B.C. rental builds up despite freeze on rental rates

Wl Staff
Western Investor

 — Telus and Omicron are co-developers on 178-unit Nanaimo rental project. | Omicron

British Columbia’s restrictive rental environment, which includes a freeze on rental increases this year, and rising vacancy rates for new rentals has apparently had little effect on multi-family developers.

As of February, 768 new purpose-built rental apartments had started construction in Metro Vancouver, up 34% from a year earlier, and adding to the 5,207 units that broke ground in 2020, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC).

Yet, while the Metro Vancouver vacancy has increased to 2.6 per cent this year, up from the 1.1 per cent range since 2018, the vacancy rate for the more expensive apartments in new rental buildings spiked to 6.2 per cent.

In the City of Vancouver, the vacancy rate for new rental buildings – completed in the past five years – soared from 1.4 per cent to 8.7 per cent, year-over-year, according to CMHC.

B.C. has also capped any rental increases to the rate of inflation once the current 18-month rental freeze ends.

Still, a boom in new rental apartments is building from Metro Vancouver to Vancouver Island.

Starlight Developments, a division of Starlight Investments, has submitted a rezoning proposal to the City of Burnaby for the biggest rental build in B.C.

The proposal includes the retention of four concrete rental towers with 528 units and the addition of three high-rise, concrete towers and 1,200 new rental homes – totaling 1,728 suites when the development is complete.

The Starlight property is within the City of Burnaby’s Lougheed Town Centre Plan, which calls for the transformation of the area into a dense, mixed-use community supported by rapid transit.

Starlight is the largest multi-residential owner-operator in Canada. It’s British Columbia portfolio has grown significantly with recent $4.8 billion purchase of the Northview Apartment Real Estate Investment Trust portfolio, and Aqua at Plaza 88, a rental housing tower, in New Westminster. Starlight now manages approximately 4,800 rental suites in the province.

Vancouver Island

Meanwhile, telecommunication giant Telus and partner Omicron, of Vancouver, are proposing a $70-million project with 197 rental units in Nanaimo’s Old City Quarter as public and private sector investment in the city’s construction sector is shaping up to have another strong year.

“We are seeing a trend this year toward public investment,” Jeremy Holm, Nanaimo’s director of development approvals, said Tuesday.

 Despite the pandemic, Holm anticipates 2021 building permit value will be similar to 2020 which reached $243 million. Of that, $203.8 million went to residential construction, 65% of which was rentals.

Interest in investing in Nanaimo is coming from off-Island developers, including Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, Holm said.

The Telus Living Nanaimo proposal would be one of the city’s largest private-sector rental projects, Holm said. Up to 500 residents would live on site once complete.

This proposal would see 1.75 acres subdivided off Telus’ existing 2.75-acre property, where it has its Nanaimo office.

Units would rent at market rates said Pablo Yuste, architect and principal at Omicron, which is providing development management, design, engineering, and construction management.

“This project is strategically focused at the middle rental market as this is the area that is currently underserved,” he said in an email.

The two six-storey buildings, covering 164,000 square feet, would be connected through landscaping. Construction cost is pegged at $50 million, Yuste said.

Nanaimo would receive $2 million in development fees and the project is expected to create between 650 to 700 jobs.

Omicron is planning for a development permit approval this spring. Construction would take approximately 24 to 30 months, he said.

Other housing projects include a two-building, 79-unit rental development on Haliburton Street on the city’s south end by Parkshore Projects Ltd. Approved in January 2021, it follows a similar project next door by the same developer.

-With files from Times Colonist

 

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

Bank of Canada lays out plans for quantitative easing

Shelly Hagan
Mortgage Broker News

 The Bank of Canada provided the greatest guidance yet into how it plans to slow purchases of government bonds as the economic recovery accelerates, fueling expectations it could begin doing so as soon as April.

In a speech on Tuesday, Deputy Governor Toni Gravelle said the central bank is winding down emergency liquidity programs it deployed to grease markets when the coronavirus hit last year, including programs to buy provincial and corporate debt. He also provided insight into how the central bank plans to pare back its main government bond purchasing program — including a pledge that any tapering will be gradual.

Policy makers have been buying a minimum of CA$4 billion in federal government bonds each week to help keep borrowing costs low. Economists say that pace may no longer be warranted, with an outlook that appears to show the economy growing at a much stronger clip than officials had been expecting.

