Canadian Real Estate Association - Record Home Sales
OTTAWA (CP) - The Canadian Real Estate Association says sales of existing homes should set a record this year. The association says agents on the multiple listing service sold more houses in the first seven months of this year than during the same period last year. Agents sold 40,973 units with a value of $10.1 billion in July. Both figures are seasonally adjusted. The average price of a re-sale home was $250,567, up 11.8 per cent from July last year. The association says sales set records in British Columbia, Alberta and New Brunswick.
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In British Columbia, Re/Max reports that the market softened immediately after the attacks, but have now returned to normal levels of activity. Re/Max says B.C. sales were up 25 per cent January to August compared to last year. A new provincial government is credited with boosting consumer confidence. And with a jittery stock market and low interest rates on "safe" investments such as guaranteed investment certificates and saving bonds, many investors are expected to turn to housing as an alternative. Vancouver already has the highest housing prices in the country.
B.C. is also waiting to hear what happens in the controversial softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the U.S. Several mills in the province have shut down while officials from the two sides try to hammer out a solution to the long-running dispute.
Home ownership costs in Canada dropped during the first half of the year, says a report from RBC Financial Group. The housing affordability index, which measures the proportion of pre-tax income needed to service the costs of owning a home in Canada, declined in B.C., Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Manitoba and Atlantic Canada were the only regions that didn't see improved affordability, because housing price increases offset the lower interest rates there.
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