The national average home price rose in October but the impact of Canada’s two largest markets is continuing to influence Canada-wide numbers, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Across the countries prices were up 7.1% from a year ago to an average of $419,699. Once Toronto and Vancouver are removed, the annual gain slips to 5.4% and the average sale price for October drops to $330,596.

“Low interest rates continued to support sales in some of Canada’s more active and expensive urban housing markets and factored into the monthly increase for national sales,” said Beth Crosbie., president of CREA, in a statement. “Even so, sales did not increase in many local markets in Canada, which shows that national and local housing market trends can be very different.”

For the sixth straight month sales rose and last month proved to be the strongest for October since 2009.

“While the strength of national sales activity is far from being a Canada-wide phenomenon, it extends beyond Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto,” said Gregory Klump, chief economist with CREA. “Sales in a number of B.C. markets have started to recover from weaker demand over the past couple of years. They have also been improving across much of Alberta, where interprovincial migration and international immigration are reaching new heights.”

Actual October sales were up 7% from a year and sales were up 70% of all local markets, led by Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, Victoria, Calgary, and Greater Toronto. Those five markets combined for 40% of the national sales activity.

For the first 10 months of the year, sales were now up 5.2% from a year ago and 2.5% above the 10-year average for the same period.

Source: Garry Marr, Financial Post

The average price of a home sold through the Multiple Listing Service last month was $419,699 – up 7.1 per cent from $391,931 in October 2013. That’s according to new numbers from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), which reports on the market each month.

Such high costs have many wondering whether it’s a good idea to buy and what they should watch out for.

While everyone’s decision-making process will be different, here are a few things worth considering when shopping for a home.

The market could fall

Many people who bought homes in Canada in the past decade have profited from rising house prices.

But home prices sometimes fall, says Paul Anglin, a real estate professor from the University of Guelph.

“Most people get excited about the rising part,” he says. “They forget about the falling part.”

Fresh in the minds of many is the 2008 U.S. housing market crash, which left millions of Americans with homes worth less than they had paid. Prices have mostly recovered, but many lost money in the meantime.

Markets have crashed in Canada, too. For example, from 1990 to 1996, prices dropped every year in Toronto.

Both The Bank of Canada and Moody’s have warned recently that a crash could happen again in Canada, especially if the economy slows down.

Local markets differ

Housing markets tracked by CREA vary widely by city. Prices are up 9.5 per cent year-over-year in Calgary, 8.3 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area and six per cent in Greater Vancouver.

However, they were flat in Saskatoon, Ottawa, Greater Montreal and Greater Moncton – and down 3.4 per cent in Regina.

The eye-popping increases in Toronto and Vancouver are likely because “lots of people want to move there and there’s limited space,” says Anglin.

Calgary is a different story, however, because it’s highly dependent on the success of the local oil extraction economy, which is tied to the global price of oil.

Although Calgary has been booming for years, global oil prices have recently started to fall. “If the price of oil stays low, then [a crash in Calgary] is exactly what you would expect,” says Anglin.

Transit lines can boost value

Living close to good rapid transit options can boost the value of a property for obvious reasons – people want the shortest possible commutes.

“You want to be in a place that is convenient – or that will be convenient,” says Anglin. In other words, don’t just consider existing transit lines, but also where proposed transit could be built.

Think about SmartTrack in Toronto or the Broadway Subway proposal in Vancouver.

“But you also need to figure out how much inconvenience there will be during construction phase,” says Anglin. Buyers who end up too close to a new train station might have to put up with years of dust and noise.

Buying an unbuilt home can be risky

Buying pre-construction can be appealing, because everything will be new once the home is done.

It can also be risky.

“If you’re buying from a plan, you don’t know what will actually be there,” says Anglin.

For example, those who buy a condo from a plan, do not know who else will be in the building, he says.

Some buildings have a large proportion of renters, who may be noisier or dirtier than owners who live in their homes.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that condo fees are more predictable after a building has been up and running for a few years, says Anglin.

