News: Vancouver Real Estate Market

About a third of Baby Boomers plan to sell their home to fund their retirement, according to a study that questions whether buyers will dry up as that massive segment of the population downsizes.

Bank of Montreal is warning Boomers not to count on that nest egg, while other observers suggest that even if prices don’t plunge, big increases in property values are a thing of the past.

“They shouldn’t be relying on their homes because there are risks,” says Marlena...

While many concerns stem from the Canadian housing market, it will not see an American-style crash, a new Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce report says.

House prices will likely fall north of the border in the next year or two, but a number of factors are likely to mitigate the impact on borrowers and the broader economy here, it suggests. It forecasts that the Canadian market will likely go through a soft landing, which is exactly what policy makers in Ottawa are hoping.

Factors that...

   BCREA 2012 Fourth Quarter Housing Forecast

Vancouver, BC – October 26, 2012. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) released its 2012 Fourth Quarter Housing Forecast today.

BC Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) residential sales are forecast to decline 9.8 per cent to 69,200 units this year, before increasing 8.3 per cent to 74,920 units in 2013. The fifteen-year average is 79,000 unit sales, while a record 106,300 MLS® residential sales were...

A laneway house (also known as a coach house or carriage house) is a detached dwelling located typically in the area where the garage would be on a single-family lot. It faces the lane, while maintaining the backyard open space. Alternatively on a corner lot it would face the side street. At least one parking space is needed for each laneway home. Most laneway houses include a garage.

Laneway houses present an excellent opportunity for homeowners to increase the value of their existing homes by adding...

What is a depreciation report?

A depreciation report is a legislated planning requirement for strata corporations in British Columbia. Depreciation reports are used to establish long term planning for common property and common assets to determine:

1) What assets you own ( an inventory )

2) The asset condition ( evaluation )

3) When things need to be replaced ( the anticipated maintenance, repair and replacement )

4) How much money you currently have ( contingency reserve report )

5) What...

   Vancouver, BC - October 15, 2012. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that the dollar volume of homes sold through the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in BC declined 28.5 per cent to $2.2 billion in September compared to the same month last year. A total of 4,539 MLS® residential unit sales were recorded over the same period, down 24.3 per cent from September 2011. The average MLS® residential price was $494,213, down 5.6 per cent from a year...

Number of units being built year-to-date more than 10 per cent higher than 2011

Construction is going strong in Metro Vancouver, even though home resale prices are dropping slightly and sales activity is significantly below historical levels.

Metro Vancouver housing starts in were on pace in September to reach 20,000 units by year’s end, mostly driven by multi-family developments, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported Tuesday.

There were 293 single-detached housing starts...

Canadian House Prices Edge Up in Third Quarter While the Number of Home Sales Fall

First-time buyer activity drops as market adjusts to new mortgage regulations

TORONTO, October 3, 2012 – The Royal LePage House Price Survey released today showed the average price of a home in Canada increased year-over-year between 1.8 and 4.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2012.

Survey findings indicated that the average standard two-storey home in Canada increased 4 per cent year-over-year rising...

Vancouver’s real estate board says there have probably been “some reductions” in prices in some of its hottest markets, acknowledging the country’s most expensive city to buy a home in is now a buyer’s market.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver maintains that prices remain stable overall in its market. It says its benchmark price index is $606,100, a 0.8% drop from a year ago and a 2.3% decline over the last three months.

But there is no mistaking...

The summer of 2012 drew to a close in September with home sale activity well below historical averages in the Greater Vancouver housing market.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential property sales of detached, attached and apartment properties reached 1,516 in September, a 32.5 per cent decline compared to the 2,246 sales in September 2011 and an 8.1 per cent decline compared to the 1,649 sales in August 2012.

September sales were 41.6 per cent below the 10-year...