Market Newsletter

November 2009 Articles & Reports

High sales levels spur rise in home values

VANCOUVER, B.C. – November 2, 2009 – Strong demand has led to a steady rise in Greater Vancouver home prices compared to last year.

Over the last 12 months, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver increased 6.8 per cent to $553,702 from $518,668 in October 2008.

“While home prices have been rising in 2009, they have not eclipsed the peaks reached in early 2008,” Scott Russell, Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) president said. “We’re coming off several months of unseasonably high sales levels, which has allowed for a gradual increase in home values this year,”

The REBGV reports that residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 3,704 in October 2009, an increase of 4.1 per cent from the 3,559 sales recorded in September 2009, and an increase of 171.6 per cent compared to October 2008 when 1,364 sales were recorded. Looking back two years, last month’s sales increased 22.3 per cent compared to October 2007 when 3,028 sales were recorded.

“High confidence and low mortgage rates are continuing to drive the activity we’re seeing in the housing market today,” Russell said.

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties in Greater Vancouver totalled 4,977 in October 2009. This represents a 2.3 per cent increase compared to October 2008 when 4,867 new units were listed, and a 13.4 per cent decline compared to September 2009 when 5,764 properties were listed on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in Greater Vancouver.

At 12,084, the total number of property listings on the MLS® decreased 4.1 per cent in October compared to last month and declined 37 per cent from this time last year.

Sales of detached properties increased 201.6 per cent to 1,487 from the 493 detached sales recorded during the same period in 2008. The benchmark price, as calculated by the MLSLink Housing Price Index®, for detached properties increased 7.7 per cent from October 2008 to $749,808.

Sales of apartment properties in October 2009 increased 148.4 per cent to 1,607, compared to 647sales in October 2008. The benchmark price of an apartment property increased 6.3 per cent from October 2008 to $380,975.

Attached property sales in October 2009 are up 172.3 per cent to 610, compared with the 224 sales in October 2008. The benchmark price of an attached unit increased 4.6 per cent between Octobers 2008 and 2009 to $468,798.

October 2009 Articles & Reports

Home prices could hit new highs in 2010; Low mortgage rates are driving the market to pre-recession levels, credit union economist says - Vancouver Sun Oct. 22/09

The rebound in B.C. housing sales from the recession is the strongest on record, Central 1 Credit Union said Tuesday, predicting that property prices will regain all of their downturn losses by the end of this year.

Central 1 chief economist Helmut Pastrick said the housing sales rebound has already surpassed the strength of the recovery from the 1991 recession.

Pastrick said the resurgence has combined with diminishing inventories of unsold homes to force prices upward.

Prices will eventually hit an "affordability squeeze," Pastrick said, reaching a ceiling that forces new buyers out of the market.

However, in one of the first major fall housing forecasts, Pastrick said observers should not "underestimate the power of ... very low and attractive mortgage rates" to keep driving the market.

He said that as buyers embrace historically low mortgage rates, that momentum "will carry into 2010, driving unit sales and prices to new highs."

He predicted that, on an annualized basis, the overall average home price in B.C. will climb to a new high of $463,800 by the end of 2009, erasing recession-era losses, before advancing to $497,800 in 2010 and $534,800 in 2011.

He also forecast that sales through the Multiple Listing Service across the province will climb to 85,500 this year, and 109,000 in 2010.

Not all regions will experience the recovery equally, Pastrick said. The gains will be concentrated in the bigger, higher-priced markets of Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and the Okanagan, and no single region will see annualized average prices for 2009 surpass previous peaks.

Pastrick said his forecast relies on B.C. continuing to recover from the recession, and that at some point in 2010 the pace of sales will slow down. He expects sales transactions to slip to 101,400 in 2011, though prices should continue to rise.

The Central 1 forecast calls for B.C. housing starts, after falling to 14,600 units this year from 34,321 in 2008, to recover to 21,400 units in 2010.

