IT’S BEING called the perfect storm in some quarters – housing prices increasing at a slow but steady rate so as to make sellers happy but not so much as to make buyers uncomfortable or causing them to flee altogether.
Welcome to the Terrace real estate market of 2012, one in which affordability remains a strength in that key area of Canadian life – the single family home of three bedrooms and basement on a lot in which children, pets, toys, lawn furniture and barbecues can more or less co-exist.
For people from the south, the idea of owning a single-family home is an unbelievable luxury when compared to Terrace and other parts of the northwest.
But as much as this is still the land of the single family home, entrepreneurs have focused on other needs as well – the city has a growing stock of housing meant for older people and seniors, offering smaller yards and reduced or no outside maintenance.
As more and more people grow older and choose to stay in Terrace or, indeed, as more and more people move to Terrace who are used to a more urbanized housing landscape, there just might be an increased demand for duplex, strata title, condominium style housing for either purchase, lease or rent.
The response to demands for an increased variety of housing will be one of the determining factors in how this city is viewed by those now wishing to call it home.