Andrea Nazarian
REW

The Greater Vancouver real estate market saw a very busy October, suggesting that buyers are eager to get into the real estate market prior to mortgage rule changes coming early 2018, according to our editor’s in-depth analysis of the latest Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) statistics. 

For a visual overview of October’s Greater Vancouver real estate market trends, see our detailed infographic below. This infographic is interactive so feel free to click around and explore.

© 2017 REW.ca

Canadian Real Estate Wealth

Toronto area home sales rebounded by 12 per cent from September to October, pointing to a stronger fall market after a policy-driven pullback from a frenzied market that peaked earlier this year.

The Toronto Real Estate Board said Thursday that 7,118 homes were sold in October, up from the month before but down 27 per cent from the same month last year.

“Every year we generally see a jump in sales between September and October. However, this year that increase was more pronounced than usual compared to the previous ten years,” said board president Tim Syrianos.

“While the number of transactions was still down relative to last year’s record pace, it certainly does appear that sales momentum is picking up.”
The average selling price in October was $780,104, up less than one per cent from September but up 2.3 per cent compared with October 2016. Price growth was driven by appreciation in the townhouse and condo segments.

The average price of a townhouse in the GTA was up 7.4 per cent at $629,507, while the average condo price was $523,041 up 22 per cent year-over-year, the most of any housing type. Meanwhile, the average price of a detached home was down 2.5 per cent year-over-year at $1 million. Prices of semi-detached homes rose 6.3 per cent to $764.293.

Sales in the first 10 months of the year slipped to 80,198, down 19 per cent from the same period in 2016. Sales have dropped more than 10 per cent from the record set in March before Ontario announced its housing plan.

A spike in Toronto-area home prices earlier this year resulted in the provincial government’s imposition of a number of measures to cool the market after a shortage of detached home listings helped push up prices.

In addition, the Bank of Canada has raised interest rates twice in recent months to the current overnight rate of one per cent, signalling a clampdown on cheap borrowing and driving the big bank prime rates and the cost of variable-rate mortgages higher. The cost of new fixed-rate mortgages have also risen as yields on the bond market have also risen.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions will implement new lending guidelines at the beginning of next year. Among the changes being considered is a requirement that homebuyers who do not require mortgage insurance still have to show they can make their payments if interest rates rise.

The policy-driven changes in the Toronto market, which include a tax on foreign buyers, have followed the trajectory of the Vancouver market, with a pullback directly after new rules were introduced followed by a pick up after a relatively short time, said TREB’s director of market analysis Jason Mercer.

“It appears that the psychological impact of the Fair Housing Plan, including the tax on foreign buyers, is starting to unwind.”
Vancouver home sales data from October is expected later Thursday.

The CHMC warned last month that the country’s hottest housing markets remain “highly vulnerable” with evidence of moderate overvaluation and price acceleration in Toronto, Hamilton, Vancouver, Victoria and Saskatoon.

Copyright © 2017 Key Media Pty Ltd

Ephraim Vecina
REP

In its latest study, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported that the nation’s housing markets remain “highly vulnerable” with evidence of moderate overvaluation and price acceleration.

The Toronto, Hamilton, Vancouver, Victoria, and Saskatoon markets are also highly vulnerable, the national housing agency said in its quarterly housing market assessment released late last week.

The study gauged the overall level of risk by evaluating four problematic conditions: overheating, price acceleration, overvaluation, and overbuilding.

“For Canada, the housing market remains at a high degree of vulnerability,” CMHC chief economist Bob Dugan stated, as quoted by The Canadian Press.

The assessment came after the Canadian Real Estate Association’s latest figures showed that the number of homes sold in September climbed for the second month in a row.

Earlier this year, home sales across the country entered a period of considerable slowdown, with Toronto being a main driver of the trend after the Ontario government introduced measures aimed at cooling the market. Sales in September were down almost 12% from the record set in March before Ontario announced its housing plan.

