News: Vancouver Real Estate Market

 Vancouver-area residential home sales improved in November compared to the previous four months, says the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

The number of sales posted on the Multiple Listing Service came in slightly higher than the 10-year average for that month, although still well below the mark reached in November 2009 the board said in a release Thursday.   (Click here to download full story in PDF) 

 Four years ago the federal government announced that publicly traded income trusts, which provide big tax advantages over traditional corporations, would lose that edge by the end of 2010.

The market reaction was swift and terrible, erasing $25 billion from the market value of income trusts and raising a cacophony of anger from investers who had put many of their eggs in the income trust basket.

But one type of income trust was mostly spared by Ottawa: the Real Estate Investment...

 Lower interest rates and flat prices help buyers, although province remains an expensive housing market.

B.C. homebuyers have won a temporary reprieve from the sharp drop in affordability since the middle of 2009, according to a national report release Monday byRBC Economics Research.  (Click here to download full story in PDF)