{"id":5094,"date":"2018-04-12T14:56:42","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T18:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/Life-Insurance-Blog\/?guid=db62de933d011174522de0db6efd58c3"},"modified":"2018-04-12T14:56:42","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T18:56:42","slug":"b-c-home-prices-continue-to-climb-as-sales-plummet-on-burdensome-mortgage-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2018\/04\/12\/b-c-home-prices-continue-to-climb-as-sales-plummet-on-burdensome-mortgage-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. home prices continue to climb as sales plummet on \u2018burdensome\u2019 mortgage rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>VANCOUVER &#8212; Home sales in British Columbia plummeted last month compared with March of last year, but the B.C. Real Estate Association says the decline was not reflected in prices.<\/p>\n<p>Sales figures released by the association for March show 7,409 homes changed hands last month, a decline of 24.6 per cent over March 2017, while average property prices climbed 5.3 per cent over the same period.<\/p>\n<p>A news release from the association says the average home sold for $726,930 last month and it blames persistently high prices on the lack of properties available for sale.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"related_links\">\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/business.financialpost.com\/real-estate\/what-it-was-like-to-get-caught-in-torontos-record-housing-slump\">What it was like to get caught in Toronto\u2019s swift and brutal housing plunge<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/business.financialpost.com\/news\/economy\/dr-debt-warns-canadians-to-get-financial-houses-in-order\">Canadians warned to climb out of debt before it\u2019s too late, as threat of cooling housing markets looms<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/business.financialpost.com\/real-estate\/stress-tests-pushing-one-in-three-homebuyers-to-forego-home-purchase-survey\">Stress tests pushing one in three homebuyers to forgo home purchase: survey<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It says total active listings have changed very little since March of 2017, nudging a 12-year low across B.C.<\/p>\n<p>Association chief economist Cameron Muir forecasts prices will continue to climb as long as the trend continues.<\/p>\n<p>He is also critical of what he calls the &#8220;burdensome&#8221; mortgage qualification rules that took effect in January, saying they have had the &#8220;predictable effect of swiftly curbing housing demand.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You simply cannot pull as much as 20 per cent of the purchasing power away from conventional mortgage borrowers and not create a downturn in consumer demand,&#8221; Muir says in the release.<\/p>\n<p>B.C. home sales in March tallied $5.39 billion, a 20.6 per cent tumble compared with March 2017, while the association says sales dollar volumes since January slipped 1.7 per cent to $13.9 billion, compared with the first quarter of last year.<\/p>\n<p>Residential sales also fell 9.4 per cent during the first three months of this year, while the association reports the average price of a home increased 8.5 per cent to just over $732,000 during the same period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The average home sold for $726,930 last month and the B.C. Real Estate Association blames persistently high prices on the lack of properties available for sale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5096,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5094\/revisions\/5096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}