Spring last gasp before housing sales begin to drop
Garry M
Province
The spring home-buying season has reached a fever pitch with a record number of “for sale” signs on Canadian lawns for the month of March.
But there are indications the market has reached a peak with nowhere to go but down.
The Canadian Real Estate Association said Thursday that 97,663 residential properties were put on market last month, a 25-per-cent increase from the number of new listings in March a year ago. Since the beginning of the new year, there have been 233,402 homes put on the market, the most ever for a first quarter.
With demand still strong, sales continue to soar. There were 49,256 units that traded hands in March, the second most for March on record, and a 40.8-per-cent rise from a year earlier.
But March was the fifth-straight month that the percentage increase has declined. In some markets, sales are already falling. Seasonally adjusted sales in B.C. dropped 17.8 per cent from a quarter earlier and Alberta sales dropped 9.7 per cent.
Phil Soper, chief executive of Royal LePage Real Estate Services, said affordability and consumer confidence drive the market. “The former has not eroded enough to affect the market and the latter has improved considerably.”
Still, he conceded that the spring market may be the top for real estate. “It will be the top from an industry-volume perspective. It’s the last hurrah for the pent-up demand in the market,” said Soper, who expects prices to continue to rise, but more slowly.
Many in the industry concede, however, the spring market could be the last gasp before housing sales start to drop, along with prices.
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