"If [economic] recovery is weak, or does not come, then prices could potentially stop rising and back off somewhat," Pastrick said.

Carol Frketich, regional economist for Canada <Mortgage> and <Housing> <Corp>., said in an interview the Central 1 forecast is consistent with other forecasts for the B.C. market.

Frketich said forecasters are getting a very strong signal from housing resale activity that points to an overall pickup in housing.

However, she said the fact that Lower Mainland markets have accounted for 40 per cent of total provincial sales has had an influence on provincial totals. A lot of higher-priced homes have been selling in the region, which helps push up the average provincial price.

The Lower Mainland has also seen its unemployment levels decline, another positive indicator that economic conditions will improve.

"The key to strength in the housing market is, we need to see the recovery continue, and mortgage rates staying relatively low," Frketich said. "And currently, those are the conditions we have."

Cameron Muir, chief economist for the B.C. Real Estate Association, however, maintained a more conservative outlook for home-price growth, given that the market is up against a slow economic recovery.

"My expectation is that home prices will grow very modestly in 2010," Muir said.

Muir said much of the buying activity in the market is the result of demand that built up during last fall's market collapse.

However, as that demand is filled, and as mortgage rates rise in the latter half of 2010, Muir said he expects sales will ease off the record pace that Pastrick has predicted, "reflecting an economy that is coming out of recession."

B.C.'s September home sales jump 68 per cent over a year ago - Vancouver Sun - Oct 15/09

The average MLS residential sales price in B.C. climbed 15 per cent to $474,169 from $412,149 in September 2008.

METRO VANCOUVER — Another strong month in September put British Columbia real-estate sales for the first nine months of 2009 ahead of the same period in 2008, the B.C. Real Estate Association reported Thursday.

To the end of September, realtors recorded 63,521 sales through the realtor-controlled Multiple Listing Service, which was 6.3 per cent higher than the first nine months of 2008.
The average property price, of $457,389 was a mere 0.7 per cent lower than the provincial average of 2008 by the end of September.

"Low mortgage interest rates and renewed confidence in real estate assets has propelled B.C. home sales to a level not seen in two years," Cameron Muir, the B.C. Real Estate Association's chief economist, said in a news release.

September alone saw 8,576 sales through MLS across the province, some 68 per cent more than the 5,107 sales in September of 2008.

September of 2008 was within the period that real estate sales virtually collapsed as world financial markets reeled with news of the U.S. financial meltdown.

September 2009 sales, however, were the highest for that month since 2005, BCREA said, and the third highest ever recorded for September.

Vancouver’s resale real-estate rebound ‘too much, too fast’
 
Nationally, 'pent-up' demand drives home sales past pre-recession levels - Vancouver Sun Oct 6/09
 
Once the dust from the economic downturn had settled people who had only held off buying a home because of uncertainty about their own financial situation found themselves in an excellent position to take the leap, says economist Pascal Gauthier of TD Economics.Photograph by: File, ReutersThe recent whipsaw rebound in Metro Vancouver’s resale housing markets was likely “too much, too fast,” according to the estimate of TD Economics’ latest housing outlook.

After collapsing by just over one-third in 2008 compared with the previous year, the number of home sales in Metro so far in 2009 is 19 per cent higher than a year ago, TD said in the report.

And while average resale values dropped by about one-third to $436,000 between last October and this April, TD said prices recovered to an average $608,000 by August, a mere eight per cent from their previous peak.

However, for Metro Vancouver, Gauthier said TD Economics’ estimate is that the pent-up demand that welled up during the uncertainty of last fall’s financial crisis was largely met by June.

“The current sales rally will probably wane in the months ahead,” said report author, economist Pascal Gauthier, “and more listings have started to come on tap, a trend we expect to continue.”

And while Gauthier doesn’t expect prices to dip again, economic conditions will likely take another bite out of sales in 2010.

He said incomes in Metro Vancouver are not rising substantially, although home prices have nearly recovered, so the increased affordability of housing “rests solely on low interest rates, which will start to reverse course in late 2010.”

