Northwest Territories Update

Adrian Bell
 
Daniel: I'm going to go talk to Adrian Bell. Mr. Bell, how are you doing?

Adrian: I'm doing very well Daniel, thank you very much.

Daniel: Now, when we wanted to get some information about Yellowknife. I've been to Yellowknife three or four times, but I don't know it obviously, as well as the place where I lived for 13 years, we found we were looking for some really good information.
I would say I'm told the top broker in Yellowknife. And on top of that, you were at one point the Deputy Mayor of Yellowknife weren't you?

Adrian: Yes.

Daniel: You have your finger on the pulse of what's happening in that city.

Adrian: Oh, for sure. And I grew up here. My parents moved North originally to Callaway when I was about five and then here a few years later. I've been here, not born in the North, but have been here for a very long time.

Daniel: When you move from Yellowknife, it must have been like moving to the big city.

Adrian: It was living the dream for sure.

Daniel: The dream. What's the population of Yellowknife these days?

Adrian: About 21,300.

Daniel: Okay. About 21,300. Okay. That's pretty precise. And the whole Northwest territories. It's hard, it's so vast. What's the number?

Adrian: It's about 45,000. We don't have the same sort of percentage of the population in our capital as they do in Whitehorse relative to the rest of Yukon, which creates some pretty significant differences for sure. But yes, we are the capital and we've got about 48% of the population.

Daniel: What are the main industries in Yellowknife? What do people do?

Adrian: Years ago it was gold. That's really how the city was founded. Originally it was indigenous community for sure, but then gold in the 1960 capital, and as the gold mines wound down, we were fortunate to have a diamond boom in the 1990s and we have some diamond mines. They're now winding down, but all the while in the background, the government has really been taking over. This is a public sector town that is very stable as a result.

Daniel: Low unemployment and pretty good wages. Again, you're probably the average family income. It is probably higher than the rest of Canada as a whole.

Adrian: It's about 145,000. It's one of the highest in the country.

Daniel: A family would average 145,000. What are they going to pay for a 1700 square foot bungalow in a nice part of town?

Adrian: Our home prices used to be considered quite high, but the average price now is about $450,000, which isn't that crazy, but you can buy a modular home here for $550,000. It really depends on what you're looking at. New construction costs are very high. You're looking at a million dollars for a 2200 square foot.

Daniel: Can people invest in Yellowknife and either get appreciation or a cash flow?

Adrian: They can get cash flow. You basically described the situation perfectly when you were referring to another woman that you'd been talking about from some Northern community. Appreciation is at 1.5 to 2%. But we have the second highest grants in the country. Second, only to Calloway. As a result, excellent cash flow on a lot of properties. That's certainly an attractive option here.

Daniel: Is there availability of houses? Because we know one of the issues with down here and then Ottawa or places like that is that there are 10 people looking to buy a house and there's only one house for sale. If somebody wanted to invest in Yellowknife, are there houses available where investors can buy in and do business?

Today? No, it's a little crazy. It's unfortunate. It seems like it's very closely tied to what people read in the news. There is a flight out of Toronto to places like New Brunswick, but there's no flight to a place like Yellowknife. We don't have any big city near us where people who want to work remotely might just move a little further North 1500 kilometers to work from Yellowknife.

That's not the reality here. The only thing that is driving right now, we've only got, I think, 28 listings on the market this morning. And I think really only eight of them are truly available. If I take a look at the new listings, two sales so far this year, we're really looking at about 60 sales or almost unconditional for only 66 new listings.

That's a crazy sellers market, but I don't believe it's going to last. This is a very transient town. And there is nothing really driving job growth. There are no new mines, no new jobs right now. It's just a very small sort of growth in the population. I believe that as soon as the borders open up, you're going to see a lot of listings and I think that's going to carry through next year and that creates buying opportunities. The answer to your question is today, no, not a great time to be buying investment properties, but come, the fall and winter here. I think it's gonna flip pretty.

Even with what you just said on the eighth, we're still going to get back to you and maybe have some statistics or some forecasting or whatever, because I want our community to constantly keep in mind the North and other parts of the country where normally, that there are not usually in the news because there's some great opportunity out there. And the town I was referring to earlier was Thunder Bay. I thank you very much for your time, Adrian.