If you are a real estate investor, or someone looking to purchase a cottage in Nova Scotia, be careful because as of TODAY the province of Nova Scotia has increased the deed transfer tax for non-residents from 5% to 10% of the total purchase price. 

THIS IS AN ADDITIONAL EXPENSE ON TOP OF THE DEED TRANSFER TAX CHARGED BY INDIVIDUAL MUNICIPALITIES IN NOVA SCOTIA. 

What does this mean?

If Halifax charges 1.5% deed transfer tax for a purchase of a property, a non resident purchasing a property will be charged an additional 10% making it 11.5% total paid out to purchase that property for the non-resident. 

Any quesitons, let met know!

Jason Paul
902-220-7357
[email protected]

Mortgage delinquencies increased over 90% in Q4 in Ontario in 2024! 

Is this a sign of things to come to Nova Scotia? Why are delinquencies on the rise? Is it because of Ontario's high home prices and the rise of interest rates? Are mortgage renewals at a higher interest rate effecting homeowners ability to make their mortgage payments? Is it the cost of living crisis? Is this a blip?

Is this a canary in the coal mines for Nova Scotia? A sign of things to come our way in a few months time? 

Jason Paul
902-220-7357
[email protected]
@jasonpaulhalifaxrealtor

Matt Legatto
902-240-3304
[email protected]

If you're a long time listener of the podcast, you may remember my close friend Chris Johnson came on the podcast as a guest a few years ago in our First Time Home Buyer episode! At the time, Chris was getting ready to buy his first home, and wanted to learn as much as he could about the process. 

A few years and a lot of home searches later, Chris finally bought a home!

Chris is back on to talk about the house he bought, the long list of DIY renovations he's done to the home, what he's learned and so much more!

Enjoy

Jason Paul 
902-220-7357
[email protected]
@jasonpaulhalifaxrealtor

Hello and welcome back to the Halifax Real Estate Podcast!

Today's episode is a little different than our usual content, I'm the subject of today's podcast! I was lucky enough to have been invited to be a guest on a social media collaboration with content creator, Jitakshi, and we talk my experiences over the last 8 years as a Realtor in Halifax, my thoughts on work life balance, business, and a few other things I don't want to spoil. 
Enjoy!

Jason Paul
902-220-7357
[email protected]
@jasonpaulhalifaxrealtor

Jitakshi 
@creative.j.me
[email protected]

Did you know that about 60% of mortgages in Canada are up for renewal in 2025 and 2026?


And these are mortgages from 2020 and 2021, when people locked in historically low interest rates of 1.5-2.5%. That means they'll be renewing new mortgage terms with interest rates in the 4s! What's the impact the new interest rates will have on people's monthly mortgage payments? Will we see more people return to the real estate market because they need to sell their home, or they want to change homes because of the shock of the mortgage payments? 

How are people affording historically high home prices in Halifax in 2025? Especially when people are paying higher interest rates! 

All that and more on this episode of the Halifax Real Estate Podcast.

Enjoy!

Jason Paul
902-220-7357
[email protected]
@jasonpaulhalifaxrealtor

Andrew Hutchison
902-240-7212
[email protected]
@andrew_hutchison_mortgages

Just a little public servicement announcement about how to navigate your mortgage renewals this year. It's important that you know you can negotiate the interest rate with your bank. And especailly important for you to know that you can in fact shop around for the best interest rate possible. 

I know it's not always about the rate when it comes to finding the right place to park your mortgage, but just remember you do not accept the banks first rate!

And if you need help with your mortgage renewal, I can put you in touch with Andrew Hutchison at Indi Mortgages. 

Jason Paul
902-220-7357
[email protected]
@jasonpaulhalifaxrealtor

Andrew Hutchison
902-240-7212
[email protected]

Welcome back! 

If you're in the world of real estate investing, you've probably heard of seller financing/vendor takeback on other podcasts, other platforms, and it sounds amazing! You as the seller, essentially becoming the bank and holding the note for the mortgage and the buyer pays you every month, interest included. But you might be curious as to how seller financing/vendortakeback works, what are the pros and cons, how this can be a benefit for both the buyer and seller involved in a deal, and how this can be a great option to get a deal done!

