Royal Lepage is forecasting Vancouver house prices, already the highest in Canada, will increase another 15.4 per cent this year compared with 2010. This would make the overall average price $780,000.
Unit sales for 2011 are forecast to increase 6 per cent over last year's levels.
Vancouver's detached bungalows were the most expensive in the country, increasing 14.1 per cent year-over-year to an average second-quarter price of $1,033,000, Royal Lepage states.
Standard two-storey homes in Vancouver increased 12 per cent to an average second-quarter price of $1,114,500. Standard condominiums showed modest price gains of 2.5 per cent, selling for an average price of $499,250 in the second quarter.
"People are confident in Vancouver real estate," said Chris Simmons, broker and owner of Royal LePage Westside & City Centre. "Looking at detached homes on Vancouver's West Side, the average sales price was $2.4 million in May 2011. There is higher demand for detached homes than stratas."
Single-family homes are out-performing condos, in the numbers of resales and prices increase. It is a far different scenario, though, in new home construction, where condos and townhomes dominate.
According to the latest stats, multi-family starts across Metro Vancouver are running nearly eight-to-one in favour of apartment or townhomes rather than detached houses. Across all of the Metro region, such strata units accounted for 8,472 new homes, while just 1,659 detachede houses broke ground in the first half of the year.
from Western Investor August 2011
