VANCOUVER — Consider first-time buyers the stone thrown into the Lower Mainland’s real-estate-market pool.
By Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun
Lured by the correction in home prices and low mortgage rates, first-timers are jumping into buy in numbers that are now rippling across the market as evidenced in July with record numbers of sales for the month in both Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
Metro Vancouver realtors racked up 4,114 sales through the Multiple Listing Service in July, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver reported Wednesday, an 89-per-cent increase from July of a year ago, the period when sales were headed into their doldrums.
The benchmark price for the typical property sold across the region hit $528,821 in July, which is still off five per cent from price levels a year ago, but is up 9.2 per cent from the bottom of $484,211 in January.
“Although well-priced listings and lower-to-mid-range properties remain in the highest demand across Greater Vancouver, recent activity from first-time buyers is beginning to boost demand in the ‘move-up’ segment of the market,” board president Scott Russell said in a news release.
It was a similar story in the Fraser Valley, where the region’s real estate board saw 2,089 sales through the Multiple Listing Service in July, a 62-per-cent increase from the 1,284 sold in July 2008, and more than the previous record of 2,051 in July 2005, the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board reported Wednesday.
The benchmark price of a typical detached home to sell in July hit $477,420, which was still down almost six per cent from the price level of a year ago, but was up almost four per cent over the last three months.
The inventory of unsold homes also shrank in the Fraser Valley, declining almost 23 per cent from record levels a year ago to 9,510 active listings in July.
The results, Fraser Valley board president Paul Penner said, are due in part to the ripple effect of first time buyers entering the market, who are jumping in to latch onto the lower prices and historically low interest rates.
“In July, 37 per cent of Fraser Valley buyers were first-timers,” Penner said in a news release. “In June, it was one third. That volume creates a significant ripple effect as the sellers of those homes buy up.”
depenner@vancouversun.com
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