Category: B.C. Real Estate News

This article was written by Derrick Penner of the Vancouver Sun today. The Kamloops real estate market has seen downward pressure on housing prices over the last nine months. This article states that we will see continued pressure on housing prices for some time to come. Read below for the full story.

While British Columbia real estate sales have lifted from last fall’s dismal lows, market oversupply and deteriorating economic conditions will still pressure prices downwards, according to Scotia Economics.

March and April saw “pretty strong sales volumes” across the country, said Adrienne Warren, a senior economist with Scotia Economics, the Bank of Nova Scotia’s economic-research division. However, “prices are not really firming up [in B.C.] as we’ve seen in some other parts of the country,” she said Tuesday. “There is still a bit of correction going on in a lot of western markets: Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, where they are still working through some overshooting of prices and excess supply.” That, she added, will mean “a little more downward pressure on prices” than what is occurring in central and Atlantic Canada.

The area of Metro Vancouver covered by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver saw 2,963 sales recorded through the realtor-operated Multiple Listing Service in April, which was down eight per cent from the 3,218 sales recorded in April 2008. That number, however, represented a 31-per-cent jump over March 2009 sales, a month that typically shows more sales than April.

And while Metro Vancouver’s main real estate board reported that inventories of new, unsold listings declined for the sixth straight month, Warren said Vancouver still has an oversupply of unsold homes, both among new homes under construction and in the resale market. “It was a much more unbalanced market six months ago,” Warren said, “and we’re beginning to see a fairly sharp drop-off in new listings.”

That drop, she added, shows that Canadians, in general, aren’t being forced into selling homes or being foreclosed on like troubled buyers in the United States.

At the same time, according to Scotia Economics’ calculations, the pace of MLS home sales to April in Metro Vancouver, expressed as an annualized figure, is running almost 25 per cent below the pace of sales in 2008. Scotia Economics’ average price in Metro Vancouver of $494,485, also expressed on an annualized basis, is down 17 per cent from an annualized average price of $593,767 in 2008. “You’ll probably see prices stabilize over the next six months,” Warren said, “at least by the end of the year.”

She anticipates prices will continue that stable trend in 2010 without much of a sharp rebound, largely because of B.C.’s deteriorating economic conditions and rising unemployment. “Low interest rates, tax incentives by the federal government and more choice in the marketplace have done what they should in a cyclical pattern,” Warren said, “which is bringing buyers back into the market.” “But you’ve got to remember the gains we’re seeing are after very low levels late last year.” The report said a rise in demand and drop in new listings has resulted in the market moving closer to “balanced.”

Here is an article published today by Derrick Penner of the Vancouver Sun.

Sales in British Columbia’s real estate market so far in 2008 are about half of what they were a year ago, although the pace has risen from a particularly dismal low point, according to the British Columbia Real Estate Association.

In February, B.C. recorded 3,653 sales through the Multiple Listing Service, down almost 47 per cent from February 2008. The average property price of $421,023 was down 12 per cent. Over the first two months, B.C. saw 5,768 sales, down 51 per cent from the same period in 2008. The pace of sales, however, increased 17 per cent in February, association economist Cameron Muir said in an interview, to a seasonally-adjusted annualized rate of 47,000 sales from the low of 40,200 units in January.

Recreation-oriented markets such as the Okanagan, Kamloops, Kootenays and Vancouver Island — which boomed in recent years due to an influx of wealthy Alberta buyers — are seeing some of the steepest declines. “That’s not surprising,” Muir said. “Recreational-property and investment buying decisions are much more easily put off.” Alberta is suffering its own economic contraction with consequent job losses, and Muir said Albertans have seen their property markets and values decline, curbing their enthusiasm for discretionary purchases.

The Okanagan Mainline board, which includes Kelowna, saw 230 MLS sales in February, down 60 per cent from the same month a year ago. The region’s average price of $276,776 was down 28 per cent from February 2008.

In Kamloops, MLS sales plummeted by almost 60 per cent to 92 units compared with the same month a year ago. There, the average price was down almost 14 per cent to $277,088.

The South Okanagan board, which includes the summer hot spots of Osoyoos and Penticton, saw sales drop almost 59 per cent to 61 units in February. The average price dipped just over 10 per cent to $283,634.

Vancouver Island saw its sales dip almost 50 per cent to 328 units compared with February 2008. The average price was down just over 11 per cent to $291,085.

Muir said that given the weakness of B.C.’s economy, he would expect real-estate sales levels to be similar to those during the downturn of the late 1990s. He said that means there is room for more activity in the market from current levels, which mirror the recession of the early 1980s. He said buyers are being drawn in by declining prices, and low mortgage rates have helped reduce the carrying cost of an average home to a three-year low. However, Muir still expects 2009 sales to drop from 2008 levels and has forecast that the decline will be about nine per cent. “A rebound in home sales [in 2009] over past highs is not on the radar,” Muir added.

I found the article below on the Vancouver Sun’s website by Derrick Penner. The Kamloops real estate market has recently seen a bit of a pick up in the number of buyers actively looking for a home as well as the number of sales reported. I personally have seen an increase in the number of first time home buyers beginning to search. In the last few weeks there has been a few good days of reported sales from the Kamloops Real Estate Board, but we are still reporting sales down around the 2003 levels. Read the article below detailing the Ipsos Reid survey on the conditions of the real estate market in BC.

The poll found that some 71 per cent of respondents said it is a somewhat good or very good time to buy real estate. More people thinking about buying real estate, but majority say it’s not a good time to sell property. In November, only 60 per cent of respondents told Ipsos Reid it was a good time to buy. In the latest poll, 82 per cent said now is not a good time to sell a home. Hanson Lok, senior research manager at Ipsos Reid in Vancouver, said as market conditions improve for buyers, there also seems to be a growing number of British Columbians gathering on the sidelines to contemplate buying new homes.

Three in 10 respondents said they were considering a purchase in the next two years, up from 20 per cent when the same question was asked in November. “We are seeing a greater number of first-time home buyers in particular looking to take advantage of more affordable homes, incentives from the government and lower costs of borrowing,” Lok said in a news release. The new poll also found that British Columbians’ expectations for falling prices have been muted since November.

While the B.C. Real Estate Association has forecast price declines of 13 per cent in 2009 and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is predicting drops of around 10 per cent in Metro Vancouver, only 42 per cent of respondents to the recent Ipsos Reid poll said they expected prices to be lower 12 months from now. That is down from November, when 57 per cent said prices would be lower a year later.

Across the Lower Mainland, including Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, respondents’ expectations were for a further 2.3-per-cent decline in prices. Across the rest of B.C., respondents believe prices will drop another four per cent. Statistics Canada reported new-home price data for December showing that in Metro Vancouver, prices had fallen 2.3 per cent from the same month a year ago.

Vancouver’s price decline was the fourth steepest among cities on the downside of their cycles following Victoria, Calgary and Edmonton, which saw the steepest year-over-year drop of 8.2 per cent. Victoria’s decline in December was about three per cent from the same month a year ago. Nationally, the housing price index declined by one-tenth of a percentage point from November to December, which weighed on gains made in the measure over the year. The national HPI for December was up 0.4 per cent compared with the same month a year ago.