[Source - JEREMY ASHLEY, THE INTELLIGENCER]
The time may be right to jump into the local housing market, according to the president of the local real estate organization.
Local real estate numbers downward slide as compared to the heydays only a few short months ago, according to numbers released by the Quinte and District Real Estate Board this week.
As a result, the time is ripe for buyers to jump in and walk away with a bargain, said board president Roy Millar.
"There were 344 sales in June," said Millar, which represented about a six per cent drop as compared to the same month last year.
"Of those sales, 309 were residential, representing 90 per cent of the market," said the local real estate agent.
The remaining 35 units were a mix of vacant land or commercial, industrial or multiplex sales, Millar added.
While the highest percentage of sales were between $100,000 and $300,000, Millar said the challenging economic climate pummel lower and high-end house sale prices in the region.
"The under-$100K and the over-300K market has been decreasing, which seems to be a result of our economic times. Belleville's average sale price for the month of June is the same as the Belleville overall average for the last 12 months, hovering around $190,000," he noted.
There may be a glimmer of hope on the horizon, however.
Looking long-term, Millar said the market seems to "indicate that pricing will be going up as well as interest rates, over the next few years.
"So now seems to be a very good time to buy, but stay well within your budget," Millar advised.
Turnaround in second quarter of 2009 quite remarkable
[Source - National Post - Friday, July 10, 2009]
Canada's housing market has bounced back sufficiently from an "awful winter" for prices and unit sales to stabilize by the end of the year, Royal LePage said this week.
The real estate firm forecast in its latest survey that the 2009 national average house price will be down by 2% at $297,500 by year-end. That's up from its January forecast of a 3% decline.
It sees a 1% drop in unit sales to 430,000. Its forecast in January was for 416,000 sales.
"Given the grim shape that Canada's real estate market was in this past winter, the turnaround we have witnessed in the second quarter is really quite remarkable," said Phil Soper, president and CEO of Royal LePage Real Estate. Reuters
Do record home sales mean the worst is over?
[Source - Helen Morris, National Post Published: Friday, July 10, 2009]
There were positive housing numbers out this week, but analysts still caution against expectations of rapid recovery.
According to the Toronto Real Estate Board, home sales in the GTA rose 27% in June, compared with the same month a year earlier. The Greater Toronto realtors recorded 10,955 sales last month. The June figure translates into a seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales of 100,700.
"The record result in June is testament to the fundamentally sound housing market in the GTA," said the TREB president Tom Lebour in a release. "An increasing number of households have been confident in purchasing a home in the region's affordable and diverse resale housing market."
Alongside rising sales, prices are also increasing. The average price of a transaction in June was $403,972, that is a 2% rise on the same month last year when the average sale price was $395,866.
No comments:
Post a Comment