With record-setting market, buying a house in Belleville can be a challenge

Residential sales in the Quinte area showed a huge increase from March 2020 to March 2021, with record-setting prices as well.  Chart by The Canadian Real Estate Association

By Rhythm Rathi

BELLEVILLE – If you want to buy a home in Belleville and can’t find one you can afford, you’re not alone.

The most recent monthly report on real-estate activity in the Bay of Quinte area shows eye-popping numbers in terms of sales and prices.

But some would-be buyers are being left out.

Julie Chesher, 44, a single mother who now lives in a rental in Trenton, has not been able to win the bidding war to buy a house in Belleville for a year now.

Even though she makes a decent annual income, Chesher told QNet News this week, “It’s impossible for me. We have people coming from Toronto that are causing bidding wars on houses … and I can’t compete with them.”

The March 2021 report of the Canadian Real Estate Association for this area shows that Belleville recorded a 78-per-cent increase in residential property sales compared to March 2020. The average home price was $547,626 – almost $170,000 over the March 2020 average of $380,658. That’s a jump of 43.9 per cent in just a year.

This rapid increase in sales isn’t limited to Belleville. The report shows booming numbers throughout the Quinte area.

It’s a phenomenon that Chesher is familiar with.

“My house in Frankford, I sold (in 2016) for $224,000,” she said. “It up-sold (last fall) for $375,000 with nothing done to it. The house looked just like the day I walked out of it.”

The super-hot market makes it hard for her even to get a viewing of homes for sale, she said.

“I am a shift worker … if I don’t get in to book an appointment to view a house the second it hits the market, just forget it. You know you are one of 50 people that are looking at the same house. It’s frustrating.”

Chesher said she has nothing against buyers from Toronto, or the realtors, but she feels sad that people like her are left out.

“I am really hoping that the housing market crashes so I can own my own home again, have my children in my own home.”

Belleville realtor Ann Cooper, who has been in the business for over 20 years, said that March “was a very busy, low-inventory, crazy market – (a) seller’s market completely.”

There were “up to six, up to 12, up to 20 competing offers on one house,” Cooper told QNet. “Houses were selling for well over $100,000 the list price.”

Because the pandemic has resulted in many more people working from home, she said, many households are moving from packed cities in the Greater Toronto Area toward areas like Belleville with lots of open green space.

“They’re realizing the kind of lifestyle they want for their children.”

And “people moving from Toronto, GTA area, Durham region … they have deeper pockets than a lot of the local people around that are first-time home buyers. They are selling their place in Toronto and making a great profit from that, so they are able to come in with (purchase offers with) no conditions because they don’t need financing.” In the last three months, she said, she has had at least five buyers “where they have bought sight unseen because of competing offers … which never happens.”

All of this makes it tough for first-time buyers to compete, Cooper said. “There is definitely going to be an issue because of the pricing point. It’s unfortunate that the inventory is not there.”

Desta McAdam, Belleville’s manager of policy planning, says the city is working to try to ensure there is enough land available for new housing to be built. It regularly conducts reviews of available land that take into account projected needs, she said.

“We continue to monitor to ensure that we have enough residential land supply to support the future growth of the city (and) expand opportunities to provide a greater range of housing types.”

Mayor Mitch Panciuk calls the housing situation in Belleville a crisis, for both buyers and renters. Trying to improve housing availability was part of his election campaign in 2018.

“The problem is not that we don’t have sufficient land to build houses; the problem is that we can’t build houses fast enough. So it’s going to take some time for us to catch up on that,” Panciuk said in an interview Thursday.

“It’s really hard for a municipal government to prevent someone from selling their house to someone who wants to give them (a lot of) money for it. The focus that we can be helpful (on) is on the rental side.” 

The city is building rental housing to take some of the pressure off, he said.

“We’ve set 2,000 new rental units by 2026 as our target,” but even so, “the demand is outstripping the capacity to build.”

The housing shortage in general has built up over time, he said, and “we are not going to get out of (it) overnight. It will take years.”