Posted on January 27, 2010 at 03:40:23 PM by Audrey

The Vancouver Sun

OTTAWA -- Sales of existing homes reached a record high for the month of December, according the Canadian Real Estate Association, with annual sales coming in above 2008 levels.

 “Sales activity in 2009 came in like a lamb and went out like a lion,” CREA president Dale Ripplinger said in a release Friday.

 “The continuation of unusually low interest rates may keep national sales activity near current levels over the coming months, as will a blip in housing demand in Ontario and British Columbia from homebuyers motivated to beat the introduction of the HST (harmonized sales tax).”

 There were 27,744 units sold in December, up 72% from a year earlier “when activity dropped to the lowest level in a decade,” CREA said.

 Record highs for the month were reported in Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador, the industry group said.

 There were 465,251 homes sold last year, up 7.7% from 2008 to the fourth highest annual level on record.

 On an annual basis, sales were still down 10.7% in 2009 from the peak reached in 2007.

 © Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

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Posted on January 27, 2010 at 01:40:40 PM by Audrey

The Vancouver Sun

OTTAWA — Housing starts were up in most parts of the country outside the Atlantic provinces in December, according to a report released Monday by the Conference Board of Canada.

 The report on metropolitan housing starts report showed a year-over-year increase in 17 of the 27 areas studied.

 Some of the biggest jumps were in London, Ont., where starts went from 826 in December 2008 to 3,259 in 2009; Saskatoon, which went from 916 to 2,285; Edmonton, where starts took a year-over-year leap from 4,990 to 12,539; and Victoria, where work began on 1,666 houses in December, 2009, compared to 486 in the same month in 2008.

 The short-term expectation for Ottawa's housing market changed to positive from a negative ranking in November — joining 11 other cities, from Halifax to Abbotsford, where both short-term and long-term prospects for housing starts look good. Short-term expectations are based on residential permits data, while long-term outlooks are based on demographic requirements.

 The board notes that short-term prospects are less positive in Sudbury, Ont., Toronto, Hamilton, Ont., Winnipeg and Vancouver, while Quebec, Montreal, Trois-Rivieres, Que., Sherbrooke, Que., and Ottawa-Gatineau are expected to fare less well in the long term.

 There are five cities where housing starts are not expected to grow significantly in either the short or the long term: St. John's, N.L., Saint John, N.B., Saguenay, Que., Kingston, Ont., and Thunder Bay, Ont.

 • HOUSING STARTS: December 2008 / December 2009

 St. John's, N.L. 2,135 / 2,073

 Halifax 1,573 / 1,411

 Saint John, N.B. 570 / 450

 Quebec 4,864 / 7,807

 Montreal 15,337 / 24,703

 Trois-Rivieres 904 / 1,312

 Saguenay 759 / 720

 Sherbrooke 1,178 / 1,267

 Ottawa-Gatineau 8,685 / 12,559

 Kingston 1,275 / 778

 Sudbury 260 / 527

 Thunder Bay 110 / 128

 Oshawa 1,119 / 2,034

 Toronto 36,537 / 22,578

 Hamilton 1,647 / 3,121

 St. Catharines 615 / 1,088

 Kitchener-Waterloo 1,971 / 3,112

London 826 / 3,259

 Windsor 531 / 501

 Winnipeg 16,614 / 2,171

 Regina 857 / 2,036

 Saskatoon 916 / 2,285

 Calgary 5,838 / 9,282

 Edmonton 4,990 / 12,539

 Vancouver 11,380 / 11,326

 Victoria 486 / 1,666

 Abbotsford 606 / 478

 Source: Conference Board of Canada

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Posted on December 03, 2009 at 12:27:00 PM by Audrey

Kamloops Daily News

 With B.C. and the rest of Canada gradually climbing out from a deep but short-lived recession two Kamloops developers are looking to the future with renewed confidence.

 While construction cranes creaked to a stop in many B.C. cities, including Vancouver and Kelowna, developers in Kamloops continued building and planning through the gloom Because of that confidence they are poised to sell condominiums under construction on both sides of the river. “We’re just over half sold on our residential and two-thirds on the commercial side,” said Mike Culos, developer of the Landmark One project at the corner of McGill Road and Summit Drive.

 On the North Shore, Library Square developer Casey VanDongen, opened show suite and marketing office on Northills Mall and has poured the second-floor concrete “We’ll be waterproofing that with the intention of completing the library in March.”

