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Forecast for B.C. real estate prices

The British Columbia Real Estate Association has sharply revised its forecast for dropping home prices in B.C., saying home prices in B.C. will fall just eight per cent this year instead of the 13-per-cent plunge it predicted earlier.

 

The BCREA says in its Spring 2009 Housing Forecast that housing market conditions have improved more rapidly than expected, and as a result the average Multiple Listing Service residential price in B.C. is forecast to decline to just $420,600, in 2009.

“The majority of the decline in home prices has already occurred,” Cameron Muir, BCREA chief economist, said in a news release today. “Balanced markets are emerging in Victoria, Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.

"There’s now little downward pressure on home prices in these areas.”

Earlier this month the Canadian Real Estate Association estimated that B.C.'s average price will drop less than seven per cent over 2009, more than three percentage points off the 10.6-per-cent drop the CREA forecast in February.

CREA forecast that B.C.'s average price will drop to $423,300, instead of the $406,300 average it forecast earlier.

For 2010, CREA is now predicting that B.C. prices will start edging up again by almost two per cent compared with a 2010 drop of 0.6 per cent written into the February forecast.

bmorton@vancouversun.com

THIS ENTRY WAS POSTED ON May 26th, 2009 BY Mark Longpre | POSTED IN General ,