Gatineau Market Update

Hear from Robert Lacaille about the opportunities and hot areas in Gatineau in 2021

Francois: Next up is Robert Lacaille from beautiful Gatineau.

Robert: Yes.

Francois: Amazing stuff. There's all kinds of stuff going on. Lots of action in Gatineau. I'm very excited to hear about January, maybe it's cool though, can we buy something?

Robert: Good evening to everyone. It's a great time to be involved in real estate. The market has not slow down in December neither in January. But for those of you who don't know, who's attending the the event for the first time Gatineau and for those of you who don't know that, it's a smaller twin city of Ottawa. So, the market is the same or most the same. The rental price is a little bit lesser than Ottawa. But it's up there. It's not like in Montreal where you get this thousand for two rooms and get notes now up to 1,300.

I just want to go back to the fact that everybody knows that the market has been hot for the past six months. And maybe some of you are thinking it's not about COVID and once COVID is done, everything will fall down. I don't know about other regions in Canada. I'm guessing it's the same as it isn't yet. No, but the market started heating up in spring 2019, where we first saw multiple offers on most of the properties that went on the market. The only thing that really COVID did on the market was increase the prices. It was already on fire, but we put gas on it with the COVID.

Once the vaccine is out to everybody we don't think that the price will. I know what's going to happen is that the increased curve of the prices will slow down, will flat out just like the COVID. The curve will slow the current then. Yeah. But the market price will stay as I as it is right now. And unfortunately for the cap, no, we don't have that many six units or more in stock and for the past two years, only 25 buildings of six units or more were sold and only 19 and 2020. So, yeah, it's a different market than Toronto, where you can get those 24, 16 or 32 units.

Francois: The people are holding on maybe because Bindu and Derek were saying it's appreciation. So, they're holding onto their properties.

Robert: Yeah, and at the same time Gatineau, what was built is a single dwelling, because people would think that, and then working in Ottawa, but that's changing because of the price, not a wall and what we saw compared to 2019 and the September, 2020, we saw a 58% increase in sales and 51 in October and 36 in November. And I'm guessing I've never been as busy as I was in December for 20 years. And December has been crazy, January starting, where we left at the end of December 31st, 2020.

I have more investors than property available and in those times you need, and I think Bindu mentioned it. You need to think out of the box. What's different from 2019 is the ownership index. And we had one speaker, I think it was two or three months ago who said that she only had a single house or duplex in her portfolio. She had 40 properties and that's maybe a sector where investors should look because the ownership index last fall, 4%.

What is the ownership index is the ability for first own buyers to get a property. And I think some of the owners, the two speakers, spoke about the value that went up from 53 to 70. A thousand dollars per year, but even if the rates are low and even if the salary is increasing there, it won't compensate for the increase of price in the properties in Gatineau.

Francois: Is buying power, yeah, is decreasing. I remember Gatineau years ago you can get us a detached house for a bit above a hundred thousand. It was like Cornwell pricing, not anymore. Nah,

Robert: No way the cheapest the blacks would get here in Gatineau. It would be $200,000. I just sold a triplex 760 in one day. And fourplexes, 950 in 30 days. And I had multiple offers on them. So, really what an investor could look at here in Gatineau is buy a property and either rent to own, or just rent it, but rent to own property. There's a lot of old properties here in Gatineau.

One of the strategies could be you buy a renovation and you sell it to someone who's not able to, even the down payment, it's getting $400,000. Not that big house I used to be before, but getting $20,000. Plus the closing costs for first home buyers is really. Yeah, exactly. , So rent to own is really one thing or one investment that investors should be looking at. And the other thing is the average price is $300,000 so, it's still low.

There's even room to make money out of the cap. And for some of you didn't know him and maybe you do, but if you buy properties, let's see fourplex and it's triplex that the land is side-by-side you can finance it as commercial. So, 85%, 35 years amortization. So, that makes the investment a good day, a return on investment. And also it reduces the amount of down payment that you have to put down. But I still see multiple offers and get. I don't see the market slowing down. Hopefully once the COVID's gone we will have more offers in the market for the moment, have more buyers than sellers, but it's just great news. Actually. It's just great news. The market is there and people have confidence in the market and that's great.

Francois: And then it depends on the area as well Gatineau. I know like the old haul sector, their pricing is much higher, so yeah. Thank you so much Robert, time flies while we're in good company. Again, great tip as well about the commercial financing and the lot beside the property.

Robert: Thank you.