Residential property assessments climb in Nova Scotia

Residential property assessments are climbing in Nova Scotia.
Dan Shaw from the Dalhousie Rowe School of Business believes the increase in property assessments is linked to the current real estate market, especially in Halifax.
“Housing prices are very high and looking at last year in ‘20-21 it was up about 19 per cent,” said Shaw.
Residential property assessments are up almost 11 (10.8) per cent in Nova Scotia and more than 13 (13.4) per cent in Halifax. Supply and demand within the real estate market is a driving factor.
“You also have you also have incredibly low amount of houses on the market." said Shaw. "I think it was a 20 year low.”
As property values and assessment rates continue climb in Nova Scotia, mortgage broker Clinton Wilkins said it could be worse.
“We still are very affordable compared to many areas across the country,” said Wilkins, who added population growth is also causing property values and assessments to climb.
“We have a lot of people moving here from across the country," said Wilkins. 'There is no place I would rather live than Nova Scotia and I think the word is getting out that we have a great lifestyle here.”
The rate of people moving to Nova Scotia from other Canadian provinces is historically high.
“We have we have in-migration from other provinces that has come up very sharply," said Shaw, who added the notion of Nova Scotia being a hotspot destination is also spreading globally.
“I was on the phone with a business being in Qatar and he said to me 'I hear Halifax is going to be the new Seattle,’ " said Shaw.
Shaw expects further sustained population growth which could possibly cause real estate values and assessments to climb even higher.
According to seniors advocate Bill VanGorder, this is not good news for seniors who own their homes and live on fixed incomes.
“What they are really concerned about, is politicians, especially municipal politicians realize this is not an excuse to raise the taxes,” said VanGorder.
VanGorder said taxes do not need to go up just because assessment values have increased.
CTV reached out to several HRM Councillors for comment, but we did not get a response.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Putin's invasion of Ukraine an 'act of madness': former U.K. PM Blair says
The United Kingdom's former prime minister Tony Blair says Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine is an 'act of madness.' In an interview on CTV's Question Period airing Sunday, Blair said Putin doesn't appear to be the same man he knew in the early 2000s.

Officials confirm 10 cases of severe acute hepatitis in children in Canada
Ten children in Canada were found to be suffering from severe acute hepatitis not caused by known hepatitis viruses over a nearly six-month period recently, the Public Health Agency of Canada announced Friday.
A year of trauma, catharsis and finally peace for some survivors of Kamloops school
The nightmares started last May, said Harvey McLeod, chief of the Upper Nicola Indian Band and a survivor of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Australian Labor topples conservatives, PM faces early tests
Australia's center-left opposition party toppled the conservative government after almost a decade in power, and Prime Minister-elect Anthony Albanese in his Saturday election victory speech promised sharper reductions in greenhouse gas emissions while he faces an early foreign policy test.
Flu cases on the rise in Canada despite expected fall
The federal government is reporting a sharp rise in influenza in recent months, at a time of the year when detected cases generally start to fall in Canada.
Price of gas remains high across Canada heading into long weekend
Canadians may find a lot of long faces at the pump heading into the long weekend as gas prices across the country remain high.
'Hurts like hell': What goes into the price of gas in Canada
With the price of gas rising above $2 per litre and setting new records in Canada this year, CTVNews.ca looks at what goes into the price per litre of gasoline and where the situation could go from here.
'This is an unusual situation': Feds monitoring monkeypox cases in Canada
Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam says the federal government is monitoring monkeypox cases and their chains of transmission after two cases were confirmed in this country.
WHO calls emergency meeting as monkeypox cases cross 100 in Europe
The World Health Organization was due to hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the recent outbreak of monkeypox, a viral infection more common to west and central Africa, after more than 100 cases were confirmed or suspected in Europe.