 Both projects represent major developments for Kamloops. The Library Square project will see 145 condominium units constructed along with a new North Shore library and commercial units on Tranquille Road.

 Buyers of the units will also qualify for a special City of Kamloops incentive designed to focus development downtown and the North Shore: For five years owners will pay no property taxes and for the following five they will pay reduced taxes.

 Culos’s Landmark One project calls for eventual construction of a 21-storey tower, what will be the city’s tallest building. To get there, he is starting with smaller buildings on the property. New owners will move into their new Landmark One units at the end of January. And Culos plans to have a show suite on the property ready by the first week of December. “That’s when we’ll sell to people who want to look, feel and touch.” Culos said he’s satisfied to be where he is on the project, considering the tough times for the world economy over the past 12 months.

 The location, where a new traffic signal was installed and will soon be in operation, will eventually be home to four buildings: the current 36-unit residential building plus commercial on the main floor; a twin of that building; an all-commercial building and the tower.

 Culos said he’s moving toward design for the commercial building, which he expects to sell quickly. The twin to the current building under construction will start once the residential units in the first building are about 80 per cent sold, Culos said. The Kelowna developer has a history of success in Kamloops, beginning with the Plaza Station development more than a decade ago. The South Shore building is more advanced and pre-sold units before last year’s economic crash.

 Van Dongen expects sales on Library Square to ignite with continued rock-bottom interest rates and an improving economy. His development firm, locally based Tri-City Contracting, is focusing on completing the library interior and finalizing working drawings for its residential portion. “We’re hoping to start framing on the residential as soon as spring breaks or a little earlier.”

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Posted on December 03, 2009 at 12:23:00 PM by Audrey

Kamloops Daily News

With one month to go until the end of 2009, construction values in Kamloops have climbed to $156 million.

That doesn’t hit last year’s record of almost $208 million, but it’s better than the average of about $120 million predicted earlier this year and it’s a solid figure in a recession year.

 In November alone, 24 permits were issued for single-family homes. During the same month in 2008, five permits were issued.

 For the first 11 months of this year, the City has issued 416 permits for houses of all types. One year ago, it was 573.

 Last month wasn’t so productive for commercial or institutional permits, adding up to $3 million compared with $9 million in November, 2008.

 But commercial and institutional construction for the past 11 months has almost kept pace with record-setting 2008, at $60.3 million compared with $61.7 million, respectively.

 Brian Hayashi of Nexbuild Construction Corp. said he switched from building houses to renovations, but work has been steady.

 “We’re small but we’re flat out now,” said the first vice-president of the Canadian Homebuilders Association Central Interior.

 Construction in Kamloops seems to have dodged much of the impact of the recession, although it did get slow during the summer, he said.

 “We just haven’t been as hard hit as other places. It started to pick up in September and it’s just maintained,” Hayashi said.

 “I’m really happy that everyone’s kind of plugging along. There is quite a bit of new building. I feared the worst, having gone through the ’81 times. I would hate for that to happen again. But this is nothing like that. It’s just kind of slowed a little.”

 He found lots of business when he switched to doing renovations.

 “There was such a pent-up demand. There still is,” he said. “We ended up working for people who had been waiting for somebody. . . . That kept us going, plus some commercial.”

 As a CHBA certified green builder, Hayashi said he’d like to focus on building energy-efficient homes. He believes demand for green houses is on the rise.

 “It’s still early days,” he said.

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Posted on December 03, 2009 at 09:55:00 AM by Audrey

The Canadian Press

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Residential real estate sales should recover in almost all major Canadian cities by the end of 2009, while average prices should post new records in an improved economic climate, according to a new housing report.

 The Re/Max Housing Market Outlook survey for 2010 predicts the uptick in sales will be lead by an anticipated 45 per cent increase in Greater Vancouver, while Ottawa and Quebec City are expected to hit historic highs in the number of homes sold.

 The report also says average prices are expected to improve in 65 per cent of markets as economic performance picks up.

 Eighty-three per cent of markets are expecting sales to increase over 2009 levels while housing values are predicted to rise in 91 per cent of Canadian centres in 2010. The remaining markets are predicted to match 2009 levels.

 The average price of a home is also expected to go up in the future, rising two per cent to $325,000.

 The Re/Max report examined residential real estate trends in 23 markets.

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Posted on November 25, 2009 at 12:32:00 PM by Audrey

November 24, 2009 in B.C. Real Estate News

The B.C. Real Estate Association recently released their 2009 Fall Housing Forecast. I have included the info specific to Kamloops below. You can also view the full PDF at the bottom of the page.

