Why interest rate hikes may not cool off Saskatchewan's real estate market

Saskatchewan is an "anomaly" in the Canadian housing market — which makes it an attractive place to buy a home, Saskatoon mortgage broker Conrad Neufeld says.

"Our home prices didn't skyrocket quite like Toronto. I mean, there were places in Toronto that had gone up 200, 300 per cent right? We didn't see that kind of price appreciation in Saskatchewan," said Neufeld, with TMG Group. Alberta is in a similar situation as Saskatchewan, he said.

"We still had a long way to go before our prices were truly ridiculous. I mean, we can debate what ridiculous would classify as, but housing prices didn't go up quite as fast. We still end up being quite affordable relative to the rest of the country.

"We're still noticing a lot of immigrants and migrants from other provinces coming to Saskatchewan. And we expect that as housing prices get more and more expensive with rising rates in those other provinces they're going to continue to look at Saskatchewan, even Alberta, as more affordable options to move to."

He also said rising interest rates have not prevented as many people from buying homes as might have been expected.

"Anytime rates go up to the point where they start impacting how much you qualify for, that does reduce how many buyers there are. I will say Saskatchewan tends to be a little bit of a different story in the sense that up until recently, most people in Saskatchewan weren't buying at the tippity-top highest pre-qualification? You might have pre-qualified for $750,000 but still chose to buy at $600,000. So now that your pre-qualification has dropped to $650,000 you might still buy at $600,000.

"So it's removed some, but not as many as I think people might think."