Vancouver Downtown
by Lucas Gomes

REMAX prepared new report called Housing Market Outlook 2010, summarizing the key data of 2009 and serving forecast for the upcoming year. I have picked the most interesting part ? report for Greater Vancouver Area.

If you read our real estate market report snippets regularly, you have a picture of the year 2009. Therefore I will provide just a quick summary. 58%, 45%, 24% - these are the January/February/March declines in sales, recorded at the beginning of this year. Real estate market hit the brakes really hard. Average price hit the bottom at $530,763.

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However, the rebound was faster than anyone could expect. May recorded encouraging 16% upswing in sales, June followed with 74% growth and July added 89.5% more sales. One of the worst hit markets turned out to be one of the first markets to surpass year-to-date numbers in 2009. Average price naturally followed the rebound and reached realms around $560,000 at the end of year. Estimates say Vancouver should reach 45% growth in sales with around 36,500 units sold in 2009.

What about the next year? As the shadow of recession slowly leaves our country, economic indicators should show positive values. Real GDP is expected to hover at 3.2 in 2010?up from negative growth of 2.6 in 2009 and unemployment is predicted to slightly drop from 7.7% to 7.6%. Housing starts are about to reach the number of 24,000 in 2010. And of course, don't forget the Olympics!

Prediction counts on 37,000 homes to be sold in Grater Vancouver Area in 2010, with average price coming close to $620,000. This is around 1% more compared to 2009, but still below record year of 2007. While first-time buyers will play an integral role in 2010, move-up buyers are expected to ramp up activity. Naturally, also investors are also expected to have their word in the market in 2010.

Greater Vancouver Area housing market will be definitely busy in 2010!