The Kamloops housing market is exhibiting balanced conditions and stable home prices, with buyers and sellers on equal footing. MLS® residential sales in Kamloops are estimated to decline 2 per cent this year to 2,200 units. However, an increasingly diversified local economy has lessened the impact of the recession and will contribute to a double digit rebound in home sales next year.

While an increase in home sales to end users has been evident of the past several months, recreation buyers have yet to come back into the market in significant force. Recreation buyers typically lag improved market conditions and are expected to increase their buying activity in 2010. MLS® residential sales are forecast to rise 18 per cent to 2,600 units in 2010. From a historical perspective, homes sales in 2010 will post a similar level to that recorded in the 2003-2004 period. Despite the financial crisis and a global recession, the average MLS® residential price in Kamloops is estimated to be down 2 per cent on an annual basis from a record $307,369 in 2008.

In contrast to the last 18 months, home prices in Kamloops are expected to be relatively stable in 2010, albeit forecast to climb 2 per cent to $308,000 as an annual average. Larger price appreciation in 2010 is less likely as improvement in the economy will be offset by expected increases in mortgage interest rates during the latter half of the year.

After declining 24 per cent in 2008, housing starts in the Kamloops CA are estimated to fall an additional 28 per cent to 415 units this year. A slowdown in the expansion of the housing stock helps support home prices in both the new and resale housing markets. However, lower inventory levels and stronger consumer demand is expected to induce increased new construction activity in 2010. A total of 545 housing starts are forecast for the Kamloops CA next year, with the largest increase occurring in single detached construction.

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Posted on November 25, 2009 at 11:50:00 AM by Audrey

Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER — It’s getting harder to buy a home in B.C. as an increasingly hot real estate market pushes prices higher, according to an RBC report on housing affordability released this morning.

According to the report, B.C. and Vancouver posted the biggest increases by far across Canada in the RBC index measures.

 “The cost of home ownership in B.C. increased in the third quarter following five consecutive declines — cumulatively the steepest drop since the early 1990s,” the report by RBC Economics Research concluded. “Notable rises in home prices in the province’s large urban centres and the modest pick-up in mortgage rates have boosted typical mortgage payments for the first time since early 2008.”

 Nationally, the report concludes that the cost of homeownership in Canada became more expensive for the first time since the spring of 2008 across all housing segments, according to the latest housing report released today by RBC Economics Research.

 “Home affordability deteriorated in all provinces and major markets in Canada due to a slight rise in key mortgage rates and appreciation in property values,” RBC senior economist Robert Hogue said in a statement. “Despite this increase in homeownership costs, affordability measures have still shown improvement from a year ago.”

 The report says the rally in the B.C. housing market since the lows reached in early 2009 “is now running up faster relative to the supply of homes available for sale — which was widely outstripping demand as recently as this spring — and has led to a firming trend in prices since summer.”

 It said these factors have contributed to rises in RBC’s affordability measures of between 1.2 and 2.9 percentage points in the third quarter.

 “As this development likely marks the end of the affordability restoration phase in the province, it appears that the cost of homeownership will remain well above long-term averages in B.C. This might emerge as a risk factor going forward.”

 For Vancouver, the report’s conclusions were even more striking.

 “The Vancouver housing market continues to roar back in a spectacular way and property prices are now heating up closer and closer to a boil,” the report says. “Resale activity has surged since spring and the rebound has more than fully reversed the dramatic drop that occurred in 2008. The concomitant rise in the number of units available for sale has been more subdued, which has considerably tightened the market. In fact, the ratio of sales to new listings has returned to levels last seen in 2005 and early 2006 when prices were rising at a double-digit annual pace.

 "This near-frenzied tone to the market is occurring despite still historically poor, and now deteriorating, levels of affordability. In the third quarter, RBC’s affordability measures for Vancouver worsened for the first time since early 2008, rising between 1.7 and 4.3 percentage points. These increases were, in fact, the biggest among major cities in Canada. Even though the affordability measures fell substantially during 2008 and early 2009, they remain well above long-term averages.”

 bmorton@vancouversun.com

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Posted on November 23, 2009 at 04:29:00 PM by Audrey

Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER - Consider what's happening in British Columbia real estate a bounce back, but not a boom, according to the B.C. Real Estate Association's latest forecast.