And while buyers used to get a discount in exchange for the unpredictability, as TD Bank pointed out earlier this year, resale condos may now be a better deal.

How long do you plan to stay?

Potential buyers need to ask themselves how long they plan to stay, because the longer they are willing to stay, the lower the risk of being forced to sell when prices are low.

“If you plan to be in some place for a year, maybe you should be renting,” says Anglin.

“If you plan to be there for 10 years,” he says, “the monthly wiggles on the average price probably don’t matter, because 10 years from now, economic conditions will be very different.”

Source: Josh Dehaas, CTVNews.ca

The board said there were 3,057 sales in October, up from 2,661 sales a year earlier. Sales jumped 5.9% from September and were 16.6% above the 10-year average for October.

Prices also continue to rise with the board’s benchmark index up 6% from a year ago to $637,000.The average sale price of a detached home in the Vancouver area is now $1,250,557 but that’s still below the all-time high which was once close to $1.4-million.

“We’ve seen strong and consistent demand from home buyers in Metro Vancouver throughout this year. This has led to steady increases in home prices of between 4% and 8% depending on the property,” said Ray Harris, president of the board, in a statement.

New listings were up 4.4% in October from a year ago but dropped 14.7% from September. Detached homes were the exception with new listings dropping.

“Detached homes continue to increase in price more than condominium and townhome properties. This is largely a function of supply and demand as the supply of condominium and townhome properties are more abundant than detached homes in our region,” Mr. Harris said.

Detached home sales in October were up 19.1% from a year ago and 60.1% from two years ago. The benchmark price for detached homes was $995,100, a 7.9% increase from a year ago.

Source: Garry Marr, Financial Post

Housing prices in the Vancouver region are headed for a record high this year, and signs point to a continuing upward trend in Canada’s most expensive property market, fuelled by steady population growth and economic stability.

The price for detached houses, condos and townhouses sold in Greater Vancouver is on track to average $811,000 this year, up 5.6 per cent from $767,765 in 2013, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

CMHC predicts that average prices for resale properties will rise 1.2 per cent to $821,000 in 2015 and climb another 1.7 per cent to $835,000 in 2016.

Sales on the Multiple Listing Service will jump 13.2 per cent to 32,800 this year, before slipping to 32,250 units in 2015 and 31,600 in 2016, the agency said in its market outlook for Greater Vancouver. The forecasts are above the 15-year average of nearly 31,300 sales annually.

“Looking ahead, existing home sales are projected to ride the 2014 momentum into much of 2015 before anticipated higher interest rates take some steam away towards the latter part of 2015,” CMHC said, adding that population growth in Greater Vancouver is largely driven by migration from overseas.

Net migration is forecast to grow 11 per cent to 26,500 arrivals in the Vancouver area this year, followed by a 7.5-per-cent gain to another 28,500 people in 2015.

“A strengthening economy should help full-time employment gain more traction for all age groups,” CMHC said. “Employment and population changes are two of the key drivers behind housing demand.”

The average price for a detached house in the Vancouver region is forecast by CMHC to climb 4.8 per cent to $1.51-million next year. A May story in the New Yorker magazine on Vancouver’s pricey houses asserted that the B.C. city has become part of a global market in real estate, even though it “doesn’t have the cultural cachet of Paris or Milan.”

An October report titled Emerging Trends in Real Estate echoed the magazine’s assessment. The study by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute noted that while Vancouver has a lower global profile than those two major European cities, real estate on Canada’s West Coast is seen as a hedge against political risk during turbulent times in other parts of the world. Vancouver “does offer comfort and stability – and a place for the world’s super-rich to park sizable funds in local real estate as a hedge against risk,” said the report.

As for new home construction, housing starts in the Vancouver region are on pace to rise 1.1 per cent to 18,900 units this year, slip to 18,700 next year and then increase to 19,250 in 2016, according to the CMHC forecast. The overall trend is stable, said Robyn Adamache, the agency’s senior market analyst for Vancouver.