Nationally, the TD Economics report noted that Canadian housing sales rebounded by 61 per cent at the end of August compared with a year ago after collapsing by almost one-third in the last half of 2008.

While some had argued all along that Canada’s housing market would not experience the extreme decline seen south of the border, “the magnitude and speed of the rebound was nonetheless surprising,” Gauthier said.

“No other Canadian economic indicator has rebounded as sharply as sales of existing homes over the last few months.”

Gauthier said current low interest rates, spurred by “aggressive easing of monetary policy” by the Bank of Canada, which were intended to cushion the Canadian economy from the worst of the U.S. credit crisis, “proved to be more of a trampoline for resale housing markets.”

Once the dust from the economic downturn had settled, Gauthier wrote, people who had only held off buying a home because of uncertainty about their own financial situation found themselves in an excellent position to take the leap.

Mortgage-carrying costs, which fell from 32 per cent of an average earner’s income in early 2008 to 26 per cent a year later, should remain in the area of 27 to 29 per cent next year, which should be “good enough to support a modest growth in sales and prices.”

“And while prices are trending up again, this window of opportunity remains open to many Canadian households, even first-time buyers,” said Gauthier.

But this demand will have spent itself by November, Gauthier estimated.

Buyer demand remains strong while home listings increase

Greater Vancouver home sales remained strong last month, with the second highest number of residential sales ever recorded for the month of September.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 3,559 in September 2009, an increase of 3.4 per cent from the 3,441 sales recorded in August 2009, and an increase of 124.5 per cent compared to September 2008 when 1,585 sales were recorded.

“As homes sales in Greater Vancouver continued at an elevated pace in September it’s encouraging to see that more homes were listed on the MLS® in the month than any other so far this year,” Scott Russell, REBGV president said.

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties in Greater Vancouver totalled 5,764 in September 2009. This represents a 6.2 per cent decline compared to September 2008 when 6,142 new units were listed, but a 26.8 per cent increase compared to August 2009 when 4,544 properties were listed on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in Greater Vancouver.

At 12,596, the total number of property listings on the MLS® increased 5.5 per cent in September compared to last month and declined 36 per cent from the 19,852 homes listed for sale during the buyer’s market that was experienced at this time last year.

“During this period of renewed demand in our marketplace, home values have gradually recovered from the declines that occurred in 2008,” said Russell.

Since the beginning of the year, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver has increased 13 per cent to $547,092 from $484,211, while home prices compared to Septembers 2008 levels are up 1.6 per cent.

Sales of detached properties increased 160.6 per cent to 1,423 from the 546 detached sales recorded during the same period in 2008. The benchmark price, as calculated by the MLSLink Housing Price Index®, for detached properties increased 2.1 per cent from September 2008 to $741,632.

Sales of apartment properties in September 2009 increased 94.9 per cent to 1,489, compared to 764 sales in September 2008. The benchmark price of an apartment property increased 1.5 per cent from September 2008 to $374,686.

Attached property sales in September 2009 are up 135.3 per cent to 647, compared with the 275 sales in September 2008. The benchmark price of an attached unit increased 0.4 per cent between Septembers 2008 and 2009 to $466,276.

September 2009 Articles & Reports

A new Re/Max real-estate survey says house values have recovered in many major Canadian markets to where they were before the market crashed.
House prices have recovered to '08 levels: Re/Max
Updated: Thu Sep. 24 2009 06:12:34

The Canadian Press
KELOWNA, B.C. — A new Re/Max real-estate survey says house values have recovered in many major Canadian markets to where they were before the market crashed.
The survey found house values are ahead of record highs set in 2008 in seven of the 11 markets surveyed for the real-estate brokerage network.
The national average price was $312,585, up 0.5 per cent from a year ago.
Re/Max attributed the recovery to low interest rates, pent-up demand and improved affordability.
The survey was based on information from Canada's major urban centres and may not reflect what's happening in smaller markets.  (See full report below)

Canadian housing markets buck recession and trend upwards, says RE/MAX - September 24, 2009

 With the worst of the recession over, residential real estate markets in major Canadian centres are poised for growth in the final quarter of 2009, according to a report released today by RE/MAX.

