Spring time in Vancouver! Amazing weather (we hope!), beautiful scenery, and a great time to buy a new home. According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, even though there were fewer housing sales compared to March 2007, residential prices have continued to climb. The market is continuing to balance, with sales and listings beginning to re-align with our 10-year averages,” says REBGV president, Dave Watt. “The selection of inventory hitting the market is wider than we have seen in the past few years, which gives prospective buyers more choices.”

As a realtor, I’m definitely seeing a change in the market. We’re seeing more and more properties sitting, versus the days of properties selling on the first weekend with multiple offers. Last week alone in Vancouver (East and Westside), 225 price reductions were reported to the board. Yet in detached, sales are still strong. Homes that are priced “right” are selling for asking or even over. So, it pays to listen to your realtor and to price your home where the market dictates it should be. It will probably sell faster, and for more money.

There seems to be more inventory on the market, which is always good for first time buyers, who typically take longer to select a new home. In past, by the time the buyer figured out they wanted to put an offer on a property, it was gone. Now that we’re seeing a bit of a slow down, people can take a little more time to make such a huge financial decision. Of course, different areas of Greater Vancouver are seeing different effects. We’re actually seeing an increase in the markets of New Westminster, Port Moody, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. These areas are also seeing a huge boom in development, especially with pre-build, multi strata concrete developments. With a huge wave of immigration into this great city of ours, we should continue to see growth in our real estate market… just maybe at a slightly slower rate than the last 8 years have afforded us. But enough about real estate… where’s the sun?!

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Kristie Marsden
Macdonald Realty Kerrisdale
Cell: 778.836.4389
realtyagentkristie@gmail.com
www.realtyagentkristie.com