Vancouver Leads the Country
Vancouver leads the real estate trend and dragged the average price of an existing home in Canada lower last month.
The August sales numbers from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show 3 consecutive monthly drops in existing-home prices. This will be the largest decline in more than nine years.
Sales fell by 53.4 per cent in greater Vancouver in August compared with the year before, and average prices dropped by 4 per cent for both detached homes and condo units, to $737,985 and $374,366, respectively.
This is following July’s overall housing unit sales drop of 44 per cent.
According to Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., the cooling of the Vancouver market is the most “disturbing” figure in a series of recently released housing data, including national new-home prices, building permit applications and housing starts.
“The drop was pretty serious, especially coming on the back of a big sales drop there the month before. When you’ve got sales for your most expensive city falling like that, that’s going to knock the stuffing out of the national average,” he said. “The other [economic] data was a little better than expected, but it can be choppy from month to month, and continues to show the market is cooling.”
The market here in Vancouver is still ridiculously high – but there’s hope for those of us waiting for this correction to play out.
I am betting prices will be down at least 20% by next spring.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
$737,985 is still insanely high for homes that are essentially 2-3 bedroom teardowns in East Van.