The RE/MAX Bricks and Mortar Report found the bounce back that began in early Spring has made this recession one of the shortest on record for real estate. Low interest rates, pent-up demand, and improved affordability levels have all played a role in the recovery now well-underway. Percentage increases in sales from January to August 2009 were led by Vancouver, (up a substantial 14 per cent to 23,158), Victoria (up 7.4 per cent to 5,266), Edmonton (up 6.2 per cent to 13,691), Regina (up five per cent to 2,597), Ottawa (up 2.4 per cent to 10,830) and Toronto (up 1.8 per cent to 58,421). Housing values are already ahead of record-breaking 2008 levels in seven of the 11 markets surveyed, including Newfoundland-Labrador (18.1 per cent year to $203,584), Regina (6.4 per cent to $244,088), Halifax-Dartmouth (3.5 per cent to $239,633), Winnipeg (3.5 per cent to $207,006), Ottawa (3.3 per cent to $301,684), and Toronto (up 0.3 per cent to $385,978). Nationally, average price hovers at $312,585, up 0.5 per cent over one year ago.

“The strength of the residential housing sector cross-country has taken many economists and housing analysts by surprise once again,” says Elton Ash, Regional Executive Vice President, RE/MAX of Western Canada. “In terms of its impact on the resale market, by historical standards, this recession was one of the mildest. The resilience of bricks and mortar has been demonstrated time and again. While there may still be some challenges down the road, the worst is definitely behind us in the housing industry.”

The recovery of Canada’s resale housing markets speaks to the tremendous value Canadians place on the importance of owning a home. The number of Canadians overall who own a home has increased since 1981 from 62.1 per cent to 68.4 per cent, with some markets posting even higher homeownership rates -- Calgary (74.1), St. John’s (71.5), Regina (70.1), and Edmonton (69.2). Significant gains have also been made over the same period in markets such as Ottawa -- where homeownership levels rose from 51.4 per cent to 66.7 per cent -- and Toronto, where levels rose fro m 57.3 to 67.6 per cent.

“Markets are heating up across the country,” says Michael Polzler, Executive Vice President, RE/MAX Ontario-Atlantic Canada. “Purchasers are clearly taking advantage of affordable prices and rock bottom interest rates. Those who missed the boat in years past have found that sitting on the sidelines can be a costly move. Prices are on the upswing and inventory levels are tightening, so the push toward homeownership is expected to continue throughout the Fall and possibly into early 2010.”

Over the past thirty years, the Canadian residential real estate market has experienced three major downturns – 1981, 1989, and 2008. While there have also been regional fluctuations throughout the years, return on investment over this period has been substantial, with Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Regina and Ottawa leading the country in terms of price appreciation.

The overall stability of real estate as an investment has also played a role. Markets like Halifax-Dartmouth, Regina, Ottawa, Winnipeg and London have provided steady returns (especially in recent years), with minimal fluctuation.

Public sentiment can best be illustrated by a recent Angus Reid Omnibus Survey* that asked the question “In which do you feel more comfortable investing your money? The stock market or real estate.” Out of 1,000 respondents from coast-to-coast, 77 per cent chose real estate. The results of the RE/MAX Bricks and Mortar Report are clearly representative of this national dynamic at work.

RE/MAX is Canada’s leading real estate organization with over 17,000 sales associates situated throughout its more than 677 independently-owned and operated offices across the country. The RE/MAX franchise network, now in its 36th year, is a global real estate system operating in more than 70 countries. Over 6,700 independently-owned offices engage nearly 100,000 member sales associates who lead the industry in professional designations, experience and production while providing real estate services in residential, commercial, referral, and asset management. For more information, visit: www.remax.ca.

