Steve Burk, North Vancouver, BC real estate: Blog

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Towards a Balanced Market?

October 12th, 2006

Various recent housing market reports have been the topic of discussion in the Vancouver Sun in late September. All seem to agree that prices are leveling (the headline stated "price hikes have tapered off") and also the obvious, that the number of sales for the past few months are down from the same months last year. The best analytical comments came from Cameron Muir of Canada Mortgage an ...

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Economic Update

October 2nd, 2006

On Friday the latest report on Canadian GDP (measure of growth) was out. The Canadian economy grew by 0.2% in July. However, the growth for the third quarter is likely to be around 2% annualized, which is below the forecast. That is mostly due to the recent economic data in the U.S. which “points to a significant moderation in activity, which has and will continue to restrain dem ...

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Canada may escape economic slowdown...

September 18th, 2006

Last week the August the housing starts was out and it showed a 9.6% monthly decline. Although the news was bad on the surface, a closer look showed a more optimistic picture. “For example, over the last year there have been two instances where housing starts registered double digit declines. To look past this volatility, one can focus on the year over year change, which was stil ...

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Slow down v. recession

September 11th, 2006

Lately there is a lot of talk about the possibility of U.S recession and its effect on our economy and the housing market. In fact Bank of Canada, in its recent decision last Wednesday to keep the rates unchanged said that the cooling in U.S. housing market is the biggest downside risk to the Canadian economy. While we think that there is a 25% chance that the recent slow down in U ...

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Vancouver Market May be Headed for a Soft Landing

September 6th, 2006

Demand for housing in Vancouver has been softening since the beginning of 2006. In six of the last seven months, unit sales have been virtually flat or negative on a year-over-year basis. This may reflect the fact that the average resale house is now priced at over half a million dollars and home ownership costs have climbed to almost 50% of median household labour income. Supply conditions ...

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Housing Sales Strong

August 22nd, 2006

"Although last year was a banner year for real estate in Greater Vancouver, 2006 is shaping up to be one of our best Vancouver area climbed to an all-time high in June with 3,681 units sold. If these consumer trends continue, 2006 may post the highest number of sales for attached homes in the history of our Board." "Whether it's affordability, lifestyle, or a combination of both, the Great ...

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Housing Starts

August 14th, 2006

The housing starts statistics was out last Wednesday. July’s housing startsfor Canada came at 236,500 annualized,the same as the previous month. Thesingle detached starts declined for the fifth time in the last 6 months.The multiples starts increased for a third consecutive month to reach112,900. B.C. had one of the best performances with starts up by 19.4%. Surprisingly, Alberta’s st ...

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Mortgage Update

August 9th, 2006

The slow down of the U.S housing market has finally effected the U.Seconomic growth. Last Friday’s GDP Numbers showed that the economic growthin U.S slowed to a below potential rate of 2.5% in the second quarter fromthe robust rate of 5.6% in the first quarter. The higher interest rates arefinally taking the steam out of the mortgage refinancing and housingwealth. In U.S sale of existing ...

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June Housing Sales 2nd Highest on Record

July 26th, 2006

Vancouver, BC July 2006 - Total residential sales reached 3951 units in June, the second highest number of sales recorded during the month of June in the history of the Real Estate board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV). REBGV reports that last month's overall sales for detached, attached and apartment properties decreased by 8.8% when compared to the 4333 units sold in June 2005. However, June ...

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