Tapering in April is “as near a certainty as these things can be,” Andrew Kelvin, chief Canada strategist at TD Securities, said by email. “If they were planning on maintaining bond purchases at these levels, it would’ve made sense to push back against tapering expectations.”

The central bank also wants to avoid taking ownership of too large a share of the outstanding bond market. Currently, the bank owns a little more than 35% of the total market of outstanding government of Canada bonds. Governor Tiff Macklem has said that when holdings rise above 50%, market functioning could get distorted.

In remarks before the CFA Society Toronto, Gravelle highlighted how the tapering process will work, indicating the central bank is seriously considering the option. He said the process will be “gradual and in measured steps” and will conclude with net purchases at zero when the “recovery is well underway.”

“We will eventually get down to a pace of QE purchases that maintains — but no longer increases — the amount of stimulus being provided,” Gravelle said.

The timing of getting to this so-called “reinvestment phase” will be guided by the central bank’s economic outlook, said Gravelle. Adjustments to the program are distinct from any change to the policy interest rate, he added, downplaying any chance of an imminent hike of the Bank of Canada’s 0.25% overnight policy interest rate.

“It won’t necessarily mean that we have changed our views about when we will need to start raising the policy interest rate,” Gravelle said.

Financing Facilities

With the discontinuation of some of its programs, Gravelle said the maturity of short-term funding facilities held by the central bank will reduce its balance sheet to about CA$475 billion by the end of April, about CA$100 billion smaller than its current level.

Gravelle said the central bank will suspend its main short-term financing facility in May and won’t extend three other asset purchase programs expiring in coming weeks for commercial paper, provincial bonds and corporate bonds. It doesn’t intend to sell assets it already bought in the corporate or provincial bond purchase programs.

The bank’s decision to end its emergency programs about a year after initiating them is a testament to the recovery in market functioning and global financial conditions, he said.

“We can take these steps because now there is ample system-wide liquidity for financial institutions to draw from,” Gravelle said. He noted the bank can reactivate any market programs should market stress re-emerge.

 

Copyright © 2021 Key Media

Butler Mortgage CEO talks new role

Fergal McAlinden
Mortgage Broker News

For Dave Butler (pictured), there are few things more important in business than branding.

As CEO of Butler Mortgage, the industry veteran has overseen the company’s growth into a mortgage giant from coast to coast. Now, he has his sights on developing another of its brands, taking a step back from his role as the company’s lead agent to focus on its premium BM Select service.

The move had been in the pipeline for a while, with Butler having long noted the potency of the company’s two distinct brands: the more rates-focused Butler Mortgage, and the service-oriented Select division. “What’s very unique to our brokerage is the fact that it has two different brands,” he said. “You’ve got the Butler Mortgage side, [where] it’s a rates game, and then you’ve got the other side of the company, BM Select, whose logo says it all: ‘premium service, select clientele.’

“Our side of the company is not focused on interest rates – we are focused on service and we are focused on planning. We are looking for select clientele: if you want someone to give you the premium service, to have four different people at that organization monitoring your file at all times, then you need premium service and you are a select clientele.”

Butler, whose focus has switched to developing the Select brand by bringing in new staff and getting its social media and online presence up and running, noted with pride the company’s commitment to its distinct divisions.

“We think it’s interesting that our brokerage has been able to identify, promote and build two brands,” he said. “I’m old school, maybe; I think brands are everything. I believe business comes down to branding. I think it’s really interesting to note that a very small brokerage with no more than nine licensed agents on it is doing one billion dollars’ worth of volume – and we’re doing it with two distinct brands.”

Indeed, with Butler having built much of his success around referrals rather than online traffic, there seemed ample opportunity to grow BM Select by focusing on that side of the business – with the added benefit that Daniel Patton, the division’s vice president and director of sales, has stepped seamlessly into Butler’s lead agent role.

“The whole point – and Dan and I have talked [about this] for many years – was to get me out so that I could focus on building the infrastructure within our organization: getting more and more underwriters and fulfilment people, so that we can then go and hit our database, and we can market and try to bring in more leads,” he explained.

As for the landscape BM Select faces as its expansion takes off? While Butler said he remained cautious against making predictions, he viewed the current Canadian housing market as “vibrant.”