CMHC’s outlook covers Vancouver suburbs such as Richmond and Burnaby. The agency’s other research includes tracking Fraser Valley communities, from sprawling Surrey to Abbotsford.

Average prices for existing Fraser Valley properties are expected to increase 4 per cent this year to $510,000, then rise 0.5 per cent to $512,500 next year and gain another 2.2 per cent to $524,000 in 2016.

CMHC is calling for 14,500 resale houses changing hands this year in the Fraser Valley, up 12.4 per cent from 2013. That will be followed by 13,500 sales in 2015 and 13,750 in 2016, the agency said.

The forecasts would be thrown off if interest rates were to soar, resulting in a housing slump nationally, but industry experts aren’t expecting sharp rate increases.

Source: Brent Jang, Globe and Mail

Homeowners who choose the convenience of city life over the more generous living space in suburbia are driving Canada’s real estate market, according to a new report jointly produced by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers and the non-profit Urban Land Institute.

The annual outlook on emerging real estate trends says the move downtown, which has emerged in the past few years, will continue as more Canadians decide to stay in or move back to urban cores.

Much of this is due to changing demographics as young families and millennials forgo the white picket fence and house in the suburbs to take advantage of downtown living, where properties are smaller but offer more conveniences, said the 112-page report released Tuesday.

According to Statistics Canada, the most recent numbers available show that the population of urban centres grew 7.1 per cent between 2006 and 2011.

Frank Magliocco, Canadian real estate leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said there are a number of factors behind the urban growth, including that Canadians are more aware of the environmental costs associated with urban sprawl as well as the cost in time and money of lengthy commutes.

As well, provincial land use regulations that protect green spaces — for example Toronto’s Greenbelt involving about 800,000 hectares of protected land from Peterborough, Ont., to Niagara Falls, Ont. — have made it more difficult to find land to develop and has pushed an explosion of condominium growth in major cities.

But one of the concerns is what will happen to these urban properties once the younger generation grows out of them.

“This continuing urbanization trend has fuelled the condo boom in Toronto and other cities, but some question what will happen as the lifestyles of today’s young urban singles and couples change. Will they move out of the city core in search of larger homes, schools and services, or will they — like their counterparts in other parts of the world — simply adapt to smaller living spaces?” the report asks.

Magliocco said Canadian cities will either go the way of New York, where families are willing to sacrifice space to live in the city, or the way of London, where families are used to living outside the city and commuting downtown for work.

The rapidly growing condo markets in cities such as Toronto and Vancouver have also raised concerns about an oversupply of units and whether the boom is overly weighted towards wealthy, foreign investors who lease the units to others.

Meanwhile, an expected rise next year in interest rates from historically low levels may also influence demand in the housing market.

However, among the 1,400 people interviewed and surveyed for the report, which included private property investors and developers, commercial developers and real estate service firms, the consensus was that the Canadian market is strong enough to weather a bump in mortgage rates.

“The improvement in the U.S. economy indicates that higher rates could be coming, but the economic stability in Canada and the United States will continue to attract foreign capital,” said the report. “In addition, retiring baby boomers are likely to flood the market with private capital as they look to turn stock options and retirement packages into stable, income-generating assets.”

Overall, the report sees developers responding to the needs of downtown dwellers by building more mixed-used properties, which include residential and retail space.

“Looking ahead, we can expect to see more and more retail and services along the streets of Canada’s city cores and along major transit arteries, especially where new developments predominate. Major brands are likely to move into these new spaces, too — though with new formats and smaller footprints,” said the report.

The report also noted that Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, will see the most residential growth in 2015, a trend that has been helped by more jobs becoming available in the West than in Central Canada, while Calgary and the Greater Toronto Area will hold the most potential for retail growth.

Source: Linda Nguyen, The Canadian Press

There are early indications that September appears to have been another strong month for Canadian home sales.

