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The housing market is still very active but has certainly eased away from near record-setting paces. With a sales to listing ratio of 23%, our seller’s market persits as inventory remains low with a slight increase in sales, but fairly typical for May.

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties in Greater Vancouver totalled 5,931 in May 2011. This represents a 15.4 per cent decrease compared to May 2010 when 7,014 properties were listed for sale on the MLS®. New listings for May 2011, increased marginally by 1.4% compared to April 2011.

Residential property sales of detached, attached and apartment properties in Greater Vancouver reached 3,377 in May 2011, a 7% increase compared to the 3,156 sales in May 2010 and a 4.7 per cent…

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has revised its forecast for home sales activity (2011 & 2012) due to the unexpected Q1 surge of activity in Greater Vancouver. National sales activity is now expected to reach 441,100 units in 2011, a decline of 1.3 per cent from 2010. This is a slight improvement from the 1.6 per cent decline forecast by CREA in February.

“The extent to which high priced sales activity in Vancouver will pitch up the average price locally, for British Columbia and nationally will likely diminish in the next couple of months in line with a seasonal increase in national activity,” Klump added. “That said, foreign investment in Vancouver residential real estate is showing no signs of slowing, so it seems likely to remain a…

In contrast to the near record pace witnessed at the beginning of this year, the Vancouver real estate market seems to be normalizing. With increased inflation and rising interest rates, sales are slowing particularitly in the entry level condo market; however prices are still on the rise and the market continues to be very active.

Along with a decline in the number of new listings, the frenzy of last month’s activity brought a greater balance to supply and demand. The Greater Vancouver area saw a 23.5% drop in new listings compared to last April, and a 14% decline compared to last month. The year over year drop can be attributed to a less active condo market as there were slightly more detached and townhouse sales this April compared to last.

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First-time buyers contribute to strong upward momentum in residential housing markets across the country. This demographic typically accounts for 40-60% of the homes purchased in any given real estate market. However, recent changes to financing criteria that came into effect in March, didn’t really create the anticipated frenzy in activity. Most rookie home buyers remain practical and are buying within their means – the message is getting across while having a negligible effect on demand.

During the first two months of this year, there were 5000 homes sold in Vancouver, and over 45% of those homes were condos priced under $500,000, clearly indicating continued strength in the first-time home buyer market and this trend hasn’t declined in the midst of…

Vancouver is in the midst of a strong spring in real estate as home buyers continue to enter the housing market at near record levels. There have been 4,080 sales in March, 2011 which represents a 31.7% increase compared to February, 2011 and an increase of 30.1% compared to March, 2010. The all-time sales record for March was in 2004 when 4,371 real estate transactions occurred.

So, what's driving the high-end real estate market in Vancouver? Investment class immigrants from Mainland China looking to move here in the next 2-3 years. They are required to have a Canadian investment of at least 800K and need to show a net worth of 1.6 million dollars. With good schools and safe neighbourhoods these buyers are mainly focused on Westside homes.

Multiple…

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association’s (CREA) news release yesterday, the national average price for homes sold in February 2011, increased by 8.8% compared to the previous month. However, if you take Vancouver out of the mix, it drops to 3.4%. In addition to a strong pre-spring market, there have been a record number of multi-million dollar sales in Vancouver resulting in bidding wars.

In Vancouver, looking at detached properties over the 3 million dollar mark, the community with the highest level of activity is Shaughnessy. In February there were 18 homes sold between $3,045,000 and $7,850,000. The total amount of real estate sold was just under 77 million; the average price being $4,277,000. Three of these homes sold in multiple offer…

For the past two months, the number of properties listed and those sold on the Multiple Listing Service® in Greater Vancouver crushed the 10-year average. Residential sales of detached, attached and apartment properties in February, 2011 increased by 70% over January, 2011 and 25% compared to February 2010.

Simply broken out, Vancouver home sales look like this:

The benchmark price for detached properties in Vancouver increased 6% from February 2010 to $848,645; attached increased 2.3% to $507,118 and condos increased 2.2% to…

Congrats, we did it Vancouver! But really, did you ever doubt that we are living in the best city on Earth?

Vancouver topped the Economist Intelligence Unit's list for the fifth year running with a score of 98 (out of a possible 100). The EIU ranks 140 cities around the world using 30 indicators including healthcare, stability, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. No doubt that the successful hosting of the Winter Olympics and Paralympics provided an extra boost to our overall score.

Australia marginally outranked Canada, holding the majority of top ten positions with 4; Melbourne came in at number 2, Sydney at 7, Perth at 8, and Adelaide at 9. But Canadians can feel a bit of pride too having filled 3 of those positions; Toronto…

Resulting from lower listing levels, housing values in Vancouver and much of Canada are expected to continue to climb; a supporting factor being the many instances of multiple offers in certian Greater Vancouver sub-areas this year. We believe Vancouver can anticipate a strong spring market even though sales figures will likely be off 2010's active pace due to mortgage changes and rising interest rates.

Feel free to view the entire REMAX New Release.

Attention to Google Chome users: right click on the link to open PDF files while Google and Adobe work things out ;)  

Vancouver had a huge increase of real estate passing the million dollar mark, in fact, 7996 more homes this year are worth more than 1 million dollars compared to 2010. There is a total of 37,131 homes in Vancouver that are worth over a million, 550 homes worth over 5 million and a staggering 75 homes worth over 10 million.

North Vancouver City and District has 5,736 properties over a million dollars, with an increase of 2,553 homes added to that list compared to 2010. There are 9 homes in North Vancouver worth over 5 million dollars.

West Vancouver has a whopping 10,826 properties worth over a million, 2,053 of those passing the million mark this year. There are 258 homes in West Van worth over 5 million dollars and 28 homes that are worth more than…