“We think it’s an interesting time, because we welcome growth in the Canadian real estate market,” he said. “We also don’t mind if there’s consolidation. The supply and demand issue is going to be [a factor] moving forward for the next couple of years; we don’t think that there’s going to be much of a downtrend, but a levelling off would be very healthy.”

BM Select’s performance over the last several years has been spectacular, with Butler chalking up multiple accolades for his yearly mortgage volume funded. Still, he said that he expected that success to multiply in the coming years amid the division’s ambitious expansion.

“We have a goal,” he said, “that we will go from $500 million for our particular team to over $1 billion. We want to double our volume in the next three to five years. We’re going to be [hiring] double and triple the staff that we currently have now. My job is to build that team, and let Dan handle the rest.”

 

Copyright © 2021 Key Media

New deep-water port pitched for near Powell River, B.C.

Glacier Media
Western Investor

 — Powell River in B.C.’s Jervis Inlet. | Submitted

A deep-water port has been proposed for B.C.’s Jervis Inlet aimed at increasing the West Coast’s container cargo capacity.

Jervis Ports Inc. (JPI) is proposing the $10 billion facility near Powell River to reduce Lower Mainland road traffic and Port of Vancouver supply chain congestion and wait time problems.

Among the proponents of the port is former BC Liberal Party leader Gordon Wilson.

Gary Fibrance had been JPI’s president until his death in January.

“Jervis Ports Inc. is a private company that has as its primary corporate mandate the examination of the potential for establishing a West Coast port facility primarily for container importation and bulk export excluding oil related products from and to the Asian markets,” said Wilson, who recently assumed the role of company president.

“We are actively in discussion with potential First Nations partners and as such any public discussion on our part at this time would be premature and inappropriate.”

The company was incorporated in May 2020.

The federal government has prohibited commercial ships from being within 400 metres of whales in marine habitat that is close to the site proposed for the port.

Gus Angus has lived in the area for 45 years. He called the Jervis port idea a pipe dream.

“It’s impossible here,” Angus said. “There are only a few sheltered bays that would ever accommodate large vessels. It’s ludicrous.”

Wilson, a former Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA, did not comment on the whale situation.

But Angus said Jervis Inlet’s marine mammal population has boomed over the years. The area is home to migrating humpback whales as well as resident and transient killer whales.

Angus added that seal and sea lion populations have also increased.

A major part of the puzzle for any Jervis Inlet port is landside logistics: how to move freight to and from dockside and into the North American supply chain via rail or road.

Fibrance was a member of the Third Crossing Society (TCS) advocating for a road link to Powell River from Squamish.

According to JPI’s website, the project would eliminate the need for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s (VFPA) proposed $3 billion Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project currently under review – a project Jervis Ports called “a short-term improvement at best.”

JPI said the Jervis Inlet port would divert rail traffic from the Vancouver region and eliminate the need to spend $3.5 billion to eliminate Metro Vancouver transportation bottlenecks.

VFPA president and CEO Robin Silvester said March 3 that increasing port capacity with projects such as Terminal 2 is essential for Canada to be able to handle the projected growth in transpacific trade. The Port of Vancouver is aware of the Jervis Inlet project proposal but declined to comment on it because it is a project led by others.

Transport Canada spokeswoman Sau Sau Liu said it has received no correspondence regarding JPI’s proposal.

 

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

REX Sues Zillow, the NAR Over Listing Display

Laura Agadoni
other

No matter how thin the pancake, it always has two sides. And that sums up the complaint real estate tech platform REX has with Zillow (NASDAQ: ZG) (NASDAQ: Z) over listing displays.

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It’s a testy time in the residential real estate world, as the traditional way of doing business continues to be shaken up with the meteoric rise of real estate tech companies. These tech outfits are cutting into the action. Traditional Realtors have beefs with industry giant Zillow — a company so meaningful to the industry that 80% of homes in the United States have been viewed on its site.

And smaller tech companies have beefs with Zillow, too. It seems as if everyone in the real estate game is fighting for (what else?) territory. Here’s what’s happening with the latest lawsuit against real estate tech giant Zillow.

REX sues Zillow

REX, a digital platform and full-service real estate brokerage, filed a federal antitrust complaint against Zillow, Trulia, and the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the largest, most powerful real estate trade group in the country, on March 9.