 Though association chief economist Cameron Muir expects sales across B.C. to have risen 20 per cent over 2008 levels by the end of the 2009 to 82,900 units, that is still far off sales of the boom years of 2002 to 2007.

 And it is a picture heavily influenced by near record low mortgage rates that have stimulated sales even during the recession, and by relatively higher levels of sales in the Lower Mainland.

 "The expectation this time coming out of recession [is that] first, economic recovery is going to be a slow and gradual affair," Muir said in an interview.

 "As a result, housing demand is going to be more in line with population growth and household growth number than it's going to [repeat] the kinds of increases we experienced during the 2002 to 2007 period."

 Muir's assessment for the B.C. Real Estate Association is the latest forecast predicting a continuation of the province's real-estate resurgence, albeit at below-peak levels.

 He noted that the 82,900 sales he expects to occur across B.C. this year will be close to B.C.'s 10 year average for annual sales, and next year's forecast 89,600 will only be an eight per cent increase from 2009.

 Prices, however, are "flirting with record highs" in some markets, which Muir said will again begin to squeeze buyers out of the market helping to moderate sales over the next year.

 Muir estimates that the provincial average home price will rise two pre cent from 2008 to a new record of $463,200 by the end of 2009, with 2010's average rising again to $482,800.

 depenner@vancouversun.com

 © Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

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Posted on November 23, 2009 at 04:28:00 PM by Audrey

Audrey

Kamloops Real Estate is still very affordable compared to many other communities in British Columbia. If you are thinking for buying a Kamloops home, Kamloops investment property or any Kamloops Real Estate make sure you get all the information first. Kamloops Home Team wants to help you buy your piece of Kamloops Real Estate. Call today to be set up to receive all the MLS listing directly to your email inbox for the criteria of Kamloops Real Estate you want. Call or email today to get your information on Kamloops Real Estate.

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Posted on November 20, 2009 at 09:33:00 AM by Audrey

Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER — In aggregate, British Columbians racked up the highest number of home sales for the month of October since 2003, the B.C. Real Estate Association reported Tuesday, but in the details it still looks more like a South Coast story.

Realtors cleared 8,624 sales through the Multiple Listing Service in October, up 115 per cent from the same month a year ago, but 44 per cent of all those sales, 3,767, were in the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver's territory.

 Those 3,767 sales in what is primarily Metro Vancouver, represented a 171-per-cent increase from October 2008.

It was a similar situation in the Fraser Valley, where 1,583 sales in October represented a 120-per-cent increase from the same month a year ago.

 In Victoria, the 691 sales recorded in October was a 135-per-cent advance from October 2008, and the board that covers Kelowna saw 597 sales, or a 109-per-cent increase.

“Certainly the recession is impacting the resource-oriented communities much harder than the large urban centres that have a much larger service component [to their economies],” Cameron Muir, the B.C. Real Estate Association’s chief economist, said in an interview.

 However, Muir said many of B.C.’s interior markets rely heavily on the activity of recreational-property purchasers, most of whom stayed out of the market during last winter’s collapse in sales and have yet to return.

Alluding to his forecast released last week, and the estimates of other forecasters, Muir said he expects that South Coast markets will not maintain the pace of sales they’ve seen over the past several months.

 Sales in those markets — Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and Victoria — are largely driven by the “pent-up” demand of buyers who sat out last fall and are now being drawn in by current low interest rates.

 Muir said that demand that built up is quickly being satisfied, and as prices in the Lower Mainland and Victoria rise, that will help to squeeze more buyers out of the market later in 2010 and act to slow sales.

 On a provincial basis, the average MLS home price was $493,328 in October, up 17 per cent from the same month a year ago.

 In Metro Vancouver, the average MLS home price was up 15 per cent to $638,948 compared with October 2008. In the Fraser Valley, average prices are up almost eight per cent to $445,637 compared with the same month a year ago.

 “If you look at sales-to-active-listing ratios we see in the Fraser Valley, Greater Vancouver and Victoria, they’re all over 20 per cent,” Muir said. That is typically “buyer’s-market” territory, “which indicates some upward pressure on prices.”

 Other markets, however, are below that threshold and in “more balanced” conditions with more stable pricing.

 In Kamloops, for instance, October’s average home price of $297,673 was still almost three per cent below the average in the same mont a year ago.

 “That pent-up demand [in the Lower Mainland] is finite, meaning it is likely to be expended in the coming months,” Muir said. “And home sales, on the coast anyway, will drift down to levels more representative of the stat of our economy.”

 depenner@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

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