TERM                        BEST RATE              POSTED RATE
1 Yr Closed                     2.50%                         3.60%
2 Yr Closed                     2.85%                       
3 Yr Closed                     3.35%                         4.15%

4 Yr Closed                     3.69%                       

Slow Start/Strong Finish for Housing Market in 2009!

After beginning the year at near record low sales levels, buyers’ confidence in the Greater Vancouver housing market quickly returned, allowing for significant and sustained increases in the number of residential property sales for much of 2009.

“The number of homes listed for sale on our MLS® has been in decline in Greater Vancouver for eight of the last nine months, which results in upward pressure on home prices and less selection for buyers to choose from,” Russell said.

High Sales Levels Spur Rise in Home Values

According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, strong demand has led to a steady rise in Greater Vancouver home prices compared to last year.

Over the last 12 months, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver increased 6.8 per cent to $553,702 from $518,668 in October 2008.

“While home prices have been rising in 2009, they have not eclipsed the peaks reached in early 2008,” Scott Russell, Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) president said. “We’re coming off several months of unseasonably high sales levels, which has allowed for a gradual increase in home values this year,”

The REBGV reports that residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 3,704 in October 2009, an increase of 4.1 per cent from the 3,559 sales recorded in September 2009, and an increase of 171.6 per cent compared to October 2008 when 1,364 sales were recorded. Looking back two years, last month’s sales increased 22.3 per cent compared to October 2007 when 3,028 sales were recorded.

“High confidence and low mortgage rates are continuing to drive the activity we’re seeing in the housing market today,” Russell said.

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties in Greater Vancouver totalled 4,977 in October 2009. This represents a 2.3 per cent increase compared to October 2008 when 4,867 new units were listed, and a 13.4 per cent decline compared to September 2009 when 5,764 properties were listed on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in Greater Vancouver.

At 12,084, the total number of property listings on the MLS® decreased 4.1 per cent in October compared to last month and declined 37 per cent from this time last year.

Sales of detached properties increased 201.6 per cent to 1,487 from the 493 detached sales recorded during the same period in 2008. The benchmark price, as calculated by the MLSLink Housing Price Index®, for detached properties increased 7.7 per cent from October 2008 to $749,808.

Sales of apartment properties in October 2009 increased 148.4 per cent to 1,607, compared to 647sales in October 2008. The benchmark price of an apartment property increased 6.3 per cent from October 2008 to $380,975.

Attached property sales in October 2009 are up 172.3 per cent to 610, compared with the 224 sales in October 2008. The benchmark price of an attached unit increased 4.6 per cent between Octobers 2008 and 2009 to $468,798.

Buyer Demand Remains Strong While Home Listings Increase

Greater Vancouver home sales remained strong last month, with the second highest number of residential sales ever recorded for the month of September.

“As homes sales in Greater Vancouver continued at an elevated pace in September it’s encouraging to see that more homes were listed on the MLS® in the month than any other so far this year,” Scott Russell, REBGV president said.

“During this period of renewed demand in our marketplace, home values have gradually recovered from the declines that occurred in 2008,” said Russell.

Since the beginning of the year, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver has increased 13 per cent to $547,092 from $484,211, while home prices compared to Septembers 2008 levels are up 1.6 per cent.

That is the view emerging following the weekend gathering of the world's leading central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyo., highlighted by remarks from Ben Bernanke, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, who warned of the uncertainties ahead, and Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, who suggested he is in no rush to reverse emergency stimulus measures.
 
"The key message from Jackson Hole was that monetary policy is likely to remain ultra-accommodative for the foreseeable future - at least for the next several years," said Julian Jessop, chief international economist at Capital Economics of London.

"It seems more likely that there will be no increases in interest rates in any of the major economies over the next 12 to 18 months."

Strategists at RBC Capital Markets concurred, adding in a note released Monday: "We continue to believe the economic backdrop will warrant a significant additional period of low rates. Indeed, even at the Jackson Hole conference, there was not even a suggestion that we should be braced for anything other than that outcome."

This outlook applies to Canada as well. Banc of America Securities-Merrill Lynch, as part of global report on monetary policy, said it does not expect the Bank of Canada to begin raising rates until 2011 - well past its pledge to keep the key policy rate, at 0.25%, until June 2010.

Canada has a significant output gap - the difference between potential and real gross domestic product - and the rate at which money is deployed in the economy, or money velocity, has shrunk 15% since late last year even though the central bank has taken its target rate to its lowest possible level, the BofA-Merrill Lynch analysis indicates.

"To compensate, we think the Bank of Canada will probably need to keep rates lower... to ensure that money creation remains in the double-digit [growth] territory needed to reinflate the economy and close the output gap," the report says.

This outlook is similar to what economists at Laurentian Bank Securities suggested last week. They said a lack of pricing power for firms, a sizeable amount of excess supply and virtually non-existent upward pressure from labour costs means the bulk of policy tightening would not materialize until 2011.

The Bank of Canada signalled in its last economic outlook that it expected economic growth to resume this quarter, marking, technically, the end of a deep but relatively short recession. It expects growth this quarter of 1.3%, 3% in the final three months of 2009, and the latter again in 2010.

Further boosting the recovery story was data from Japan, Germany and France that indicated economic growth in the second quarter. But there are growing concerns about the sustainability of this emerging recovery. In a note published last week, Olivier Blanchard, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, warned of a difficult recovery that would take years to unfold as elements of the financial system remain dysfunctional.

Of particular concern in his outlook was the source of demand once governments phased out fiscal stimuli. The worry is that U.S. business investment and household spending would remain weak, and Asian economies would fail to pick up the slack.  Still, some leading central bankers warn about leaving interest rates too low too long.