Zillow, the site most people use when home shopping, started on Jan. 12 segregating listings into two tabs: “Agent listings” and “Other listings.” To get in the agent listings tab on Zillow, you need to belong to the NAR. REX is not a member of the NAR, as Zillow and Trulia now are, so REX’s listings fall into the “Other listings” tab, along with people who sell homes “for sale by owner” (FSBO), homes listed by agents who aren’t NAR members, and foreclosures.

REX concludes that having a separate tab for non-NAR members benefits NAR members and hurts non-NAR members. REX claims Zillow is violating antitrust laws by competing unfairly to benefit NAR brokerages, which ultimately hurts consumers.

Is Zillow guilty?

When you search for homes on Zillow, homes that fall under the agent listing tab are displayed first. To see other homes, you need to click the “Other listings” tab. The way REX describes this procedure in its lawsuit is a bit deceiving, however. In it, REX calls the “Other listings” tab a “recessed, obscured, and deceptive tab that consumers do not see.” In reality, here’s what you see:

Image source: Zillow.

REX alleges that because it isn’t a member of NAR and, therefore, doesn’t need to pay NAR fees, it can pass those savings onto homebuyers. That may well be true. And if better deals are to be had on homes listed in the “Other listings” tab, people will click that tab to search for them.

So whether having two tabs hurts REX, start-up companies like REX that aren’t part of the NAR, and homeowners who sell without an agent remains to be seen, as it’s too early to test the theory regarding whether separate tabs favor one group over the other.

Does Zillow have the right to segregate listings?

The question remains as to whether Zillow has the right or, conversely, must segregate listings in the manner in which it’s currently doing. A Zillow spokesperson told Politico that Zillow is “required” to segregate listings based on rules it now must follow. The spokesperson is referring to the fact Zillow is now a participant in the Multiple Listing Services Internet Data Exchange feeds (IDX). The Zillow spokesperson interprets IDX rules to “require participants to segregate listings.”

Here’s what the IDX rule is

REX says Zillow violates antitrust law because it hides listings. And Zillow says it’s required to segregate listings based on its NAR status. Is it?

This is the actual rule, published on NAR’s site: “Where MLS participatory rights are available to non-member brokers or firms as a matter of law or local determination, the right to IDX display of listing information may be limited, as a matter of local option, to participants who are Realtors.”

The Millionacres bottom line

Zillow is the No. 1 real estate listings website in the United States. As such, it engages in practices that not all groups like. But whether Zillow is breaking the law with this one remains to be seen. Real estate investors should keep a close eye on this lawsuit.

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Teck Resources donates $10 million to help build emergency room at new St. Paul’s Hospital

Tiffany Crawford
The Province

A rendering of the new St. Paul’s Hospital at the False Creek Flats.

Teck Resources Limited has donated $10 million to help build an emergency room at the new $2 billion St. Paul’s Hospital at the Jim Pattison Medical Centre.

The new ER will be named the Teck Emergency Department and will address wait times for access to treatment, non-emergency illnesses and injuries, and help patients with complex mental health and substance use needs, according to the company.

Construction will also include the use of virus-killing copper to protect staff and patients from bacteria and viruses. Teck was also involved in TransLink’s pilot program to install copper on busses and SkyTrain.

St. Paul’s is one of the busiest emergency departments in British Columbia, reaching 85,000 visits a year, up from 65,000 in 2010, according to Teck.

Construction of the new hospital kicked off earlier this month, the largest hospital redevelopment project in B.C.’s history.

The new hospital, on Station Street in the False Creek Flats, will have capacity for up to 548 beds, a net increase of 115 beds over the hospital in downtown Vancouver that it is replacing.

The new facility will be a “full-service” acute-care hospital, and will offer HIV/AIDS care, emergency and critical care, mental health and addictions program, and be home to several provincial programs and referral centres, including heart and lung care, specialty surgeries and transplants, and eating disorders.

It will continue to be a teaching hospital for University of British Columbia medical school students and British Columbia Institute of Technology nursing students.

The hospital is expected to open in 2027.

 

© 2021 The Province

Abbotsford industrial listings drew 99 calls in first day

Frank O’Brien
Western Investor

— Abbotsford realtor Bob Edwards: “It was nuts.”| Submitted

Veteran Fraser Valley commercial real estate agent Bob Edwards got a lesson in the industrial real estate demand February 26 when he listed a 1.05-acre parcel that has the potential to be zoned industrial in West Abbotsford.