* The Angus Reid Omnibus Survey was conducted on September 15, 2009 and yields a margin of error of +3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

 Homeownership Rates Canada and Major Centres 1981 2006
Canada 62.1 68.4
     
Metropolitan Areas*    
St. John’s 69.5 71.5
Halifax 55.6 64.0
Ottawa 51.4 66.7
Toronto 57.3 67.6
London 58.0 65.9
Winnipeg 59.1 67.2
Regina 65.4 70.1
Calgary 58.4 74.1
Edmonton 57.9 69.2
Vancouver 58.5 65.1
Victoria 59.8 64.7
     
Source: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (May 2008)
*Homeownership rates based on 1986 boundaries for the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA)

Top Performing Markets by Price Appreciation
 
  1980 YTD 2009  % Increase
Market Avg. $ Avg. $ 1980 - 2009
 
Greater Vancouver $100,065 $574,061 473.7%
Victoria $85,066 $466,611 448.5%
Greater Toronto $75,694 $385,978 409.9%
Regina $48,628 $244,088 402.0%
Ottawa $63,177 $301,684 377.5%
Halifax-Dartmouth $53,161 $239,633 350.8%
Winnipeg $50,491 $207,006 310.0%
Calgary $93,977 $380,489 304.9%
London – St. Thomas $55,210 $213,683 287.0%
Newfoundland & Labrador $52,768 $203,584 285.8%
Edmonton $84,623 $319,939 278.1% 

Canada $67,024 $312,585 366.4%
 
Source: Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), RE/MAX

Vancouver home sales up 117 per cent in August compared to one year ago
Vancouver Sun: September 15, 2009

Vancouver led the nation with a whopping 117 per cent increase in home sales in August compared to August a year ago.

According to statistics released by The Canadian Real Estate Association, a total of 42,483 homes traded hands across Canada via the Multiple Listing Service Systems in August 2009.
This represents an increase of 18.5 per cent from the same month last year, and the third consecutive year-over-year gain of more than 15 per cent, according to the news release.
Sales were 6.6 per cent below the record for the month of August set in 2007.

Year-over-year gains in Vancouver (117 per cent), Toronto (27 per cent), Calgary (17 per cent) and
Montreal (nine per cent) contributed most to the national increase in activity.
Aggregate MLS home sales activity for 25 major markets posted the third consecutive increase from year-ago levels of more than 20 per cent in August.

The national MLS residential average price rose 11.3 per cent from year-ago levels to $324,779, according to the release.The seasonally adjusted dollar volume of all residential MLS sales also set a record in August 2009, rising 1.5 per cent from the previous month to $14 billion.
British Columbia contributed most to the increase, having posted the highest seasonally adjusted dollar volume on record for the province.

BC home sales brightest light in economy

The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) released its Forecast Update for the third quarter of 2009.

BC Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) residential sales are forecast to climb 15 per cent from 68,923 units in 2008 to 79,400 units this year, just below the ten-year average of 82,800 units. Residential sales in 2010 are forecast to rise an additional six per cent to 84,200 units. For comparison, a record 106,310 units were sold in 2005.

“After 12 months of significant volatility in BC’s housing markets, greater stability is expected through 2010,” said Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist. “Robust housing demand is a strong signal that the economy is coming out of the recession, with a recovery in the broader economy expected to develop over the next three quarters.

“Home sales have doubled since January, with prices edging higher in Metro Vancouver and Victoria in recent months,” said Muir. The average annual MLS® residential price in the province is forecast to reach $451,200 in this year, down one per cent from a record $454,599 in 2008.

“Market conditions vary depending on the region of the province,” added Muir. “While the Metro Vancouver and Victoria markets have rebounded sharply, interior markets are demonstrating a more gradual trend toward balance between supply and demand.”

BC housing starts are forecast to increase 25 per cent to 18,500 units next year after a dismal 2009. Housing starts are forecast to decline 57 per cent to 14,800 units this year, the lowest level of activity since 2000.