Masaaki Shirakawa, governor at Bank of Japan, told his peers at Jackson Hole that policymakers must avoid economic bubbles fostered by expectations that interest rates will remain low.

Market Conditions Drive Strong June Housing Sales!

VANCOUVER, B.C. – July 3, 2009 – The combination of low interest rates and more affordable pricing helped propel Greater Vancouver home sale numbers to the second all-time highest total for the month of June.

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties declined 17.9 per cent to 5,372 in June 2009 compared to June 2008, when 6,546 new units were listed. However, new listings increased 13.5 per cent from May to June of this year. Total active listings in Greater Vancouver currently sit at 13,252, down 27 per cent from June 2008 and 2.9 per cent below the active listings count at the end of May 2009.

“Price reductions and low interest rates have created an improvement in affordability, which is causing the number of sales to rise to levels comparable to 2003 to 2007,” Scott Russell, REBGV president said.
 
“Many people who were reluctant to purchase a home last fall and earlier this year are returning to the market because they see conditions that appeal to their personal and financial needs,” Russell said. “However, the current marketplace is such that buyers are more inclined to walk if they don’t like the terms of an offer.”

Bright spots in Greater Vancouver in June 2009 compared to June 2008:

Detached

• Burnaby up 109.7 per cent (151 units sold from 72)
• Coquitlam up 122.2 per cent (160 units sold from 72)
• Delta - South up 107.7 per cent (56 units sold from 27)
• Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows up 54.3 per cent (162 units sold from 105)
• New Westminster up 104.8 per cent (43 units sold from 21)
• North Vancouver up 96.2 per cent (153 units sold from 78)
• Port Moody/ Belcarra up 120 per cent (33 units sold from 15)
• Richmond up 77.4 per cent (204 units sold from 115)
• Squamish up 107.7 per cent (27 units sold from 13)
• Sunshine Coast up 33.9 per cent (75 units sold from 56)
• Vancouver East up 71.2 per cent (238 units sold from 139)
• Vancouver West up 85.2 per cent (200 units sold from 108)
• West Vancouver/Howe Sound up 117.8 per cent (98 units sold from 45)

Attached

• Burnaby up 81.8 per cent (140 units sold from 77)
• Coquitlam up 80 per cent (54 units sold from 30)
• Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows up 48.6 per cent (55 units sold from 37)
• North Vancouver up 121.2 per cent (73 units sold from 33)
• Port Coquitlam up 82.6 per cent (42 units sold from 23)
• Port Moody/ Belcarra up 77.3 per cent (39 units sold from 22)
• Richmond up 84.5 per cent (155 units sold from 84)
• Vancouver East up 118.5 per cent (59 units sold from 27)
• Vancouver West up 121.8 per cent (122 units sold from 55)

Apartments

• Burnaby up 60.4 per cent (239 units sold from 149)
• Coquitlam up 93.9 per cent (95 units sold from 49)
• New Westminster up 57.1 per cent (121 units sold from 77)
• North Vancouver up 71.4 per cent (120 units sold from 70)
• Port Coquitlam up 58.1 per cent (49 units sold from 31)
• Port Moody/Belcarra up 128.6 per cent (48 units sold from 21)
• Richmond up 54.1 per cent (225 units sold from 146)
• Vancouver East up 58.7 per cent (165 units sold from 104)
• Vancouver West up 87.2 per cent (627 units sold from 335)
• West Vancouver/Howe Sound up 155.6 per cent (23 units sold from 9)

British Columbia

You qualify for the exemption if:

• You’re a Canadian Citizen, or a permanent resident as determined by Immigration Canada,
• You’ve lived in British Columbia for 12 consecutive months immediately before the date you register the property, or you have filed 2 income tax returns as a British Columbia resident during the 6 years before the date you register the property.
• You’ve never owned an interest in a principal residence anywhere in the world at anytime, and
• You have never received a first time home buyers’ exemption or refund.

Property

The property you purchase qualifies if:

• The fair market value of the property is not more than the current threshold of $425,000.
• The land is 0.5 hectares (1.24 acres) or smaller, and
• The property will only be used as your principal residence.

If the property does not meet all of these requirements, you may still qualify for a partial exemption.

You apply for the exemption when you register the property at the Land Title office. Generally, a lawyer or notary public registers the property and applies for the exemption on your behalf.

• You need to occupy the property within 92 days of the date you register the property and continue to use the property as your principal residence for at least 1 year after you register the property.
• If the land is vacant when you purchase the property, a principal residence needs to be built on the property within 1 year of the registration date, and you need to reside on the property for the remainder of that year. The fair market value of the land, plus the cost of building any improvements on the land cannot exceed the current threshold of $425,000.
• The ministry will send you a letter at the end of the first year you own the property. If your property purchase was registered on, or after, February 20, 2008, the letter will ask you to confirm that the property is still your principal residence. If your property purchase was registered before February 20, 2008, the letter will ask for details of your financial account(s) that you have registered against your property from the date of registration until February 20, 2008.
• If your property purchase was registered before February 20, 2008, and you paid down your mortgage before February 20, 2008, there are limitations on how much of your financing you can pay down.
• You may still qualify for a partial exemption if you pay down your financing more than the limitation amount before February 20, 2008, or if you move off the property before the end of the first year.
• It is your responsibility to make sure the ministry receives all of the necessary information. If the ministry does not receive the information, you will be assessed for the property transfer tax due.

For details on the program, please see Bulletin PTT 004, First Time Home Buyers’ Program available at www.gov.bc.ca/sbr.