Spring months bring balance to Greater Vancouver housing market

Spring months bring balance to Greater Vancouver housing market

VANCOUVER, B.C. – June 4, 2013 – While the number of home sales in Greater Vancouver continued to trend below the 10-year average in May, the balance of sales and listings meant continued market stability this spring.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential property sales in Greater Vancouver reached 2,882 on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in May 2013. This represents a one per cent increase compared to the 2,853 sales recorded in May 2012, and a 9.7 per cent increase compared to the 2,627 sales in April 2013.

Last month’s sales were 19.4 per cent below the 10-year sales average for the month, while new listings for the month were 7.4 percent below the 10-year average.

“We’ve seen some steadying trends over the last three months,” Sandra Wyant, REBGV president said. “The number of homes listed for sale has been keeping pace with the number of property sales, leading to a balanced sales-to-listings ratio. This is having a stabilizing influence on home price activity.” 

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties in Greater Vancouver totalled 5,656 in May. This represents an 18.3 per cent decline compared to the 6,927 new listings reported in May 2012 and a 3.7 per cent decline from the 5,876 new listings in April of this year.

The total number of properties currently listed for sale on the MLS® in Greater Vancouver is 17,222, a 3.4 per cent decrease compared to May 2012 and a 2.9 per cent increase compared to April 2013.

The sales-to-active-listings ratio currently sits at 17 per cent in Greater Vancouver. This is the third straight month that this ratio has been above 15 per cent. Previous to this, May 2012 was the last time this ratio was above 15 per cent.

The MLS® Home Price Index composite benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver is currently $598,400. This represents a decline of 4.3 per cent compared to this time last year and an increase of 1.8 per cent compared to January 2013.

Sales of detached properties reached 1,212 in May 2013, an increase of 2.7 per cent from the 1,180 detached sales recorded in May 2012, and a 22.8 per cent decrease from the 1,570 units sold in May 2011. The benchmark price for detached properties decreased 5.2 per cent from May 2012 to $917,200.

Continued Sales of apartment properties reached 1,136 in May 2013, a decline of 1.7 per cent compared to the 1,156 sales in May 2012, and a decrease of 7.5 per cent compared to the 1,228 sales in May
2011. The benchmark price of an apartment property decreased 3.7 per cent from May 2012 to $365,600. Attached property sales in May 2013 totalled 534, an increase of 3.3 per cent compared to the 517 sales in May 2012, and a 7.8 per cent decrease from the 579 attached properties sold in May 2011. The benchmark price of an attached unit decreased 3.2 per cent between May 2012 and 2013 to $454,900.

The real estate industry is a key economic driver in British Columbia. In 2012, 25,032 homes changed ownership in the Board’s area generating $1.07 billion in economic spin-off activity and creating an estimated 7,125 jobs. The total dollar value of residential sales transacted throughout the MLS® system in Greater Vancouver totalled $18.6 billion in 2012. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver is an association representing more than 11,000 REALTORS® and their companies. The Board provides a variety of member services, including the Multiple Listing Service®.

Complete Report:

http://issuu.com/annaasi/docs/rebgv_stats_package_may_2013/1

Canadian home sales rise in April

Canadian home sales rise in April

 

According to statistics released today by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), national home sales edged up slightly on a month-over-month basis in April 2013. Activity has generally held to within short reach of current levels for the past nine months.

Highlights:

• National home sales rose 0.6% from March to April.
• Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity came in 3.1% below levels in April 2012.
• The number of newly listed homes fell 0.9% from March to April.
• The Canadian housing market remains firmly in balanced territory.
• The national average sale price rose 1.3% on a year-over-year basis in April.
• The MLS® HPI rose 2.2% in April, its smallest gain in more than two years.

Growing Interest in Vancouver Real Estate from China Prompts Vancouver Movers & Overseas Relocation Specialists to Overhaul their 2013 Online Marketing Strategy

Growing Interest in Vancouver Real Estate from China Prompts Vancouver Movers & Overseas Relocation Specialists to Overhaul their 2013 Online Marketing Strategy

2013 reports indicate that real estate in Vancouver remains a hot commodity for investors and new migrants from China with many expecting this trend to continue into the near future. Vancouver movers Best Choice Moving specializes in overseas relocations and in a reaction to recent reports has launched a new website to better communicate with and help capture both local and overseas customers that are considering a move to Greater Vancouver.

