The recent drop in home prices and tougher mortgage rules that kick in at the beginning of the new year are boosting real estate sales, in an otherwise slow time of year. One real estate agent says there’s been a jump in home sales over the last 6 weeks.

“We saw about a 7-8% increase over last November. Usually November starts to drift downwards people preparing for Christmas but this time people are really looking at buying.”

That’s likely because new mortgage “stress test rules” requiring buyers to qualify at a higher interest rate, kick in in the new year. The new rules will affect your purchasing power, especially when it comes to your max budget. Right now if you qualify for a $500 000 mortgage, that’ll drop to $400 000 come January.

Although there could be a decrease in buyer activity in the first few months of the year because of the new mortgage rules it’s believed first time buyers and retirees will drive the demand in 2018.