The overall real estate market cycle has run its course, a housing economist was quoted as saying. Interviewed by The Vancouver Sun, Cameron Muir, chief economist for the B.C. Real Estate Association said he doesn't believe that there was a housing bubble that has now burst, but said there has been a change in the cycle. This, according to him, was signalled by month-over-month declines in real estate prices across many Lower Mainland property markets.

"Typically at the end of a market cycle you will see home prices remain flat, or even come off a few percentage points a year, until the next cycle begins," Muir said in an interview.

Benchmark price for all property types in Metro Vancouver has dipped 2.1 per cent since May, the Vancouver board reported 2,174 property sales in July, a 44-per-cent decline from the same month in 2007. July listings, meanwhile, increased 24 per cent to 6,104 compared with the same month a year ago.