Spring Market Rebounds

Property Sales Strengthen in Current Market Cycle

Home sales in March 2009 returned to levels witnessed at the beginning of the decade, with 2,265 sales recorded across Metro Vancouver for the month, a 53 per cent increase over February but a 24.4 per cent decrease over March 2008, when 2,997 sales were recorded.

Since 1999, March sales have increased 31 per cent, on average, over the month of February. March 2009 marks the second consecutive month that sales have outperformed the ten-year average for this

month-over-month comparison.

March 2008. This is the fifth month in a row that new listings have decreased year-over-year and the third consecutive month where those declines exceeded 20 per cent. Despite these trends, total active listings at the end of March 2009 had still reached 14,579, a 19 per cent increase compared to the end of March 2008.

low interest rates, good supply of housing, greater affordability, and a considerably lower overall cost of servicing a mortgage compared to recent years," Russell said.

Sales of detached properties in March 2009 declined 19.6 per cent to 897 from the 1,116 units sold during the same period in 2008. The benchmark price, as calculated by the MLSLink Housing Price Index®, for detached properties declined 15.1 per cent from March 2008 to $649,342.