In less than 24 hours after advertising the listing, Edwards received 99 calls from potential buyers, along with at least 50 text messages and 50 emails.

The four top bidders all presented no subject offers and the parcel sold for the full asking price of $2,988,800, according to Edwards, 66, agent/owner at Exp Realty, Abbotsford.

“I was offered over $3 million, but that buyer had a number of subjects,” he said.

The property now contains a private house and a storage shed on land zoned A1 (rural agriculture) but has been approved for industrial use under Abbotsford’s official community plan. The property would require re-zoning to industrial.

The winning bidder for the property spotted Edwards, who is well known in the community, on the site the first day of the listing and pulled his jeep into the gravelled yard to talk. Another potential buyer was already on the site.

“It was nuts,” Edwards said, “It was sold before the sign even went up.”

The property transacted for well above the BC Assessment value of $1.67 million.

Abbotsford is seeing record demand for industrial real estate because industrial land is becoming scarce right across the Lower Mainland.

The Metro Vancouver Regional Industrial Lands Strategy Report, released June 2020, found the region, as of 2015, had only 28,000 acres of industrial land, but that 80 per cent of that had already been developed.

Abbotsford, once seen as a lower-cost safety valve for surging industrial demand, is now posting prices rivalling major Metro markets.

Only 1.1 per cent of Abbotsford’s 8.8 million square feet of industrial space is vacant, according to a third-quarter 2020 survey from Colliers International.

There is 460,000 square feet of new industrial buildings are currently under construction in Abbotsford, representing nearly 14 per cent of all industrial development in the Lower Mainland. 

“The Abbotsford industrial market has exploded,” confirmed a November 2020 report from Valley-based Frontline Real Estate Services Ltd., characterized by industrial property sales more than tripling over the past five years.

In 2019, a record 34 transactions totalling $82 million were seen in West Abbotsford’s industrial district, up from 22 sales worth $50 million a year earlier.

“2020 continued to see insatiable demand and new price records across all property types, despite the outbreak of a global pandemic and looming economic uncertainty,” said Frontline agent Braydon Hobbs, who prepared the industrial report with co-agent Todd Bohn.

Even decades old freestanding buildings are achieving record prices, available development land is difficult to find and strata sellers are nearly nonexistent, meaning buyers must wait for new developments to come to market to secure industrial space, Bohn said.

Edwards said he was just happy to be instrumental in putting together a deal that made both the seller – who had bought the land decades ago for a family residence – and the buyer happy.

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

Listings avalanche hits March Metro housing market

Wl Staff
Western Investor

 — Greater Vancouver listings and sales on record pace. | Western Investor

Early March data shows that homeowners have rushed off the sidelines, pushing a record number of homes for sale onto the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver’s (REBGV) Multiple Listing Service.

As of March 15, the number of new listings were on pace to shatter the highest monthly total of new listings ever seen in Greater Vancouver, according to preliminary REBGV date released by Dexter Associates Realty.

As of mid-month, 4,367 new listings had hit the market, according to Dexter partner and managing broker Kevin Skipworth.

“This pace could take us above 8,000 in a month for the first time ever,” Skipworth said.

The higher listings come at an opportune time, he noted, because sales as of mid-March are also on pace for the highest monthly level on record. In the first two weeks of March, 2,663 homes sold and, in at least four Greater Vancouver markets, sales have already eclipsed the entire month of February, which had posted the second-highest sales in history.

Calling the current market “head-spinning” Bryan Yu,  chief economist at Central 1 Credit Union in Vancouver, noted that, through the first two months of 2021, total Metro Vancouver home sales, which includes most of the Fraser Valley, rose 78  per cent from 2020 and exceeded 2016 – the former record year – by 1.8 per cent.

It now appears that March will rewrite history again.

North Vancouver detached home sales as of March 15 are nearly at the level for the whole month of February, Burnaby townhouse sales have already eclipsed the sales in February (which were the highest sales in more than three years) and, in the South Delta communities of Ladner and Tsawwassen, condominium apartment sales are higher than in all of February, the latest data shows.

In the City of Vancouver, 698 homes had sold as of March 15, compared to 477 at the same time in February, while new listings increased 63 per cent from February 15 to 1, 263 units.

