Lower Mainland real estate market strikes `balance`
The decline of Lower Mainland real estate markets, which started with falling sales more than a year and saw prices drop as the global recession developed, levelled out in May.
Metro Vancouver recorded its best year-over-year sales increase in May since February 2008 with 3,524 sales reported through the Multiple Listing Service, 17 per cent higher than the 3,002 sales recorded in the same month a year ago.
The so-called benchmark price in Metro Vancouver, averaged across property types, hit $506,201 in May, which is still 11 per cent below the same month in 2008, but higher than the $484,211 recorded in January.
Metro Vancouver`s inventory of unsold homes in May stood at 13,641, a 16-per-cent decrease from a year ago.
In the Fraser Valley, realtors recorded 1,501 MLS sales, which was still six per cent below the 1,599 sales recorded in May 2008, but "the closest we`ve been to a balanced market since early spring last year," Paul Penner, president of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board said in a new release.
The benchmark price for a detached home in the Fraser Valley hit $465,939 in May, some 9.3 per cent below May of 2008, but higher than the $460,229 recorded last month.
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