Strong jobs market and low interest rates continue to be the story, industry spokesman says
Bruce Constantineau
Sun
The Greater Vancouver housing market showed its traditional February surge last month, with Multiple Listing Service sales jumping 80 per cent over January activity to 3,068 sales.
The February rebound mirrored last year’s market, when a slow January sales period of 1,954 sales was followed by 3,067 sales the following month.
“A strong jobs market and low interest rates continue to be the story,” said Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver president Andrew Peck. “A good economy can only be good news for the housing market.”
Peck said prices continue to rise this year after levelling off last fall.
“As long as we have these conditions, lots of people will continue to put their money in real estate,” he said. “We saw price increases of 20 per cent in the past two years so it would not be unreasonable to see a 10-per-cent increase this year.”
The board said the benchmark price of a detached Greater Vancouver home has increased by 9.4 per cent in the past year to $491,800. The benchmark price of a townhouse has increased 11.9 per cent to $314,100 while the price of an apartment rose 11.4 per cent to $242,400.
Bright spots in the Greater Vancouver market last month included Burnaby, where the number of apartment sales rose 56 per cent from a year ago to 186 units, and East Vancouver, where the number of apartment sales increased 29 per cent from last year to 143 units.
Total Greater Vancouver MLS house sales during the first two months of this year are down about five per cent from last year’s levels to 4,768 sales. The board reported nearly 7,500 listings appeared on the MLS in January and February, a seven-per-cent increase over the listings inventory a year ago.
The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board reported that February MLS sales rose by 74 per cent over January to 1,464 sales, down about 10 per cent from February 2004.
Board president Jake Siemens said the market is steady now and he doesn’t expect a huge increase in prices this year. The board’s housing price index has increased by about 10 per cent in the past year.
He said single-family homes priced below $300,000 are very popular among buyers now and noted the listings inventory of homes for sale remains healthy, giving potential buyers more options. The board said nearly 2,200 new listings were added in February, creating more than 6,000 active listings.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005