Skipworth said the higher listings may help cool “ the fever in multiple offers that was reaching an exhausting pitch for buyers.”

It was not uncommon for prime Vancouver or Burnaby properties to receive 20 offers in February, he noted.

“Buyers remain motivated by the low-mortgage-rate environment, while the pandemic has contributed to higher savings and a desire for more space as many people work remotely,” Yu said. “ Higher demand for suburban areas, away from the high-priced core Vancouver market, is evident with a doubling of Fraser Valley market sales.”

During the first two months of this year,  average detached house prices in Greater Vancouver are up 15 per cent from 2020 to a record high of $1.06 million, Yu added.

Both Skipworth and Yu forecast that sales of strata homes – townhouses and condos – will lead the sales curve into the spring.

“Strong price growth in detached prices may be pricing more families into multi-family units, while vaccine optimism is likely driving investors back into the [condominium] market,” Yu said.

“It is surprising to see the levels of activity we are experiencing, especially in the condo apartment market,” Skipworth added.

According to REBGV data, February townhouses sales were up 82 per cent, year-over-year, and condo apartment sales were 65 per cent higher.

“Together, strata property sales accounted for nearly 65 per cent of all February transactions, with condo apartments leading all sectors with a blistering pace of 62 sales every day,” Skipworth said, adding that March sales are tracking even higher.

Yu, however, is expecting the sales trend to slow later this year. 

“Mortgage rates have likely bottomed, and high prices are eroding affordability. Meanwhile, the shift to a post-vaccine world will usher in a return to a more normal working environment, limiting opportunities to search for housing and reducing a push towards suburban markets. Spending power will likely diminish as households redeploy spending into services and tourism,” Yu commented in a March 19 column in Business in Vancouver.

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

Mission 16.3-acre development site sells for $1.88 millio

Homelife Glenayre Realty
Western Investor

— Homelife Glenayre Realty, Abbotsford, B.C. for Western Investor

Property type:Development land

Location: 34414 White Avenue, Mission, B.C.

Land size: 710, 028 square feet

Land size in acres: 16.3 acres

Zoning: RU36 (Rural zone)

List price: $1.95 million

Sale price:$1.88 million

Brokerage: Homelife Glenayre Realty (seller’s agent) and Royal LePage Wheeler Cheam Realty (buyer’s agent) Abbotsford, B.C.

Brokers:Marty Nault of Homelife Glenayre Realty ; Jag Cheema of Royal LePage Wheeler Cheam Realty

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

Vancouver on track to shatter home sales and new listings records in March

Sean MacKay
Livabl

During the same week one year ago, Vancouver’s resale housing market began to freeze as restrictions were rapidly rolled out to battle the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After recording strong annual gains in the first half of March 2020, the market experienced a 33 percent annual drop in sales during the month’s second half as buyers stayed home.

One year and a remarkable housing recovery later, the situation on the ground today couldn’t be more different.

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According to mid-month resale figures shared this week by Dexter Realty’s Kevin Skipworth, 2,663 homes have already changed hands in the Vancouver region during the first half of March. That mid-month total is higher than all the transactions recorded during the entire month of March 2020.

Unlike this time last year, restrictions have loosened up and realtors are more comfortable working in a virtual-first environment. At the same time, buyers and, increasingly, sellers are confident entering what has become a historically hot market.

Skipworth wrote in a monthly update email that the current pace of transactions puts the market on track to hit 5,400 home sales by the end of the month. If achieved, this sales total would be higher than the total hit in March 2016, the current record-holder for the month.

Adding to the optimism, Skipworth wrote that new listings are also on track to break a single-month record.

“The number of new listings so far in March are on pace to shatter the highest monthly total of new listings we’ve seen in Greater Vancouver. With 4,267 new listings at mid-month, this pace could take us above 8,000 in a month for the first time ever,” Skipworth wrote in the email.

Buyer demand has consistently and significantly outpaced supply since the recovery began last summer. With sales yet again likely to break a record in March, Skipworth believes the influx of listings couldn’t have come at a better time as buyers were becoming exhausted by the fiercely competitive market.

“It would seem the trend to list and sell on the heels of high buyer demand is catching on,” he wrote, while still acknowledging that the total number of homes listed on the market hasn’t risen as substantially since February.

 

© 2020 BuzzBuzzHome Corp.