That view, expressed recently by Business Council of B.C. executive vice-president Jock Ferguson, reflects the sentiments of many.

However, similar observations have been made in the past. Still, the cost of housing in the Vancouver area has kept climbing. It is impossible to predict when the pricing peak truly will be reached.

Greater Vancouver’s January home price index for a single detached home hit a record $1,010,000, up 8.4 per cent from one year earlier.

The rental market is equally daunting, with a low vacancy rate and hefty rents, especially for condo units.

Behind the problem of unaffordability is, and always has been, the law of supply and demand. There is no indication this force soon will be diminishing.

Greater Vancouver is attracting tens of thousands of newcomers a year, both from other countries and provinces.

For wealthy foreign migrants, the housing situation likely poses no obstacle. But most local buyers and renters, and migrants from other provinces, are not in a position to pay high rents or $1 million-plus to purchase.

Influential architect Michael Geller recently played host to a Simon Fraser University lecture, titled: 12 Affordable Housing Ideas For Vancouver. Unsurprisingly, it was so well attended that many would-be registrants were turned away.

Geller is calling for a two-pronged approach that would:

• have those wishing to live here reducing expectations about the size of housing they require and their need for two-car garages and granite countertops;

• have city planners become more creative and flexible with zoning, and building rules and regulations.

Specifically, Geller wants Vancouver-area planning departments to permit designs that maximize land use and have been tried successfully elsewhere.

Designs would, for example, allow construction of a cluster of small cottage-like homes on a single large residential lot; and designs that would extend construction of a house or apartment buildings right to side-lot property lines, as in dense European urban cores. Municipalities could more liberally permit construction and sale of micro suites of 300 to 400 square feet, laneway and coach houses and allow townhouses and duplexes to accommodate basements, which then could be rented as crucial mortgage helpers.

The city of Vancouver is well aware it has a severe housing affordability problem, having established an arm’s length affordable housing agency in 2014 to find ways of supplying more housing at more reasonable prices.

But the agency has yet to launch a much-needed public discussion about innovative proposals such as Geller’s. The public deserves a chance to digest the prospect of further densification.

Early action clearly is needed in the face of the ever-escalating property prices.

Source: Editorial, The Vancouver Sun

Canada’s housing market has been cooling, led by Alberta, but Toronto and Vancouver are surging forward fuelled by lower borrowing costs.

Recent trends have seen a red-hot housing market in Alberta along with the big urban markets of Toronto and Vancouver driving the national-level overvaluation. However, Alberta is now driving the weakness in home sales with other metrics of the national housing market slowly following.

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reported on Tuesday, Feb. 17, national home sales falling 3.1 percent from December to January. This is the second month in a row sales have declined notably.

“The decline in national sales largely reflects weakened activity in Calgary and Edmonton,” said CREA’s chief economist Gregory Klump.

“If these two markets are removed from national totals, combined sales activity remained 1.9 percent above year-ago levels,” he added. Instead, compared to year-ago levels, national sales were down 2.0 percent for January.

The fall in the price of oil has seen Alberta’s housing market take a sharp turn south. Housing inventory has doubled in the last year in Calgary as a result of new listings rising 37 percent and sales falling 39 percent. Edmonton’s inventory in January 2015 is up 35 percent from December 2014.

As a result, CREA’s measure of inventory has risen to a 6.5 months’ supply, the highest since April 2013. The sales-to-new listings ratio fell to 49.7, which is the first time this ratio has been below 50 since December 2012. It’s still in balanced territory, but the trend is clear.

Prices tend to lag sales and this is evident in that Calgary still shows the largest year-over-year price increase for January, at 7.76 percent, with Greater Toronto (7.47 percent) and Greater Vancouver (5.53 percent) following. CREA notes that while year-over-year price gains in Calgary are shrinking, those in Toronto and Vancouver are picking up, however.

The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) released mid-month housing figures on Wednesday, Feb. 18, and reported a 14.9 percent increase in the number of sales for the first two weeks of February as compared to the same period last year.

“While home prices are higher compared to this time last year, borrowing costs are lower. Home buyers are still finding affordable options to meet their housing needs,” said TREB president Paul Etherington in the press release.

The average selling price in Toronto for the first half of February was $602,110 — a 10.3 percent year-over-year increase. The tight market conditions are approaching seller’s market territory, according to a Feb. 18 BMO special report on the housing market.

Vancouver’s home sales are up 8.7 percent from January 2014 and are nearly 15 percent higher than the 10-year sales average for January.

“While demand remains steady, we’re seeing fewer homes for sale at the moment,” said Ray Harris, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver in a Feb. 3 press release. “This is creating greater competition amongst buyers.

Source: Rahul Vaidyanath, Epoch Times

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver released new figures yesterday that showed the typical detached property in the area increased 8.4 per cent from January 2014 to $1,010,000. The benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver is $641,600.

It also showed the number of home sales in Greater Vancouver was higher last month than the average over the past decade. While the number of sales increased nearly 15 per cent for the month of January, there are fewer homes for sale.

“While demand remains steady, we’re seeing fewer homes for sale at the moment,” said Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board president Ray Harris in a release. “This is creating greater competition amongst buyers, particularly in the detached home market. The number of detached homes listed for sale today is the second lowest we’ve seen in four years.”

The Bank of Canada lowered the benchmark interest rate from one per cent to 0.75 per cent on Jan. 21 to lessen the blow of dropping oil prices.

This rate cut by the central bank likely means lower interest rates for variable rate mortgages, lines of credit and other loans based on the prime rate, and will likely boost consumer spending.

“A reduced rate could allow you to pay down your mortgage a little faster, save some money on your monthly payments, or change the amount you qualify for,” Harris said. “It’s important that you do your homework and understand how these announcements impact your situation.”

Apartment property sales in January went up 7.4 per cent from the same month last year, and jumped 40.5 per cent from January 2013.

The Real Estate Board defines the benchmark price as one designed to represent a typical residential property in a particular housing market.

Source: CTV Vancouver with files from the Canadian Press