How to Track the Yellowknife Real Estate Market

If you’re thinking of buying a home in Yellowknife, one of the first steps you’ll want to take is to connect with a Realtor and ask them to act as your buyer’s agent.  They’ll ask you about your “wants and needs,” your purchase timeline, your target price range, and many other considerations in order to come up with a strategy that is likely to lead to successful outcome.  They will also educate you about the purchase process and they will start bringing listings of interest to your attention.  But that said, even though your buyer agent will be flagging listings for you, it’s very important that you do your own research into the market.  This is especially true if you’re moving to Yellowknife from elsewhere, or if you are a first time homebuyer.

The reason this is so important is that buyers, even experienced ones, require a warm up period before they are ready to make a purchase decision.  If you think about any significant purchase, this makes sense.  When was the last time you walked into a car dealership and bought the first vehicle your eyes landed on?  It just doesn’t work that way, even if the salesperson is your best friend who knows you inside and out and whose opinion you trust completely.

But the difference between cars and houses is that you can always get that same car a few months later if the salesperson turns out to have been right.  That’s not the case with houses.  That’s why it’s so important to accelerate your “warm-up” period by starting to track the market months before you think you might actually be ready to buy.  And fortunately, we have a tool that makes this super easy.

Your buyer agent will offer to set you up with automatic text or e-mail notifications of new listings and price changes in the market, using what’s called a PCS Account, which stands for Private Client Services.  Powered by our Multi-Listing Service (MLS) platform, a PCS account sends you automatic notifications when new listings come on the market, or when prices drop.

The advantage of a PCS account over, say, tracking new listings on brokerage facebook pages or websites, is that you don’t have to visit half a dozen sites to get the full picture – all Yellowknife brokerages participate in the MLS, so it’s a one-stop shop.  And any Yellowknife Realtor can help you buy any MLS listing, regardless of the brokerage.

There are many options for narrowing down your PCS search, by price range, neighbourhood and other listing criteria which your Realtor will discuss with you when setting up your account.  You can elect to receive the notifications by e-mail or text, and you can also limit the number of times per day that you receive notifications.

To get signed up for your own PCS account, contact your Realtor today.  And if you don’t yet have a Realtor, have a look at our roster of local experts by following this link: https://www.century21yk.ca/the-team. Reach out to a member of our team today and they’ll get you signed up.

Another great resource for learning about the Yellowknife market is our neighbourhood profiles, which you can find here: https://www.century21yk.ca/blog/category/neighbourhood-profiles/.  This is a new feature on our blog, and we don’t yet have all the profiles complete, but we hope to have them all published by the summer of 2024.  Check back often for updates!

And lastly, nothing beats a city tour for truly getting to know our market.  Our Realtors are ready and waiting to show you around. They will help you become familiarized with our neighbourhoods, will provide you with insights on Yellowknife amenities, and much more.

We’re committed to providing value to our clients in as many ways as possible, and one of those ways is through consumer education.  If you find these posts valuable, please take a moment to leave us a Google Review by following this link: https://g.page/r/Cf_LTIUkVkX6EBM/review.  Ours is a business based on referrals, and every bit helps.  Thank you!