Prices crash in sharper August slowdown
Paul Luke
Province
A cooling economy combined with the summer doldrums to hammer real-estate activity across the Lower Mainland last month.
Residential property sales in Greater Vancouver plummeted 53.7 per cent to 1,568 in August from 3,384 the same month a year earlier, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said yesterday.
And the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board reported a 48-per-cent drop in sales last month to 910 from 1,763 in the same month in 2007.
In Greater Vancouver, detached homes plunged 58.5 per cent to 535 in August from 1,288 in the same month in 2007, the Greater Vancouver board said.
Year-over-year condo sales swooned 50.8 per cent to 740, while townhouse sales dropped 50.5 per cent to 293.
August is typically the slowest month of the year in real estate but this year’s slowdown was much more dramatic.
Greater Vancouver board president Dave Watt said properties, on average, stayed on the market longer last month than the board has seen in recent years.
“As the market heads into the traditionally more active fall season, we have begun to see property listings recede and prices moderate,” Watt said.
The benchmark price for a detached home in Greater Vancouver has fallen 4.3 per cent since May to $737,985 but is up 1.6 per cent from August 2007.
The benchmark price for a condo in Greater Vancouver fell 3.9 per cent to $374,366 from May to August.
Active listings in the Fraser Valley soared 51 per cent to 11,770 in August from the same month last year. But that number was four per cent lower than the record 12,299 listings notched in July.
The average price of detached homes in the Fraser Valley has posted a six-month decline of 1.5 per cent but, at $541,795, is up 2.8 per cent from a year earlier, the board said.
The average price of Fraser Valley townhomes climbed 0.3 per cent to $321,955 in August from the same month last year.
Fraser Valley board president Kelvin Neufeld said the typical summer-market slumber and consumer caution have resulted in the best buying conditions in the valley in more than a decade.
“Selection is at record levels,” Neufeld said. “Interest rates remain competitive while prices have moderated.”
B.C.’s economic growth will slow to less than two per cent this year and next, according to a revised forecast released last week by Central 1 Credit Union.
That performance will be the economy’s weakest since 2001, Central 1 said.
“Residential-housing activity is declining this year and will drop more noticeably in 2009 and again to a much lesser extent in 2010,” Central 1 said.
“For this cycle, the high points for housing sales and prices have been reached and the downturn in new construction will last to 2010.
“After that, housing starts will begin a modest upturn.”
© The Vancouver Province 2008