On May 22, 2013 the Epoch Times reported on the international surge of funds and migration flowing from China, much of which has labeled the port city of Vancouver as its primary target. Vancouver real estate has long been popular with overseas parties in China that look not only for investment opportunities but seek a place for their families to migrate to. While such activities keep local real estate professionals on their toes in hopes of accommodating this demand, other industries are also immediately impacted by the trend. Vancouver moving companies that offer overseas relocation services in particular are directly affected. For Best Choice Moving, a Vancouver moving and storage provider that specializes in overseas relocations, focusing marketing efforts in this direction is essential. Because of this, Best Choice Moving understood that it was time to launch a new website to better communicate their services to their audience – local and international alike.

In addition to local residential, retail, and office relocations, Ben Wang of Best Choice Moving is proud to state that as Vancouver movers they have long been a part of the overseas moving process for many businesses and families migrating from China. While Ben positions that Best Choice Moving indeed caters to all demographics and contingencies in the diverse market of Greater Vancouver, his team does in fact consider themselves to be specialists in overseas relocations.

As a multilingual company, Best Choice Moving has been able to easily cross the communication barrier with those seeking to move from China to Canada. Ben credits word of mouth and networking to be a big key to the success of Best Choice Moving thus far in the realm of overseas moving but will also admit that this very same strength may have been a weakness in their digital marketing strategy. With so much business coming from referrals their website did not keep up with the demands of today’s online community, until this month that is. In the first week of May 2013 Best Choice Moving secured the services of a Vancouver website marketing firm and built a brand new website to capture the online attention of both local and overseas parties considering moves to Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Ben Wang comments, “It’s easy to get caught up in the word of mouth success that we have created for Best Choice Moving within the international communities within Greater Vancouver. Reviewing recent statistics regarding continued migration from China towards Vancouver real estate was a wake-up call. We had to remind ourselves that there was an entire audience out there looking for overseas Vancouver movers online and the websites that communicate their service better than the rest would be the ones to capture this demand. Best Choice Moving is proud to announce that we have not only joined the party, we now have a superiorly optimized website that clearly defines our ability to accommodate overseas interest from China.”

Best Choice Moving encourages anyone considering a business or household relocation for either themselves or for family located overseas to contact their Vancouver moving and storage company today for an estimate.

ABOUT Best Choice Moving
Best Choice Moving understands the international/overseas moving process in depth because we have been serving households and businesses in this capacity for many years. We work with many diverse ethnic communities within Greater Vancouver and understand that developing trust and clear communication is important in achieving an optimum overseas relocation. Overseas moves are huge undertakings for any home or business. Be sure to secure international movers Vancouver area residences and businesses have been turning to for years.

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Courtesy of PRWeb

Almost half of Canadians are keen to buy property, despite cooling market

 

Almost half of Canadians are keen to buy property, despite cooling market

 

 

A new report suggests nearly half of Canadian homeowners intend to buy a property in the next five years, despite a cooling off in the housing market.

The BMO Housing Confidence Report says the 48% figure is mostly unchanged from late 2012, suggesting continued confidence in the housing market.

Among major cities, the report found a five-point gain in buying intentions in Vancouver while Calgary was down by 13 points.

Buying intentions in the Greater Toronto Area and Montreal have held steady, while Atlantic Canada has seen a 15% jump in buying intentions.

The bank‘s report further suggests close to half of all homeowners under 40 intend to purchase a larger home within the next five years.

Ten percent of homeowners plan to buy a recreational property in the next five years, down two points from last fall.

“The relative strength of the Canadian housing market continues to bolster homeowners confidence, said Martin Nel, BMO‘s vice president of lending and investments.

The BMO report by Pollara was based on online interviews with a random sample of 1,008 Canadian homeowners between Feb. 21-27.

