Reputation for affordability helping drive demand for Thunder Bay homes, agent says
CBC
Lower interest rates and limited supply are driving up housing prices in Thunder Bay, Ont., again, according to the president of the Thunder Bay Real Estate Board.
And Thunder Bay's reputation as an affordable place to live is contributing to the demand, Wes Case said.
"I've had clients … even, you know, in their 50s trying to buy their first home … moving from a market from southern Ontario where home ownership wasn't really a realistic goal just based on the prices," Case said.
"As much as there's, you know, a shortage of supply relative to the rest of the country, we're still an affordable place when it comes to home prices."
The median sale price for single detached homes sold in June in Thunder Bay was a record $375,539, according to statistics from the Canadian Real Estate Association, an increase of 12.6 per cent over June 2023.
Between Jan. 1 and June 30, the median price was $350,000, up 7.7 per cent from the first six months of 2023.
The steeper rise in prices follows a relative plateau between 2021 and 2023 Case said.
Mac Orlando and his partner, Mandy, recently moved to rural Thunder Bay from Hamilton, lured by the promise of home ownership, Orlando said.
"Being like, you know, young millennials, I guess we were kind of looking at the market down south, and it just wasn't going to be a feasible possibility for years without, you know, big help from somebody else, which we didn't have," said Orlando, who met Thunder Bay-raised Mandy while attending Lakehead University.
"We just kind of started talking more about Thunder Bay and how we both really missed it."
Orlando, who works in education, and his partner, who is a nurse, found a move-in-ready three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on 10 acres of land in Kaministiquia within their price range of less than $500,000 – far less than the $700,000 to $800,000 they'd pay for a lesser home in Hamilton.
"It had a hot tub, which I would probably never have gone out and bought for a long time," Orlando said.
"It … has a greenhouse. … You know, a nice lawn mower – ride-on lawn mower – that you need when you have land."
Adi Caciula said affordable housing also helped draw him and his wife to Thunder Bay, where he will take up a position with a Baptist church.
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