CMHC noted that despite the recent easing in Toronto’s resale market, it detected moderate evidence of price acceleration with strong growth in home prices among all housing types.

Meanwhile, Vancouver’s housing market remained highly vulnerable, with evidence of moderate overheating and price acceleration, and strong overvaluation. Calgary and Edmonton also saw stronger overvaluation due to rising inventory of complete and unsold homes, with vacancy rates in both cities having pointed to overbuilding for several quarters.

In its housing market outlook which was also released late last week, CMHC said that after a boost this year, housing starts are expected to decline by 2019, but will remain close to the average level from the last five years.

Sales in the existing-homes market are also expected to decline relative to the record level set in 2016, while price growth is expected to slow.

“High house prices particularly for single-family homes and rising mortgage rates will bring about some cooling in the pace of housing market activity,” Dugan said.
 Copyright © 2017 Key Media Pty Ltd

Foreign buyers doubled share of Vancouver home deals

Steve Randall
Canadian Real Estate Wealth

The number of home sales in Metro Vancouver which involved foreign buyers increased in the 6 months to the end of September.

Data from the BC Ministry of Finance shows 6,105 property transfers in September with 5% involving foreign nationals, up from 2.5% in April.

However, this is way below the 13.2% share between June 10 and August 1, 2016. Sales to foreign buyers slumped to 0.9% in the month immediately following the introduction of the 15% foreign buyer tax.

Richmond and Burnaby saw higher shares of foreign purchasers in September at 10.8% and 9.6% respectively.

Reuters reports that the BC finance minister Carole James is reviewing the foreign buyer tax and says further action may be required.

“I‘m concerned about the role of foreign speculation in B.C.’s housing market. … All options are on the table as we look at the impact the tax has had on the housing market,” Ms. James said in statement.

Copyright © 2017 Key Media Pty Ltd

Benchmark prices remain robust as market cooldown slows, ‘illustrating stability,’ says board

Joannah Connolly
REW

Victoria homes sales continued to fall year-over-year in October, but at a slower rate of decline, indicating the market cooldown may be levelling off.

There were 664 real estate sales in Greater Victoria in October, of which 633 were residential properties, according to Victoria Real Estate Board (VREB) statistics released November 1.

That’s a slide in home sales of 10.5% compared with October 2016, but 4.6% higher than September’s residential sales. This monthly increase comes after several consecutive month-over-month home sales declines, as the fall market warmed up somewhat.

Just like in the previous three months, Victoria home sales in October were lower than those of the past two Octobers, but higher than those of the previous four years on the same month.

VREB president Ara Balabanian said, “As expected, we saw fewer sales than this time last year. Looking at the longer-term picture, however, sales last month were 17.1% above the 10-year average of 567 properties [all property types] for the month of October, so the market is still very active here in Victoria, and this is in spite of the ongoing low inventory levels.”

Some 1,905 properties were available for sale on the VREB Multiple Listing Service® as of the end of October. That’s a drop of 3.6% compared with September’s 1,976 and 1.7% fewer than the 1,938 active listings at the end of October 2016, said the board.

Benchmark prices also started to recover, with two of three key home types rising in price month over month, and all home types priced markedly higher than one year previously.

Balabanian said, “The fact that we’ve seen such a controlled levelling-off in the market directly following a year which felt so uncontrollable in terms of demand and pressure on prices illustrates the depth and stability of the Victoria market. An unstable market may have experienced a heavy correction or shift, whereas in our market sales are moderating at a reasonable rate.”

Home Type Breakdown

Having performed worst over the past few months, the month-over-month increase in home sales was led by a recovery in single-family detached transactions. The 339 sales was an 8% rise compared with September. However, this property type still saw the biggest year-over-year decline of the three key home types, at 15.5% lower than October last year.

Townhomes and other similar attached properties saw an even bigger monthly rise in sales, although they had less effect as a smaller segment of the market, and are much more subject to larger percentage swings. There were 70 townhouse sales in October – up 22.8% over September’s dip, and 11.4% lower than October 2016.

