment — the couple started looking for a house two years ago.

But even then, a home was expensive, and a new home unattainable, Guy said.

"The three bedroom houses then were close to $500,000," she said. "And now, looking now at the same kind of houses it was closer to the [$400,000] mark."

They said that market drop allowed them to turn the key of their new home, which sold at about $35,000 less than it was listed for last year.

Guy and Sooley said they are looking forward to enjoying their new large backyard and soon-to-be remodeled kitchen, all at their young age.

"We're pretty proud of ourselves," Guy said. 

Part of a trend

The CMHC said Sooley and Guy are not alone. 

In fact, more than 50 per cent of sales in the current market are going to first-time buyers, said Chris Janes, a CMHC analyst.

"I think a lot of them were kind of waiting to see what was going to happen with prices, because of course every year prices kept climbing," Janes told the St. John's Morning Show on Thursday.

"And now they've identified this as probably an opportunity."

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Right now, the CMHC says most buying and selling in St. John's is for homes priced between $250,000 to $350,000.

And the group says the market "softness" is expected to continue until the end of 2017.