News: Vancouver Real Estate Market

Vancouver, BC – April 18, 2011. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) residential sales in the province continued to climb higher in March. Compared to March of 2010, MLS® residential unit sales increased 11.5 per cent to 8,600 units. The average MLS® residential price rose 15 per cent to $594,157 in March compared to the same month last year.

"We continue to observe a two-speed market in BC, with surging consumer...

Activity in the Greater Vancouver housing market continued to strengthen in March with both the number of homes sold and added to the region’s Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) reaching near record levels.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential property sales of detached, attached and apartment properties in Greater Vancouver reached 4,080 in March 2011. This represents a 31.7 per cent increase compared to the 3,097 sales recorded in February 2011,...

 With rising costs of borrowing on the bond market the big banks (TD and RBC) decided to raise mortgage rates.

The biggest increase in rates are the 5 to 10 year closed mortgages , which will increase by 0.35 percentage points starting Tuesday.

The rate for a five-year closed mortgage will rise to 5.69 percent.

The move comes three weeks after TD cut mortgage rates, citing lower bond yields.

RBC's five-year closed mortgage moved up 0.35 percentage...

Home prices are approaching bubble territory, although a cool-off is expected.

OTTAWA - Canada's housing market is reaching the limits of sustainability and could tumble if there is no moderation, the Bank of Montreal says.

The bank notes Canada's hot housing market is still not in the red zone for prices, but it's getting there. (Click here to download full story in PDF)

VANCOUVER - Richmond and Vancouver's west side housing markets are red hot, according to a monthly real estate report released Wednesday.

"It's a huge sellers' market, the strongest in those areas I've ever seen," Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver president Jake Moldowan said in an interview. "And there's no question that it's the offshore market that's focused on these two areas." (Click here to download full story in PDF)

Buying real estate? A few grow-op warning signs.

Demand for detached homes continues to be strong across Greater Vancouver, with particularly high sales volumes occurring in Richmond and Vancouver Westside.

For the past two months, the number of properties listed for sale and those sold on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in Greater Vancouver outpaced the 10-year average in both categories. From a historical perspective, February’s 3,097 home sales outpace the 2,742 home-sale average recorded in the region over the last ten years....

Congratulations to all the 2010 Royal LePage Coronation West award winners as advertised in the Tri-City News this week. 

Home Buying Series: View a short video on how Royal LePage REALTORS® help you finance your home.

 The Greater Vancouver housing market remained in balanced market conditions in January, although higher levels of buyer demand were seen in some of the region's largest communities.

The number of properties listed for sale and those sold on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) last month outpaced the 10-year average in both categories for January.

"There was a healthy balance between the number of home buyers and sellers in our market in January, but there's always variation in...

To help Canadians save more and spend less, the federal government has introduced new rules for government-backed insured mortgages.

New mortgage rules

1. The government is reducing the maximum mortgage amortization period to 30 years from 35 years.
2. The government is reducing the maximum amount of the value of a home that can be re-financed to 85 per cent from 90 per cent.
3. The government will no longer provide insurance backing to financial institutions insuring home equity lines of credit.

Click here...

 Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced tighter mortgage rules on Monday to address concerns over high Canadian household debt.

"In 2008 and again in 2010, our government acted to protect and strengthen the Canadian housing market," Flaherty told a news conference in Ottawa. "We continue to do so today."  (Click here to download full story in PDF) 

 OTTAWA — Home prices will continue a "moderate and steady climb" this year, helped along by an improving economy and low interest rates, according to a report released Thursday.

Real estate services firm Royal LePage said the average price of a home in Canada will rise three per cent to $348,600, even as the number of transactions falls two per cent.  (Click here to download full story in PDF)  

  The Greater Vancouver residential housing market entered three distinctive phases in 2010. Continued buoyancy from the post-recession recovery began the year, followed by a summer lull and, throughout the fall, a sustained period of stability.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that total sales of detached, attached and apartment properties in 2010 reached 30,595, a 14.2 per cent decrease from the 35,669 sales recorded in 2009, but a 24.2 per cent increase from...

 B.C. property assessments online, see evaluations of your homes and others.

Home Buying Series: View a short video on how Royal LePage REALTORS® help you with your home search.

 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) 

Greater Vancouver home sales have remained steady over the past four months, indicating stability in the residential housing market. With the MLS® sales to active listing inventory ratio indicating a buyers’ market, properties appropriately priced are selling.

According to the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI), the benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver over the last 12 months has increased 4.6 per cent to $579,349 in October 2010 from $553,702 in October...

A few weeks or months of unusually high period-over-period price increases after a recession is not a bubble, expert says

The average price of a Canadian two-storey home in the three-month period ending in September was up 4.4 per cent, to $360,329, from a year earlier, Royal LePage reported. (Click here to download full story in PDF.) 

David took time out yesterday to plant a few bulbs as part of the Shelter Blooms Tulip Planting Fundraiser. Money raised goes to helping the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation - Canada’s largest public foundation dedicated exclusively to funding women’s shelters and violence prevention and education programs.  

 Today the Bank of Canada made the following press release:

OTTAWA – The Bank of Canada today announced that it is maintaining its target for the overnight rate at 1 per cent. The Bank Rate is correspondingly 1 1/4 per cent and the deposit rate is 3/4 per cent.

The global economic recovery is entering a new phase. In advanced economies, temporary factors supporting growth in 2010 - such as the inventory cycle and pent-up demand - have largely run their course and fiscal stimulus...

OTTAWA — New home prices edged up unexpectedly in August, led mainly by increases in Eastern Canada, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/home+prices+rise+surprisingly+August/3663779/story.html#ixzz12NLq786X

UNDERSTANDING THE HST

• HST of 12% (5% federal component plus 7% provincial component) will apply to new residential housing and the PST will be eliminated completely.
• Before HST, PST had been paid on all materials used in the construction of a home. This PST was embedded in the cost of a new home. It is estimated that this embedded PST added 2% to the cost of a new home.
• With HST, builders can now claim a rebate for the provincial portion of the HST purchases, reducing the price of a new home by 2%*....

VANCOUVER, BC - Conditions in the Greater Vancouver housing market continued to favour buyers in August. Since April, prices have edged down slightly as the number of sales and the number of properties coming on to the market have been declining.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that the number of residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 2,202 in August 2010. This represents a 36 per cent decline from the 3,441 sales in August 2009, the second highest...

 I often assist clients that would like to buy a foreclosure but need to sell another property in order to buy.

When buying a foreclosure in British Columbia it's important to realise that you cannot buy a foreclosure "subject to the sale of" another property.

The majority of offers to purchase are "subject to the courts final approval". Before going to court to have your offer approved, your offer must be subject free with no conditions (i.e. no deal pending clauses).  In...