When asked about the state of the real estate market in the Yukon, the westernmost of Canada’s three territories, Marc Perreault is about as succinct as one can get.
“Market is stable,” says Perreault, a REALTOR® and salesperson with RE/MAX Action Realty based in Whitehorse, Yukon’s capital city. “Local knowledge is essential.”
The Canadian territories are vast but, according to StatsCan, the populations are small. The Yukon’s population is 45,750, Northwest Territories 44,920 and Nunavut 40,758. The housing market consists primarily of single-family homes, as well as some condos, apartments and townhouses. Mobile homes and modular homes are popular because of their relative affordability and faster construction times.
Throughout the territories the number of REALTORS® is growing, with a 13.2% increase from June 2023 according to CREA. While the number of members in the territories is nominally smaller than other parts of Canada, they’re covering an expansive and diverse area.
Canada’s territories present unique and harsh geographic and climate conditions and, for REALTORS® operating or looking to operate there, a specific set of skills is required.
According to Tara Leduc, a REALTOR® and salesperson with Urban Realty Group in Whitehorse, Yukon, there are around 50 REALTORS® in her market. Long-term relationships are key since everyone knows they will work together at some point, she says.
“We know our few main developers and contractors, so we know what to expect with most of our new construction,” she says. Leduc says she deals with a lot of rural properties, which means REALTORS® there must check if building permits were taken out or closed.
“Agriculture zoning or even no zoning is not uncommon,” she says. “Every single one of these homes tells a story, so the job of a REALTOR® is to determine if it’s a horror story or a romance. I spend a lot of time underneath homes. There are coveralls, gloves, and boots in my car.”
According to data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), in May 2024 there were 43 new listings in the Northwest Territories and 30 unit sales, and in the Yukon, 82 new listings and 60 unit sales.
Limited housing supply means more competition. People come to the North for employment opportunities, typically in natural resources or government, as well as for the territories’ lifestyle. Construction in these regions is expensive due in part to the cost of transporting materials and, in some cases, specialized techniques in construction to deal with the terrain.
Leduc is new to the real estate business in the Yukon.
“I have my high school friends reaching out to me to assist their parents to age in place, downsize or find low-barrier housing,” she continues. “People remember how you treated them decades ago, and it matters. Even social media presence is important.”
Yukon is a balanced market now, Leduc adds, where multiple-offer transactions are being seen, but there are also properties staying on market for more than 30 days and a few price reductions.
“We did not see the volume of inventory this spring that we’d anticipated, likely because rates have not declined as much yet as people are hoping for,” she says. “And the market activity seems to be continuing into the summer.”
In Yellowknife, the capital city of the Northwest Territories, there’s currently a lot of turnover in the market, says Dwayne Simmons, a REALTOR® and salesperson with Century 21 Prospect Realty. Since 2020, the region has been in a low inventory situation, creating a seller’s market.
“A lot of young people come to gain work experience that they wouldn’t get a chance to get down south and many are on two-to-five-year contracts,” Simmons says. He was an exception to that: His five-year-plan turned into 15 years.
“I find that the Yellowknife market has really inflated in term of pricing. Obviously during COVID, all markets across Canada were hot,” he says. “But even when interest rates went to 7%, Yellowknife did not truly feel much of a downturn. Again, a lot of that is attributed to high rental costs and low inventory so buyers’ demand was still there. I also suspect that, with a lot of young people moving to town for work purposes and overall wages being above average, a lot of the times we’re dealing with first-time home buyers.”
By far, most of the market in the Northwest Territories is comprised of modular homes.
“You can’t compare what’s going on in Yellowknife to Edmonton or Toronto or anywhere else for that matter,” he says. “In a nutshell, it’s very expensive to build in the North. There’s a lot of rock up here so conventional concrete foundations are not as common, and basements are few and far between. Surface foundations keep the cost of building down, but it’s still expensive to do anything up here in terms of development, so we end up with a large inventory of modular homes.”
But, as Simmons has learned from travelling to real estate conferences across the country in which he meets with his peers, the fundamentals of buying and selling aren’t different compared to other markets in Canada.
Interested in becoming a REALTOR®? Learn what you need to do in each area of the country with our How to Become a REALTOR® in Canada blog post.
