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Australia’s market red hot, while Ireland hits the skids

Canada’s housing market was among only six in advanced nations that posted growth in 2010, according to the latest Global Real Estate Trends report issued by Scotia Economics.

But while the Canadian home market was among the best performing, it was also one of the most volatile, the report notes.

Home sales were unusually active during the winter and spring, but dropped off substantially during the summer, according to the report. It says that over the fall, sales returned to a more typical level.

“We are neither overtly optimistic nor pessimistic regarding the outlook for 2011,” said Adrienne Warren, a senior economist with Scotia Economics.

She expects interest rates to remain low well into 2011, providing an inducement for first-time and move-up buyers, which will keep sales at a decent level.

However modest employment and income growth is expected to restrain the market somewhat.

“Overall, we anticipate a fairly lacklustre year for residential housing, with modestly higher sales volumes and flat inflation-adjusted prices,” Warren said. “The bigger risk likely awaits in 2012, when more significant interest rate increases, combined with record-high home prices, will notably strain affordability.”

Australia had the hottest real estate market in 2010, according to the report, with home prices rising nearly 10 per cent over the year…

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Published by: CBC News
Date: December 23, 2010

OTTAWA — Home resales rose in November for the fourth straight month as “housing activity continues its return to normal levels,” the Canadian Real Estate Association said Wednesday.

Seasonally adjusted sales increased 4.8 per cent to 37,658 during the month, up from 35,936 in October, with increases recorded in eight of Canada’s 10 most active markets, CREA said.

In particular, Great Vancouver posted gains of 11.3 per cent, while Montreal was up 8.2 per cent, Edmonton rose 6.9 per cent and Toronto increased six per cent. Ottawa saw gains of 4.2 per cent and Calgary advanced by 2.6 per cent.

Still, sales were down 9.3 per from levels in November 2009, the industry group said.

“Although this is well short of record level activity for the month of November posted a year ago, seasonally adjusted sales now stand 19.5 per cent above levels recorded in July 2010, when it reached this year’s low point,” CREA said…

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Published by: The Vancouver Sun
Date: December 15, 2010

Average price of a home rose nine per cent over the same period

Residential sales in B.C. dropped 21 per cent in November compared to the same month a year ago to 5,647 units, according to a survey released Tuesday by the B.C. Real Estate Association.

However, sales climbed 20 per cent in November from October on a seasonally adjusted basis, and the average price of a home is up nine per cent to $523,394 in November compared to November 2009.

BCREA chief economist Cameron Muir noted that sales are on an overall upward trend.

“Improved economic conditions and low mortgage interest rates have contributed to a 46-per-cent increase in home sales since July,” Muir said in a statement, adding that the unemployment rate in B.C. dipped to 6.9 per cent, the lowest since January 2009.

“The inventory of homes for sale has trended lower since last spring, improving market conditions in many areas of the province,” added Muir.

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Written by: Brian Morton
Date: December 14, 2010

The house Manyee Lui is showing today is listed at $2.2 million. Although the lot is only 33 feet wide and the house is nothing more than a blandly handsome two-storey, Lui expects it to sell quickly, even though the market’s turned a little tepid. With 2,900 square feet, the place is big enough for four bedrooms and an additional self-contained suite. All things considered, she says, “It’s not so expensive.”

Lui is simply telling it like it is: This house in the Dunbar neighbourhood may not be anyone’s idea of a dream home, but it delivers respectable accommodation for a reasonable price, at least by the standards of Vancouver’s west side. With a standard city lot trading hands for around $1.4 million and construction costs running at least $200 a square foot, it doesn’t take much of a house to hit the $2-million mark. And this summer and fall, as real estate markets wilted in most of the country, vertigo-inducing prices for properties on Vancouver’s west side held steady or even edged a little higher.

The question a lot of people were asking is, Who on Earth is buying them?

Lui explains why she’s so confident the home will sell: “It will appeal to a buyer from China.” She allows there was a time when Chinese buyers’ architectural preferences differed significantly from the local norm, but over the last 10 years their tastes have widened and become more westernized. Now long-term Vancouverites and incoming Chinese are seeking almost exactly the same thing—except, Lui says with a laugh, “we can’t afford it.”…

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Written by: Jim Sutherland
Date: November 26, 2010

Many first-time home buyers understand the power of the big down payment

Although Generations X and Y are vastly different (I have daughters from both demographic cohorts so, believe me, I know all too well), when it comes to listing the impediments preventing them from buying their first homes, the members of these two generations are as similar as the Sedin twins.

A survey conducted at the 16th annual seminar for first-time homebuyers -organized by the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association and presented by the Homeowner Protection Office, branch of B.C. Housing -revealed that high prices and insufficient down payments were the culprits, no different than the responses gleaned from the survey conducted at, say, the fourth annual seminar in 1997.

Alas, the high cost of developable land, exacerbated by an ever-increasing array of taxes, fees, levies and development charges imposed on new homes by all four levels of government, seems to be a constant challenge throughout what is arguably the most popular geographic region in the country.

That aside, what are the needs and expectations of today’s typical first-time homebuyer? I will run through the survey responses and compare them with responses from last year, when the new-homes market was mired in a 10-year low, and from 2007, when the market was riding a 14-year high…

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Written by: Peter Simpson
Date: November 20, 2010

Big civic projects and even bigger geography on list compiled by Polygon’s Neil Chrystal

An Arizona builder recently said he feels like the Maytag repairman, as it has been more than two months since he welcomed a prospective buyer to his two model homes.

The builder’s homes share the neighbourhood with foreclosed homes. The once-lush landscaping has been reduced to tumbleweed. Shifting sand obscures street curbs. Graffiti artists have come and gone.

It’s no better in the eastern part of the Land of the Free. In Buffalo, N.Y., tired neighbourhoods are havens for drug dealers and other miscreants. In one 210-home community, 73 homes are vacant.

In 2009, more than three million Americans suffered through the humiliating and soul-destroying foreclosure process, and experts warn that when the numbers are crunched, 2010 could be even worse.

States with high foreclosure rates are California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Georgia and Florida…

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Written by: Peter Simpson
Date: October 23, 2010

The Royal LePage House Price Survey released Tuesday showed that year over year prices are up for all housing types surveyed in Vancouver but third-quarter prices — along with unit sales — are down from their early 2010 peaks.

Despite the slowdown, historically low interest rates are still drawing buyers into the market.

City-wide, average detached bungalow prices rose 8.8 per cent year over year to $873,500. Standard two-storey homes were up eight per cent to an average price of $977,250 while standard condos increased 10.2 per cent to $491,000 in year over year comparisons.

“Our market has cooled since the beginning of the year,” says Bill Binnie, broker and owner of Royal LePage North Shore. “To put things in perspective, however, third-quarter unit sales are up 40 per cent over the same period of 2008. Overall, we’ve got a healthy, balanced market in Vancouver.”

Vancouver homes are typically selling below asking price, and the 2010 residential real-estate market to date is about 10-per-cent slower than the same period last year. New home sales in general are down, and condos in particular are moving slowly…

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Published By: The Province
Date: October 20, 2010