VANCOUVER — Metro Vancouver real estate sales will drop in 2010 compared
to last year and flatten out in 2011 in short because the new buyers
who would have been in the market were enticed to buy in 2009, Canada
Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Wednesday.
“In 2009 many first-time buyers made the move to home ownership,
taking advantage of record-low mortgage rates and prices that had fallen
from their previous peak level,” CMHC said in its report.
For
2010, CMHC said anticipated higher mortgage rates on top of prices that
have rebounded sharply will squeeze buyers out and reduce housing
demand along with the early departure of many first-timers.
CMHC
is forecasting that Metro Vancouver will see 35,000 property sales
cleared through the realtor-controlled Multiple Listing Service, a
3.5-per-cent decline from 2009 and will slip another three per cent to
34,000 transactions in 2011.
On prices, CMHC is forecasting
that Metro Vancouver's average price to top $655,000 in 2010, up 10.6
per cent from 2009. In 2011, however, the federal mortgage insurer
estimates price growth will edge up 3.1 per cent to $675,000.
CMHC's
forecast for housing starts estimates 12,000 new-home starts in 2010,
up 44 per cent from a year ago, and that prices will essentially stall
out. It calls for its new-home-price index to shrink by one per cent in
2010, before gaining that measure back in 2011.
