Canadian Home Prices Rise but Slow down Looms
The Canadian real estate market is gaining some form of traction but too little to avert a likely slow down in 2012, a real estate group said.
According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, the December average home price recorded in the country was pegged at $347,801, spiking by merely 0.9 percent from the levels seen in the same month a year before.
Despite the flat gains, majority of markets across the country posted double-digit climbs in the same month, with Saskatoon leading the pack with 21 percent jump while Kitchener-Waterloo and Winnipeg surged by 13 percent and 11 percent respectively.
According to CREA chief economist, Gregory Klump, the rest of the market posted manageable retreats.
“Momentum for national sales activity and average price remains positive but is slowing,” Klump stressed.
“National average price momentum may wane further over the next few months,” the CREA analyst added.
Yet as expected, metropolitan areas signaled different stories as house prices in Vancouver climbed by 15.4 percent in the past year while Toronto homes shot up by 7.8 percent for the better part of 2011.
CREA noted that the Toronto market hovered at around 10 percent premium during the first quarter of 2011.
From July 2010, home prices in Greater Toronto Area gradually achieved gains that accumulated to 36 percent last year though the level reached a plateau by April and has remained flat since then, TD economist Francis Fong said in a report.
Sales pick up were again recorded by the last month of 2011, steadying at 4.6 percent and surpassing even sales numbers from a decade before.
Overall, CREA reported that close to half-a-million homes were snatched up in Canada for the whole of 2011, paving the way for property analysts to project that home prices in the country will grow by 2.8 percent this year.
Economists said that flat home prices movement this year should at least allow would-be buyers more time to save prior to plunking down their cash for their dream house’s premium tag price.
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