Economy bouncing back faster than expected - The Canadian Press - Sept. 10/09

OTTAWA — Canada's economy is bouncing back faster than previously thought, the Bank of Canada said Thursday.

Backing up its controversial declaration last July that the recession is over, the central bank now says that not only has growth returned to the Canadian economy after three quarters of sharp contraction, it is growing faster than even it thought likely.

 In July, the bank had projected the economy would rebound by 1.3 per cent in the current quarter and another three per cent in the final three months of the year -- or about 2.15 per cent on average.

It gave no new estimates, but the revision means that the central banks believes the economy will perform better than the 2.3 per cent contraction it had earlier forecast, and possibly better than the three per cent growth it expected for next year.
The new projections, however, haven't made the bank change its mind about keeping interest rates at the lowest possible level of 0.25 per cent until at least July, despite repeating its now familiar warning that the persistent strength of the loonie could throw an unwelcome spanner into the works.

Last July, governor Mark Carney made news and ruffled a few feathers in being one of the first to declare the recession over, an announcement that not even the federal government was willing to openly back.

Most of the optimism was based on the belief that massive government stimulus, along with the impact of central bankers keeping interest rates low and supporting financial institutions, is starting to have traction on the economy.

Now Carney says there is evidence the private sector is also joining in on the revival.
"Stimulative monetary and fiscal policies, improved financial conditions, firmer commodity prices, and a rebound in business and consumer confidence are supporting domestic demand growth in Canada," the bank writes.

"Combined with recent information on inventory adjustments and automotive production, this suggests that GDP (gross domestic product) growth in the second half of 2009 could be stronger than the bank projected in July."

Given the warning about the dollar, the bank still believes the export sector of the country is still not out of the woods.

Carney began warning that the a high loonie could derail growth back in June and since then, he or his deputies have reiterated the concern.

Few economists believe the governor is truly prepared to intervene, however, and Thursday's language does not move the goal post from where deputy Timothy Lane put in two weeks ago when he suggested the bank was prepared to use quantitative easing -- increasing the money supply -- to restrain the loonie.

"In its conduct of monetary policy at low interest rates, the bank retains considerable flexibility, consistent with the framework outlined in (April)," the Thursday statement read.
The dollar closed at 92.51 cents on Wednesday, but many economists believe it is again headed to parity.

Mortgage-rate rush helps push up Lower Mainland prices - Vancouver Sun Sept 3, 2009

Metro’s average property prices climb to within 3 percentage points of their peak

Prices in Metro Vancouver also continued edging up with the benchmark price (the average price of the typical property sold) for detached homes hitting $732,656 in August.
                       
VANCOUVER — Real estate prices rose again in August and were approaching their levels of a year ago, numbers released Wednesday by the Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley real estate boards showed.

Market watchers, surprised by the strength of the rebound, said it appeared buyers were cashing in on record-low mortgage rates while they last.
Sales set records in July and stayed hot in August. The question now is whether the market can keep up the pace.

“Before I would call this a complete recovery I would want to see a couple of months of data,” Robyn Adamache, a market analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said in an interview.
Adamache added that there now are five months worth of data showing an upward trend, but “it remains to be seen whether this was just a one-shot deal where everybody was pre-approved for their [low-rate] mortgages and they basically jumped into the market, and whether or not [the market] can be sustained for the rest of the year.”

However, Adamache said on balance, Metro Vancouver’s average property prices, since their trough last March, have climbed back to within three percentage points of their peak.
She estimated that from peak to trough, average prices fell some 15 per cent.
Record-low mortgage rates, which fell as low as 3.65 per cent on five-year fixed-rate mortgages before rising again after June 1, played a big role in the market.

“If I had to put [market performance] on one thing, I would have to say interest rates,” Carolyn Heaney, Vancouver area manager of mortgage development for the Bank of Montreal, said in an interview.
Heaney said her mortgage lenders had a lot of clients who had been approved for mortgages with the low rates, and had 90 days to buy homes and close their purchases before their pre-approvals expired.
“There were certainly a lot of people who jumped off the fence in order to keep their rates,” she said.