That is based on data that some local real estate boards have released in recent days about how their housing markets fared last month. The number of existing homes that changed hands in Toronto was up 10.9 per cent from a year earlier, in Calgary it was up almost 12 per cent, and in Vancouver 17.7 per cent. And that’s in comparison to a reasonably strong month where sales in September, 2013, were slightly above the 10-year average for that month.

A comprehensive picture won’t be available until the Canadian Real Estate Board, which represents realtors, compiles all of the local statistics and releases national September data on Oct. 15. Many cities have not released their numbers publicly yet, and the ones that have tend to be in some of the country’s stronger housing markets. Quebec and the Atlantic region, where more markets are struggling, are not represented below.

But the strength of Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver’s housing markets tends to pull up the national averages, and so the numbers here suggest that the national figures will point to a market that still has momentum.

CALGARY

Sales were up almost 12 per cent in September from a year ago. The local real estate board says the unexpected strength came from a surge in condo and townhouse sales.

Condo sales so far this year are 21 per cent higher than during the same period last year, while the number of sales of detached homes has risen by just 7 per cent. Affordability is driving the shift. Two years ago, 44 per cent of the detached houses that sold from January through to the end of September went for less than $400,000, according to the real estate board. So far this year only one quarter of the houses have sold for less than that.

The average price of a detached house in the city was $567,653 in September, up 10.81 per cent from a year earlier. The average price of a condo was $326,264, up 9.21 per cent. For townhouses it was $352,813, up 4.21 per cent.

The average length of time it takes to sell a home continues to tick downwards. Year-to-date the average number of days a home is on the market before it sells (for all types of homes) is 34, down from 42 in the same period last year.

EDMONTON

Sales were up 9.19 per cent from a year earlier.

The average selling price of a detached home was $435,584, up 6.92 per cent, and the median price of a detached home was $405,000, up 6.91 per cent. The average price of a condo was $254,494, up 4.85 per cent, and the median price was $232,000, up 2.65 per cent.

The average selling price of all types of properties was $372,673, up 6.37 per cent.

The average number of days that homes were on the market before selling was 49, the same as in August but down from 54 days a year ago. The sales-to-listings ratio was 72 per cent, up from 67 per cent in August.

TORONTO

Sales were up 10.9 per cent from a year earlier. So far this year sales in the city are 6.9 per cent higher than during the same period last year.

The average selling price was $573,676, up 7.7 per cent from a year earlier. The average selling price year-to-date is $563,813, up 8.5 per cent from last year.

“If the current pace of sales growth remains in place, we could be flirting with a new record for residential sales reported by (Toronto Real Estate Board) members this year,” TREB’s director of market analysis, Jason Mercer, stated in a press release.

The average selling price of detached homes in the downtown area covered by the 416 area code was $951,792, up 11.5 per cent from a year earlier. For condos in the same area it was $395,505, up 9.2 per cent.

VANCOUVER

Sales were up 17.7 per cent from a year earlier, and 5.4 per cent from the prior month. September’s sales level was 16.1 per cent above the 10-year average for that month, making it the third-highest September in that period.

The benchmark price of all types of properties in Metro Vancouver was $633,500, up 5.3 per cent from a year earlier. For detached homes it was $990,300, up 7.3 per cent, townhomes were $477,700, up 4.2 per cent, and apartments or condos were $378,700, up 3.3 per cent. Similar to the Toronto market, detached home prices are rising more quickly due to a shortage of land to build new ones on.

Sales of detached homes were up 24.1 per cent, sales of apartments or condos were up 16.7 per cent, and sales of attached properties were up 5 per cent.

“September was an active period for our housing market when we compare it against typical activity for the month,” Ray Harris, the president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, stated in a press release.

VICTORIA

Sales were up 16 per cent from a year ago. “We haven’t seen sales like this in September since 2009,” Victoria Real Estate Board president Tim Ayres stated in a press release.

The local real estate board surmises that buyers and sellers are feeling more comfortable about doing deals because prices are more stable and predictable now.