Condos were the only one of the three key home types to see a drop in sales, having performed very well in September. The 213 condo transactions in the region in October was slightly lower than September’s, down 0.5%. However this figure was only 0.9% lower than in October last year.

The benchmark price of a single-family home in Greater Victoria fell again compared with the previous month, but only very slightly, down 0.4% to $690,000. This is 11.3% higher than in October last year ($619,700).

Buyers looking for smaller units have stiff competition, leading to prices increasing. The price of a typical Greater Victoria townhome now stands at $562,000, a rise of 14.9% year over year and 1.2% higher than in September.

And yet again condos saw the biggest yearly price growth, with the new benchmark price of $437,800 a 19.6% annual rise. This is exactly $1,000 – or 0.2% – higher than September’s typical price.

Balabanian added, “In the coming months we expect to see less inventory on the market, because the year-end changes buyer and seller behaviours, their focus shifts to holidays and winter weather. One unknown influence that may play on the winter market is the upcoming mortgage stress test. Some buyers may move their purchasing timelines forward to make their home purchases before the stress test on uninsured buyers becomes required January 1.”

© 2017 REW.ca

Crane lifts two-year-old pin oak to roof terrace of Eugenia Place, restoring a neighbourhood landmark

Jan Zeschky
Vancouver Courier

The rumours that Leonard Nimoy once lived at Eugenia Place will forever be a part of Vancouver folklore.

The claim that the Star Trek actor once occupied the penthouse of the distinctive West End tower with the oak tree on top has been swirling for years.

On Wednesday, work crews were probably wishing for some U.S.S. Enterprise technology to help beam up a replacement tree to the roof level of the 19-floor high-rise.

Eugenia Place, located at 1919 Beach Ave., had sported an 11-metre-tall tree on its roof – around 60 metres above the ground – since the building’s completion in 1987. Until May, that is, when it was removed due to poor health.

Many West End residents lamented the removal of what had become a neighbourhood landmark and an often-photographed attraction for tourists walking or biking the nearby seawall by English Bay.

Eugenia Place won a Governor General’s Award for Architecture for Henriquez Partners Architects after its completion, in part for its pin oak installation, which was designed to illustrate the height of the red cedars and Douglas firs that populated the area before the city was built.

The pin oak species was chosen because of its particular properties, including tolerance to urban pollution and its weight distribution.

“Wind is a big factor when something’s up that high, so we want the branching to be as light as possible. Most of the weight is in the lower trunk,” said landscape architect Ron Rule, who reprised his role from 1987 in coordinating the tree lift.

At the time of the original tree’s removal, the work to replace it was estimated to cost more than $500,000.

The new tree for the rooftop was selected two years ago and carefully nurtured in the Fraser Valley before being brought to the city this week. On Wednesday, crowds gathered to watch a 270-tonne crane lift the Eugenia’s newest occupant into the specially designed bowl-shaped bed on the roof deck – not before 18 tons of fresh soil were transported in the same way.

 “Everything is a challenge with this,” said Rule about the operation to replace the tree. “When you have a tree that’s going up 19 storeys on an existing building in a heavily populated neighbourhood, the No. 1 concern is safety, and No. 2 is for the health of the tree.”

It’s currently around 10.5 metres tall but won’t grow much taller due to its limited environment. It’ll be lashed in place with metal hooks and cables for support. Beyond that, it will be carefully monitored by an arborist to make sure it’s settling in well to its plush penthouse digs.

“It’s just a matter of monitoring, how it adapts and making sure the irrigation system is functioning properly, and just watching it,” Rule said.

“This is a good time of the year to transplant. … We just want to make sure the transplanting shock is minimized.”

For Rule, whose company normally specializes in estate gardens, it’s been an interesting and fulfilling project.

“It’s great that [the tree has] become part of the neighbourhood … it really is part of the community, which I’m really happy about.”

Glacier Community Media © Copyright ® 2013 – 2017