Vancouver housing prices to rise further!
While wall street players are predicting the Vancouver housing bubble will soon burst, Royal LePage is expecting the value of a home in Vancouver to rise another 10 percent by December. According to their estimations, 2015 is shaping up to be a record year.
The prices of detached homes rose about 13 per cent between the second quarters of 2014 and 2015, whereas the value of condos rose by about 6 per cent.
Royal LePage forecasts that home prices will rise 9.4 per cent by the end of this year for all property types. The real estate market in Toronto is keeping pace with Vancouver. The prices there are expected to rise by 9.6 per cent. Calgary, on the other hand, will see a decrease of 2.4 per cent, as per the estimations by Royal LePage.
“The robust national average home price increases that we have seen in the second quarter are heavily influenced by activity levels in Toronto and Vancouver,” said Phil Soper, president and chief executive officer, Royal LePage. “The housing industry in both cities boasts a foundation of prosperous labour markets driving demand for housing that is in limited supply – above average price increases aren’t going away any time soon.”
Some of the highest price increases in Canada were seen in Toronto and Hamilton. Toronto saw a 12.9 per cent price increase in detached bungalows, and an 11.6 per cent increase in the price of standard two-storey homes, whereas Hamilton saw 10.9 per cent and 13.0 per cent increases in the same categories respectively.
In sync with the price increases in the real estate market, Toronto gained approximately 69,000 jobs and saw a decrease of 1 full percentage point in the unemployment rate to 6.9 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. Hamilton’s unemployment rate also declined, settling at 5.2 per cent in June.
Vancouver’s unemployment rate was lower than the national average, sitting at 6.1per cent in June. This rate is well within normal levels for the region.
“Sales in residential real estate are firmly tied to consumer confidence,” said Soper. “This confidence is driven in large part by employment status and prospects. You can see this clearly in the Toronto-Hamilton region where positive full-time jobs trends, supported by the low interest rate environment, are encouraging home purchases in record numbers. We believe an additional interest rate cut, which has been discussed with increasing frequency in recent weeks, would be inappropriate policy at this time.”