Muted Impact Expected From Cancelled Investor Immigrant
Program
The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA)
reports that a total of 4,244 residential sales were recorded by the Multiple
Listing Service® (MLS®) in January, up 24.5 per cent from January 2013. Total
sales dollar volume was $2.4 billion, an increase of 36.8 per cent compared to
a year ago. The average MLS® residential price in the province rose to
$565,036, up 9.9 per cent from the same period last year.
"Residential sales activity in the province posted
the strongest January since 2010,” said Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist.
“Consumer demand has recovered from last year’s lower levels and is now
trending at the long-term average.” The ten-year average for January is 4,276
unit sales.
"Stronger economic conditions are expected to
underpin a modest uptick in home sales later this year,” added Muir.
The demise of the federal Immigrant Investor Program is
expected to have little impact on the Metro Vancouver housing market. “The only
impact we foresee is less pressure on the inventory of detached homes in
Vancouver’s West Side, Richmond and West Vancouver,” said Muir.
The number of investor immigrant landings peaked at 5,876
in 2008 before declining to just 2,644 in 2012, with a similar number expected
for 2013. These numbers include spouses and dependents. The total number of
added households is estimated to be between 900 and 1,000 per year since 2011.
Copyright BCREA – reprinted with permission
No comments:
Post a Comment