Kevin Lutz, B.C. mortgage manager for RBC Financial Group, said that despite the recession, a bit of consumer confidence has been returning to the market. Lutz said the past few months have seen buyers cram almost a year’s worth of buying activity into a short period.
In the area of Metro Vancouver covered by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV), that translated into 3,441 sales through the Multiple Listing service, a 120-per-cent increase from last August, when the region saw 1,568 sales.

Prices in Metro continued to edge up with the benchmark price (the average price of the typical property sold) for detached homes hitting $732,656 in August. That was just 0.7 per cent below last year’s benchmark price for detached homes.

Some communities saw detached-home prices rise above their levels of a year ago. On Vancouver’s west side, for example, the benchmark of $1.4 million in August was three per cent higher than in the same month a year ago.
The $685,746 benchmark for detached homes on Vancouver’s east side was 3.2 per cent higher than a year ago. New Westminster, Pitt Meadows and the Sunshine Coast also saw detached home prices higher than a year ago.

“It has been surprising,” REBGV president-elect Jake Moldown said. “I don’t think if you had talked to any of us in January that we would be expecting sales levels to be where they are today.”
However, he said with price adjustments and low interest rates combining to reduce mortgage payments, a lot of first-time buyers have jumped into the market, helping set off a chain reaction of upward movement.

In the Fraser Valley, realtors recorded their second busiest August on record, with agents racking up 1,786 sales through the MLS in August, up 96 per cent from 910 sales in the same month a year ago, when the market was sliding rapidly.

For the period of June through August, the board said valley realtors saw 5,857 MLS sales, which outpaced the same period of 2007, but is still far from matching 2005’s 6,866 sales for June, July and August.

Fraser Valley realtors saw the benchmark price (the average price of a typical property sold) for single-family homes creep up 3.8 per cent over the past three months to $483,839 in August, not quite erasing the losses of the past year. That price was still 3.5 per cent below last August’s $501,317 benchmark.

Market momentum carries into August

VANCOUVER, B.C. – September 2, 2009 – The number of home sales in Greater Vancouver increased significantly last month compared to August 2008 and moved closer in line with the active summer months experienced between 2003 and 2007.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential property sales in Greater Vancouver increased 119.5 per cent in August 2009 to 3,441 from the 1,568 sales recorded in August 2008 and increased 1.7 per cent compared to August 2007.
New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties increased 4.9 per cent to 4,544 in August 2009 compared to August 2008 when 4,331 new units were listed. Total active listings in Greater Vancouver currently sit at 11,937, down 33 per cent from August 2008.

“The return of confidence to our market has brought a high volume of home sales over the last few
months and has also made determining home prices a little more challenging,” said Scott Russell,
REBGV president. “The number of residential home sales this summer has been comparable to activity seen in the five years preceding 2008. While that’s great news, from the variations in activity we’re seeing across areas I’d say the market is still trying to find its own balance.”
Since the beginning of the year, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price for all
residential properties in Greater Vancouver has increased 11.4 per cent to $539,600 from $484,211.

However, home prices compared to August 2008 levels are down 1.1 per cent.
Sales of detached properties in August 2009 increased 155.5 per cent to 1,367 from the 535 units sold during the same period in 2008. The benchmark price, as calculated by the MLSLink Housing Price Index®, for detached properties declined 0.7 per cent from August 2008 to $732,656.
Sales of apartment properties increased 97.8 per cent last month to 1,464, compared to the 740 sales in August 2008. The benchmark price of an apartment property declined 1.4 per cent from August 2008 to $369,263.

Attached property sales in August 2009 increased 108.2 per cent to 610, compared with the 293 sales during the same month in 2008. The benchmark price of an attached unit declined 0.9 per cent between August 2008 and 2009 to $459,159.