Jeremy Zwicker is a real estate investor who sold his 10-unit dwelling on 32 acres of land just outside of Truro last year using seller financing/vendortake for the first time in his career. We explore how the deal worked, how Jeremy and the buyer structued the deal to be a win-win for both parties, why seller financing/vendortakeback was the best way to structure this deal, what the terms were, and what Jeremy looked out for to make sure this was the best deal for him. 

Enjoy!

Jason Paul
902-220-7357
[email protected]
@jasonpaulhalifaxrealtor

The February 2025 market stats in Halifax came out this past weekend and they are interesting!

In January 2025 we had an all time high sales price of $617k, and February 2025 had a small drop off for an average sale price of $609k. It's interesting because January almost felt like an anomoly in a sense because home prices had been declining in Halifax steadily since May 2024. We had a sudden jump of $37k in average price point from December 2024 to January 2025, which felt like an outlier, but February holding strong in a high average sales price shows that the market is heating up and prices are still hanging onto all time highs. 

February received a little more inventory (homes for sale,) which saw us go from 792 units for sale to 827 units. This impacted our months of supply from 1.9 months to 2 months. 


New listing was down in February 2025 to 424, from January which saw 449 new listings come to market. In my experience, the weather definitely impacted this as Halifax and Nova Scotia saw some pretty miserable weather throughout February. Which would have delayed a lot of sellers from listing their homes until the weather turns better for potential buyers. 


The last big one would be days on market going from 29 days to 39 days, quite the huge jump in today's market, considering housing prices are still hanging around that all time high number. Be interesting to watch this metric play out over the busy spring market. 

Average Price: $609,242
Months of Supply: 2
New Listings: 424
Homes For Sale: 827
Days on Market: 39
Pending Sales: 299

Jason Paul
902-220-7357
[email protected]
@jasonpaulhalifaxrealtor

Is Canada too obsessed with real estate? With over 20% of Canada's GDP tied up in the housing market, it's a question Matt Legatto and I are tackling on today's podcast. From
your parents, to social media influencers, to real life examples in our everyday lives, real estate is a wealth generator, especially in the last 5 years. 

Real estate prices and accessibility are causing such a hot button topic in today's Canada, especially in Nova Scotia, because average people on average incomes want the benefits and the security of home ownership. For the last 5 years people have been speculating when the Canadian housing market will crash, will it? Can it? With over 20% of Canada's GDP being tied up in housing, can the country actually afford a housing crisis? That's peoples retirements, security, savings, and livelihood potentially being wiped out if the housing market were to crash and house prices in Canada were to reset. 

But with that being said, does that mean as a country, we are too obsessed with wealth generation through real estate? If there were other sectors for individuals to gain wealth and prosperity, would they have so much of their holdings tied up in real estate assets? If the GDP was spread more evenly through sectors, the country could theoritically sustain some economic hardships in that one specific sector if everything else was so healthy. 

Enjoy!

Jason Paul
902-220-7357
[email protected]
@jasonpaulhalifaxrealtor

Matt Legatto
902-240-3304
[email protected]

Are you thinking of selling your home this spring? Well guess what, you're already late! 

Richard Payne is back on the Halifax Real Estate Podcast to help me breakdown the step by step process of selling your home for the highest dollar amount, in the shortest amount of time! How important it is to declutter and clean your home properly. The single greatest return on investment you can make when getting your home ready for market, PAINTING! The biggest pitfalls sellers, and Realtors, make when selling a home. Like using a comparable from 2 years ago when trying to find the right price for your home. Ignoring key indicators of market activity on your listing, like the amount of viewings you're having, or the amount of offers you are or are not getting. How to make your home standout amongst all the other homes on the market by staging consultations, pre inspections, and all of your paperwork ready up front. The timeline it takes to get a home ready for market (30-60 days), meaning if you want to sell your home this March, you should've started your home preparation back in january 2025 at the latest. 

And so much more!

Jason Paul
902-220-7357
[email protected]
@jasonpaulhalifaxrealtor

Richard Payne
902-489-1804
[email protected]
@halifaxhomesandlifestyles