Saskatchewan Real Estate Continues to Soar – Now It’s Farmland!

Here is another interesting article regarding the hot Saskatchewan real estate market that I found on cbc.ca

For years, prices for Saskatchewan farmland have been relatively stable — but now the market is catching fire.  Investors from across the country and around the world who’ve been buying houses and apartments are also snapping up farmland in the province.

According to Saskatoon real estate agent Don Fry, the price of farmland has more than doubled in the last year. He gave an example of about 324 hectares of farmland recently selling for $2 million. “That’s substantially different than it was two years ago — $600,000,” he said.

Part of the explanation for the recent boom could be a change in the rules. Until a few years ago, only Saskatchewan residents could buy farmland — an attempt by the provincial government to preserve the family farm.

Critics said what it really did was keep prices artificially low. Now, investors from across Canada can buy Saskatchewan farmland.

The rising interest in farm property is happening at the same time the market for other kinds of real estate in Saskatchewan is turning red hot. On the outskirts of Saskatoon, backhoes and bulldozers are working overtime making room for more houses.

What used to be a stable real estate market is off the charts, according to Harry Janzen, a spokesman for the Saskatoon Region Association of Realtors. Bidding wars for property are the new norm, with the winner paying well above the asking price.

Worldwide investors

About half of those buyers are people who plan to live in their new homes, Janzen said. “We’re also looking at a significant sector of investors, not only coming from Alberta but also British Columbia and other areas literally worldwide.

Potential buyers from Australia; London, England; and New York have been coming by, he said. Many of these investors made money in Alberta real estate, but think that market is almost tapped out.

Brett Wilson made a career investing in Calgary’s energy sector, but now he’s buying thousands of acres of land in Saskatchewan. Wilson rents his land to farmers, either for cash or a share of the crops they grow.It’s a long-term investment — one he plans to hand down to his children, he said.

Stand Out From The Crowd

It seems no matter where you go these days, everyone is talking about real estate and investing in it. Everyday there are more savvy investors like yourself looking for great revenue properties and tenants to go along with those revenue properties. Everything you do in your business must have a clear and concise theme, from the first contact with a potential home seller to attracting new renters and working with bankers, consistent messages are critical to being successful in real estate.

Small focused marketing steps can make all the difference in the world. From classified ads to flyer drops, marketing is the engine that drives real estate. It includes everything from how you answer the phone, the curb appeal of your property to the way you show your suites and maintain them. Every step of the process must be thought of as a marketing opportunity.

You need to define what type of market you are targeting and what you want your ads to achieve when people read them. Define your niche , get into the perspective tenant’s head and figure out exactly what they are looking for. Then write an ad that will meet those specific needs.

When we bought our first revenue property, it was located quite close to the university. This was a bit of a concern for us, because the last thing we wanted was to rent to 3 or 4 university students who potentially would not take good care of the house, not to mention the high turnover that would occur. We made a specific point of marketing the house as a newly renovated executive home in the prestigious south end of the city with a large yard and close to parks. We also made a point of putting the price we were asking in the advertisement. I think that’s very important, as people who won’t be willing to pay that much won’t bother phoning, thus not wasting our time or their own. Can you pick out the niche market we were going for?? You guessed it! We were looking for a professional working family or couple. There are a couple of key words that we intentionally used and others we chose not to use. By using the word executive and prestigious and by putting in the price in the ad, we pretty much eliminated the university market from showing much interest. For the most part, they are all on tight budgets and wouldn’t be able to afford the rent we were asking. The other thing we did, was leave out the words “close to the university” and instead opted to say the home was located in the south end of the city.

Because of the way we worded our advertisement, we virtually had no university students interested in our property, plus were we able to rent the house to a couple who fitted our niche market. A professional couple who still live in the house two years later.