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Flaherty discounts fears over housing market, calls slowdown a ‘healthy’ development

 

Flaherty discounts fears over housing market, calls slowdown a ‘healthy’ development

 

OTTAWA — Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is dismissing fears about Canada’s housing market, saying the current slowdown is welcome news and that there is no need for further government intervention.

While some observers are expressing fears that a steep correction is underway that will bring down housing values and possibly affect bank credit ratings, Flaherty said Tuesday that he believes government mortgage tightening last July actually helped avert what could have turned into a housing bubble.

“I’m comfortable about where we are,” he said in a telephone interview from France where he announced new government financing for the construction of a visitor’s centre at the Vimy Ridge war memorial.

“I’m pleased in particular that the condo market in big cities has fallen back. I’m also pleased with some other moderation in new house construction and in demand for mortgages. I think these are healthy developments because I think we were beginning to see some indications of the beginning of a bubble.”

He called the recent slowdown “healthy” and at least in part a consequence of his decision to tighten mortgage rules last July.

A new Teranet house price report released Tuesday showed home price increases slipped to two per cent in April from 2.6 per cent in March. Analysts noted that was the weakest performance since the recession for April, traditionally a good month for sales and prices.

While home sales have fallen nationally, and starts are now in the 180,000 a year range, well down from over 200,000 last year, home prices have stubbornly resisted that trend in most markets.

However, analysts note that prices are often the last indicator to kick in when a residential market falls, and some have speculated that prices could plunge by as much as 25 per cent, even further in the overheated Vancouver market.

The Office of Superintendent of Financial Institutions has told banks it is looking at their holdings of non-insured mortgages — those with at least 20 per cent equity — to determine the systemic risk should values plunge.

But Flaherty said he has no plans to further tighten government-backed mortgages for homebuyers with as little as a five per cent down payment. After tightening rules four times in the past four years, Flaherty said he has done enough.

“I’m not going to intervene in the mortgage market, I don’t need to,” he said.

Over the weekend, Flaherty participated in a Group of Seven meeting in England, where he warned about waning resolve to reduce deficits and debt among southern European countries.

Flaherty said he had not changed his mind even though austerity is being blamed for depressing growth and in some cases exacerbating governmental deficits, since lower growth usually means lower tax revenues and higher costs.

Northern European countries agree with his position, he said, describing the U.S. stance on fiscal restraint as “ambiguous.” “If you don’t get your fiscal situation correct in government, then you can forget about getting education, health-care, research and development and other important initiatives because you won’t have the fiscal means to do it.”

As well, governments risk not having the means to respond to the next economic crisis, he warned.

The minister said that governments can still stimulate economic activity while controlling spending.

“As I said to my G7 colleagues, it isn’t an all or nothing game, it’s about trying to get the right balance,” he explained, pointing out that his March budget retained previously-introduced austerity measures while committing funds to infrastructure projects and job training.

From Canada’s perspective, he says the government remains committed to balancing the budget in 2015.

Going forward, Flaherty said next month’s G8 (including Russia) meeting in Northern Ireland will again seek to tackle the issue of country hopping by multinational corporations seeking the best tax advantage.

“We’re all agreed we have to make sure that large corporations that operate globally pay their fair share of tax and that they don’t try to use one or the other of our jurisdictions not to pay their fair share. We are firmly resolved on that,” he said.

 

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Housing starts in Metro Vancouver remain strong despite lower sales, according to CMHC

Housing starts in Metro Vancouver remain strong despite lower sales, according to CMHC

Metro Vancouver housing starts trend lower

Housing stats in Metro Vancouver were up in 2012 over 2011, but Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says starts are trending lower.

“For several months, the trend numbers have been coming down,” said Robyn Adamache, CMHC’s senior market analyst for Vancouver. “The pace is starting to slow a bit.”

The trend measure is a six-month average of seasonally adjusted annualized numbers. Adamache said it was fairly stable through 2012, with between 18,000 and 20,000 annualized starts each month.

“This trend is expected to continue into 2013, with 19,100 total housing starts forecast for the year,” Adamache said.

