Metro Vancouver Real Estate Sales reach Record Volumes for July
Record sales volumes in Metro Vancouver and Victoria helped lift B.C.`s real estate market in July, the B.C. Real Estate Association reported Friday.
Nationally, markets experienced record sales for the month, posting their biggest year-over-year increase in two years.
With lower prices and near record low mortgage rates, B.C. buyers rushed to scoop up 10,051 homes through the Multiple Listing Service in July, the association said, lifting the month`s results 53 per cent over the same month a year ago.
"Record home sales in Metro Vancouver and Victoria propelled the province into balanced conditions [between buyers and sellers] last month," association chief economist Cameron Muir said. But conditions are not equal everywhere, he cautioned, adding that Interior markets have been interrupted by forest fires.
And while monthly sales volumes have been slowly increasing this year, the 46,380 homes sold through MLS during the first seven months of 2009 is still down six per cent from the same period a year earlier. The dollar value of those cumulative sales, at $21 billion, is 10 per cent less than in 2008.
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