The effect of the rate cut was already felt on Wednesday by an online mortgage service provider, while real estate brokers do not expect to see much excitement in the markets right away.

For a month and a half, customers of Ratehub, which offers online mortgage services, have been waiting for the June 5 announcement before taking out a mortgage loan, Philippe Simard, mortgage director for Quebec, said by telephone.

“Because there was a lot of speculation about the June announcement,” he says. “Since we got the confirmation, we’ve been expecting more people to take out mortgages, and it’s already started. In just one day, three of my brokers told me that the clients we’d been talking to for a month and a half came back on Wednesday to ask what the impact of the drop was.”

The Bank of Canada’s key rate has a direct effect on variable rates, recalls Philippe Simard. However, there are still many people who think that the effect is also direct on fixed rates, he observes, when that is not the case.

The liquidator of an estate on the South Shore of Montreal tells La Presse that she was waiting for a rate drop before putting her father’s house up for sale after he died last March.

“I wanted to take the time to do things right and I thought that a rate cut, combined with the HBP [Home Buyers’ Plan], which went from $35,000 to $60,000 in the last federal budget, would surely help generate interest in the family home, which will be affordable for first-time buyers,” explains the liquidator over the phone, who does not want her name to be used to avoid being solicited even more by real estate brokers who want to sign a brokerage contract with her.

“A quarter of a point is not enough to make a marked difference in budgets, but it changes the tone,” notes Marc Lefrançois, approved real estate broker at Royal LePage Tendance, on the ground.

“A lot of people said: I’m not touching the market, because the Bank of Canada is not reassuring at all with its speech on inflation and possible increases. There, the statistics of recent months have changed and the Bank of Canada is completely changing its position. The fact that rates will decrease gives confidence to a percentage of potential buyers. »

According to Marc Lefrançois, this slight rate drop will motivate home owners worth around $600,000. These well-established people with good jobs, who dreamed of a larger, better-located $1 million property, had been out of the market for a year and a half.

“Those who want to update upwards are starting to come back into the market since the anticipation of rate cuts and then the confirmation now that rates are expected to start falling,” he observes.

Martin Desfossés, real estate broker at RE/MAX Bonjour, maintains that brokers and buyers were hoping for a more marked reduction in rates, because transactions in certain regions of Quebec are slow.

However, if the first buyers did not have access to the market with rising rates, the broker envisages fiercer competition in the coming months.

“By reducing rates, it helps first-time buyers, but it also helps those who already have more purchasing capacity,” explains Martin Desfossés. Competition will put upward pressure on sales prices and inevitably put pressure on buyers. »