The benchmark price of a house (the benchmark seeks to be a more apples-to-apples gauge than the average price) in central Victoria was $556,200, up from $550,900 a year earlier. For the entire Greater Victoria area it was $492,200, up from $484,800. The benchmark price of a condo in the Greater area was $287,100, up from $283,900. For a townhouse it was $401,500, up from $400,000.

Source: Tara Perkins, The Globe and Mail

The Canadian Real Estate Association raised its home sales forecast Monday on the back of stronger than expected sales in recent months after a slow start to the year.

The association said sales through its Multiple Listing Service are now expected to total 475,000 homes for 2014, up from a June prediction of 463,400.

The new forecast would mean sales would be up 3.8 per cent compared with 2013.

The association said the frigid winter delayed the start to the spring home buying season and helped boost sales in May and June.

“Although this boost was and still is expected to be transitory, sales have yet to show signs of cooling as activity strengthened slightly further over the summer,” CREA said in its updated forecast.

“The increase reflects continuing strength in home sales among large urban markets that initially drove the spring rebound together with gains in markets where activity had previously struggled to gain traction. Lowered mortgage interest rates supported this trend.”

The higher forecast came as CREA said that sales through its MLS system in August were up 2.1 per cent compared with a year ago as sales were up in just over half of all local markets, led by Vancouver and Calgary.

Compared with July, sales were up 1.8 per cent.

The national average price for homes sold in August was $398,618, up 5.3 per cent from a year ago. Excluding Vancouver and Toronto, the average price was $324,738, up 3.9 per cent from a year ago.

The national sales-to-new listings ratio was 55.5 per cent in August, up from 53.9 per cent in July, within the 40 and 60 per cent band that CREA uses to mark a balanced market.

The number of months of inventory stood at 5.8 months at the end of August, down from six months in May, June and July.

Source: The Canadian Press

When Canada’s national housing numbers are released Monday by the Canadian Real Estate Association, they’ll likely show some notable discrepancies between markets. Prices in Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver have been hot lately, but not so much in other areas.

But that’s not the whole story. Even within cities, the variations in how different neighbourhoods have fared can be significant.

So Brookfield RPS pored through its data for some of Canada’s major centres for The Globe and Mail and determined which areas (it breaks them down by the first three digits of their postal code) have had the strongest price appreciation over the last five years. Top bragging rights go to those people who bought detached houses in Vancouver’s Dunbar neighbourhood in 2009, where the average price has more than doubled.

Vancouver

The best performing neighbourhoods for five-year price appreciation of detached homes in Vancouver are Dunbar, North Dunbar and the Queen Elizabeth Park area, which collectively saw prices rise a whopping 96 per cent. For condos, the top spots were the West End, Davie Village and New Westminster, which collectively saw prices rise 45 per cent. In comparison, the city-wide average price for all types of homes rose by 29 per cent.

Vancouver’s market has rebounded from its slump, and prices of detached homes have hit new records. The benchmark price of houses was up 6.6 per cent year-over-year in August, to $984,300, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. The benchmark price of condo apartments rose 3.6 per cent to $379,200.

Montreal

When it comes to detached houses in Montreal, the neighbourhoods whose prices have performed the best over the past five years are Westmount, Saint Laurent and Verdun. They collectively saw prices grow by 59 per cent. As for condos, the top locations for price growth were Saint-Lambert, Bois Chomedey and Nouveau-Rosemont, which collectively saw condo prices rise 69 per cent. In comparison, the average price of all types of homes city-wide increased 18 per cent.

Montreal’s housing market is currently showing signs of struggling, with the number of homes that changed hands during August coming in 6per cent lower than a year earlier, according to the local real estate board. Each of the main areas that the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board tracks – the North Shore, Laval, the South Shore, Vaudreuil-Soulanges and the Island of Montreal – saw sales fall last month. Sales fell by only 4 per cent in Vaudreuil-Soulanges and on the Island, making those the best performing neighbourhoods. The median price of a home in Montreal is currently $285,000, unchanged from a year ago.

