Metro Vancouver to see deepest property-price dip nationally
Metro Vancouver's home prices rose the highest in Canada's property boom and will fall the farthest in its correction, real estate firm Royal LePage has forecast.
Royal LePage Real Estate Services, in its 2009 market survey forecast released today, predicts that Metro's average home price will decline nine per cent in 2009 to $540,100 from a 2008 forecast of $593,500.
That will be almost three times deeper than the national average decline for 2009 of three per cent, which should bring the average home price down to $295,000 nationally.
Royal LePage, in its report, said Vancouver experienced above-average home-price inflation over most of the last decade.
"For several years, Vancouver experienced aggressive price run-ups in response to overwhelming levels of demand," Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper said in a news release, "condition which eventually reached a tipping point."
Soper added that while Vancouver prices are declining, "it is important to note that prices are coming down from all-time record levels."
Across the country, however, Royal LePage anticipates that there will be modest price increases in mid-sized cities where home prices are below the national average such as Regina and Winnipeg.
Royal LePage expects Regina's average home price to advance six per cent to hit $243,300 in 2009. Winnipeg's is expected to rise four per cent to $204,900.
Nationally, Soper said emotional reaction to recent economic and political instability dampened consumer confidence in the last half of 2008, which is something Royal LePage expects to turn around a bit as people understand economic issues better.
Royal LePage also expects consumer confidence to recover with corrective economic measures in Canada, which has stronger economic conditions than some other countries and should help temper its real-estate correction.
"Most consumers are not aware that nationally, Canadian housing market activity peaked in 2007 and has been adjusting lower since," Soper said. "We are well into this inevitable cyclical correction."
By Derrick Penner