There were 19,027 housing starts in Metro Vancouver for the year 2012, up more than six per cent from the year and from the 10-year average, CMHC reported.

In December, there were 1,187 starts, including 251 single-detached houses and 936 multi-family units. The ten-year average for December is 1,275, Adamache said.

For the year, single-family starts were down 8.2 per cent, while multi-family starts were up 10.3 per cent, according to CMHC.

“I think developers in Vancouver have shown themselves to be very quick at responding to consumer trends,” Adamache said. “I think you see that in the types of homes that are being built. There is more demand for more affordable, lower-priced homes.”

She said Vancouver’s rental vacancy rate is 0.9 per cent, which is very low — a boon to real estate investors.

“Because there is a good, strong rental market, people are buying multiple-unit homes as de facto rental properties that they will hold onto and rent out as investment properties,” Adamache said. “That’s part of the reason we’re seeing more multiple-units.”

Nationally, housing starts declined for the fourth consecutive month in December.

The pace of housing starts slowed by a modest 1.7 per cent last month to 197,976 on an annual basis, the fourth drop in as many months, CMHC said. The decline was less than analysts expected.

On Tuesday, Canada’s leading bankers judged the country’s real estate market as “relatively solid” despite the slowdown and concerns about overbuilding in the condominium segment, forecasting that 2013 would see a “soft landing” in the market.

But December’s relatively strong numbers also gave skeptics more reason to warn of a future reckoning.

David Madani of Capital Economics said Canada’s real estate market is exhibiting the same cracks as the United States before the 2007 crash.

While lower, December’s starts were still well above the 175,000 to 185,000 annual growth requirement needed to accommodate population growth. Meanwhile, sales are heading south. Vancouver sales are down 31.1 per cent from last year, while Toronto resales of existing properties have fallen 19.5 per cent from a year ago.

“The upshot is that too many housing units have and are still being built, excesses that will eventually upset the balance of demand and supply,” Madani warned. “We will stand by our long-held view that home prices are likely to fall by around 25 per cent over the next year or two.”

Bank of Montreal economist Robert Kavcic said he expects homebuilding activity to slow to about 180,000 this year, which “would meet underlying demographic demand, and be just the scenario that policy-makers ordered.”

 

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Vancouver suburbs continue to attract home buyers at slow steady pace

The lure of smaller centres outside Vancouver is, and always has been, affordability, realtors say

Derek Love is gearing up for another busy year selling real estate in suburban Vancouver.

After a brief lull in business in the latter half of 2012, when properties lingered on the market a little longer than usual and prices stalled, activity is once again starting to pick up.

“We’ve noticed, in the month of December, a lot more confidence. We are getting calls for from all different types of buyers who are eager and asking questions about homes we’ve had for sale for six months,” said Love, who’s worked for 20 years primarily in the Tri-Cities for the family-run firm Coldwell Banker Love Realty.

The slow times don’t worry him too much.

The allure of places like Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody is, and has always been, affordability.

Where property prices in some areas of Vancouver, West Vancouver, Richmond and Burnaby climbed by as much as 30 per cent last year, prices in the Tri-Cities and New Westminster stayed the course.

“We didn’t really have that big increase,” said Love, noting $600,000 to $800,000 will still buy “a really good family home — well kept, basement suite, nice yard, quiet street.”

Now that the 2013 assessments are out, that slow and steady pace is once again reflected in the numbers.

According to B.C. Assessment, the total change in assessed property values, as of July 1, 2012, was about five per cent in Coquitlam, Surrey and New Westminster.

Changes were more notable in Vancouver, which rose just two per cent this year, and Richmond, which dipped 0.64 per cent.  

The total change includes assessed values of existing properties, new construction, and other factors such as renovations and rezoning.

Katrina Amurao, a realtor with Re/Max 2000 Realty, said the stability in Surrey’s market is driven largely by an equally strong demand for and supply of single-family homes.

“There are a lot of them and they are selling,” she said.

Amurao said the average price of a single-family home in Surrey in December 2012 was $560,000 — a figure virtually unchanged from twelve months earlier.

“The prices here have not necessarily been jumping the way they did in Vancouver,” she said.

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