Toronto

The top neighbourhoods for price growth of detached houses in Canada’s most populous city were Willowdale, Agincourt and Newtonbrook. Average prices in all of these neighbourhoods combined rose by 75 per cent over five years. The top areas for condo price growth were the Fairview Mall neighbourhood, Cabbagetown and the area around Church and Wellesley Streets. Collectively their condo prices rose by 47 per cent. That compares to average price growth of 43 per cent for all types of properties throughout the city.

At the moment, prices of detached homes in Toronto’s downtown core are outperforming those in the surrounding areas. The average price of a detached home in the central 416-area-code was up 14.7 per cent year-over-year in August, while the average price of a detached home in the suburban 905-area-code rose by 9.3 per cent, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board. The same trend does not hold true for condos, because the plethora of new towers under construction in the downtown core has been constraining prices. The average resale price of existing condos downtown rose by 4.1 per cent in August, while those in the 905 area rose by 5.4 per cent.

Calgary

The best areas to have bought a house in 2009, from a price appreciation point of view, would have been Killarney, South Calgary and Hillhurst, where average prices collectively rose 36 per cent in the period since. For condos, the places to have bought were the Beltline, Elboya, and Edgemont and the Hamptons. Those areas collectively saw condo prices rise by 24 per cent. The average price of all types of homes across the city rose 22 per cent.

Detached homes have become less affordable in Calgary in recent years, causing a significant rise in condo sales. Sales of existing condos rose 14 per cent year-over-year in August, while sales of single-family homes fell 2.4 per cent, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. The benchmark price of a single-family home is now $512,300, up 10.24 per cent from a year ago. The benchmark price of a condo is $298,200, up 10.2 per cent.

Source: Tara Perkins, The Globe and Mail

House prices in Canada continue to climb[/caption]Home prices in Canada’s major cities are running at a rate many economists just don’t think is sustainable.

We won’t get a complete picture of sales and prices in August for a couple of weeks, but preliminary figures from local real estate boards suggest there’s plenty of momentum. And that has some economists wondering about how long this will last.

“Existing-home sales remained strong in a number of major cities in August and prices continued to outrun income,” Bank of Montreal economist Sal Guatieri wrote in a research note. “How long prices can continue to outpace family income in these major cities is unknown, but it can’t go on forever. The longer it does, the greater the risk of a correction when interest rates rise.”

Falling mortgage rates helped make homes more affordable heading into the summer, according to Royal Bank of Canada. And a recent survey by real estate consulting and research firm Altus Group found home buying intentions everywhere except B.C. were up this summer compared with a year ago. “While first-time buyer intentions are down slightly, homeowners with mortgages are showing more interest,” Altus Group said.

Policy-makers probably won’t do anything to cool prices now, since many smaller housing markets aren’t running as hot as Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.

Here’s a look at how some markets across the country performed in August, according to data released this week by their local real estate boards.

TORONTO

– 7,600 homes sold on the MLS, up 2.8 per cent from a year earlier, and well above the 10-year average sales level of 7,059 for August.

– the average selling price of all types of homes in Greater Toronto was $546,303, up 8.9 per cent from a year earlier.

– the average price of detached homes in the downtown area covered by the 416 area code was $902,428, up 14.7 per cent; for condos it was $370,899, up 4.1 per cent; for townhouses it was $463,798, up 11.7 per cent.

CALGARY

– 2,267 homes sold on the MLS, up 3.4 per cent from a year earlier; condo sales were up 14 per cent and townhouse sales up 20 per cent, sales of single-family homes fell 2.4 per cent.

– the average price of a single-family home was $545,238, up 5.42 per cent, and the benchmark price of a single-family home was $512,300, up 10.24 per cent; the average price of a condo apartment was $332,006, up 11.48 per cent, and the benchmark price of a condo apartment was $298,200, up 10.2 per cent.

– the average number of days a home spent on the market before selling dropped to 39, from 45 a year earlier.

VANCOUVER

– 2,771 homes sold on the Multiple Listing Service, up 10.2 per cent from a year earlier and 4.3 per cent above the 10-year average for August.

