Thursday, January 14, 2010

Canada's Real Estate Market Continues Strong Rebound

anada's real estate market continues to rebound, and property investment is quickly regaining its appeal, sparking a turnaround and driving housing sales and prices from Toronto to Montreal and Vancouver. The momentum from 2009's strong finish, spurred by attractive lending rates and renewed consumer confidence, should carry over to the first half of 2010. See the following article from Property Wire for more on this.

Vancouver real estate
Vancouver, Canada
The residential real estate market in Canada is expected to remain unusually strong through the first half of this year after a robust finish to 2009, according to a new survey.

The stimulus effect of low borrowing costs has contributed to a sharp rise in demand that has driven activity to new highs, according to the report from Royal LePage, which has a network of 14,000 agents across the country. It found that property prices appreciated in late 2009, with fourth quarter averages higher than in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Avison Young releases 2010 national real estate forecast for U.S., Canada

anadian real estate market fundamentals, though shaken, remain relatively intact while U.S. markets continue to shoulder the brunt of the downturn with recovery expected to be longer and drawn out

CHICAGO, Jan. 13 /PRNewswire/ - Recessionary headwinds took their toll on real estate markets on both sides of the border in 2009, with the U.S. continuing to shoulder the worst of the storm. Now several quarters into it, the Canadian real estate sector has not been entirely immune, but appears to be weathering the downturn thanks to relatively sound, though shaken, market fundamentals.

These are some of the key trends noted in Avison Young's 2010 National Forecast, released today. The annual report covers the Office, Industrial, Retail and Investment markets in 13 regions: Chicago, Washington, DC, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, GTA West/Mississauga, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Halifax.

"If anyone needs to be reminded, commercial real estate is a cyclical industry," comments Mark E. Rose, Avison Young's Chair and CEO. "In our 2009 Forecast last January, we predicted one overriding theme - decision-making would grind to a halt until key metrics stabilized and new trends appeared. The dislocation in real estate lending and investing was so severe in March and April that the markets looked to be on the verge of collapse. Canada weathered the storm better than the U.S. and activity was down, but transactions were executed."

Monday, January 11, 2010

GTA housing market quickly shook off the recession

When you look at GTA housing prices and sales statistics, it's almost like there had never been a recession.

As 2009 wound down, homebuyers were partying like it was late 2007, which illustrates the V-shaped path the market followed when the recession started to bite in the fall of 2008.

The recession is generally considered to have started in October 2008. For that month, the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) reported that GTA sales were down 35 per cent over the same period in 2007.

Toronto average home prices were down 13 per cent over the same period in October 2007, while 905 homes prices declined about eight per cent.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/content/view/138368/110/

Written by Ric Swihart
Friday, 08 January 2010
While major Canadian cities showed significant increases in the real estate market in 2009, they had much further to recover after the boom times two and three years ago compared with southern Alberta, says a local official.
Audrey King, president of the Association of Lethbridge and District Realtors, said listings and sales in Lethbridge through realtors were down about two per cent through Dec. 31, 2009 from a year earlier.
Lethbridge realtors sold 1,169 homes in 2009. They also sold 250 condominiums. In the year, 1,839 homes were listed for sale.
The 2009 southern Alberta figures, which include country residential and farms, were sales of 2,355 properties with 5,304 listed in the year. That compares to 2,575 sales to Dec. 31, 2008 and listings of 6,219.
Nationally, house prices appreciated late in 2009 with the fourth quarter price average surpassing averages from the same quarter in 2008.

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