– the benchmark price of all types of homes in Metro Vancouver rose 5 per cent to $631,600 (the benchmark seeks to create a more apples-to-apples comparison than the average price, which can be distorted by changes in the size or location of homes that are selling.)

– the benchmark price of detached properties rose 6.6 per cent to $984,300; the benchmark price of apartment properties rose 3.6 per cent to $379,200; the benchmark price of attached properties rose 3.9 per cent to $474,900.

OTTAWA

– 1,203 homes sold on the MLS, down 1.1 per cent from a year earlier, but a tiny bit above the five-year average of 1,199.

– the average sale price for all types of homes was $360,214, up 3.4 per cent.

– the average price for a condo was $263,996, up 2.7 per cent, while the average price of other types of homes was $381,628, up 1.9 per cent.

EDMONTON

– 1,552 homes sold over the MLS, down 6 per cent from a year earlier.

– the average selling price of all types of homes was up 5 per cent to $368,597, the median selling price was up 5.7 per cent to $348,900.

– the median price of a single-family home rose 5.8 per cent to $402,750, while the median price of a condo fell by 0.6 per cent to $228,500.

REGINA

– 348 homes sold over the MLS in the Regina area, down 8 per cent from a year ago. That was below the five-year average of 365 but above the ten-year average of 336.

– inventory levels are the highest they’ve been in more than 20 years. The number of properties for sale at the end of August was 223 per cent higher than two years earlier.

– the benchmark price was $299,600, down 2.4 per cent from $307,000 a year earlier and homes sat on the market for an average of 48 days before selling, compared with 32 days a year earlier.

Source: Tara Perkins, The Globe and Mail

Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley home buyers have pushed up prices for single-family detached houses to record highs.

The benchmark home price index hit $984,300 last month for detached properties sold in Greater Vancouver, up 6.6 per cent from August, 2013.

In the Fraser Valley, which includes the sprawling and and less-expensive Vancouver suburb of Surrey, the detached price index climbed 3.4 per cent to $569,800 over the past year.

The record-high prices for detached houses will prompt more consumers, especially first-time home buyers, to shop for townhouses and condos, said Shaadi Faris, vice-president at Vancouver-based Intergulf Development Group.

Some baby boomers are selling their large detached homes and moving into condos while helping their children with down payments, fuelling the rally in housing prices in Greater Vancouver, Mr. Faris said in an interview Wednesday. “Locals have built up equity and are downsizing,” he said.

A variety of factors have led to property prices reaching new highs, including low interest rates, a stable economy and an influx of residents from other provinces and countries, real estate experts say.

Intergulf has been getting interest on its various projects primarily from prospective buyers who will live in their units. While there are many inquiries from long-time Vancouverites and people with recent ties to China, there are a small number of outright foreign investors, Mr. Faris added.

Intergulf began construction in early 2014 on its Empire at QE Park condo and townhouse project near Queen Elizabeth Park on Vancouver’s west side.

The index price for existing detached homes on Vancouver’s west side rose 9.7 per cent over the past year to $2,282,400, while increasing 10.3 per cent to $936,500 on the east side.

By contrast, the index price for condos on the west side reached $495,900 in August, up 5.7 per cent from the same month last year. Condo prices on the east side posted a 3.1-per-cent increase year-over-year to $313,400.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said the region’s housing sales rose to 2,771 in August, up 10.2 per cent from a year earlier and 4.3 per cent higher than the 10-year average for the month.

“Activity this summer has been strong but not unusual for our region,” Greater Vancouver board president Ray Harris said in a statement.

In the Fraser Valley, townhouse prices nudged up 0.1 per cent to $298,500 over the past year, but condo prices fell 3.5 per cent to $196,700.

Fraser Valley board president Ray Werger said many first-time buyers in the suburbs are able to afford townhouses or smaller detached homes, including new developments in Cloverdale and Langley.

Source: Brent Jang, Globe and Mail