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Happy New Year! Hope you had a fantastic holiday season. 2022 was an extreme year for real estate in Vancouver. It started very strong with large monthly price increases. For example, townhomes increased 5.9% in February alone. As interest rates started to increase, the price topped out in April and has been falling ever since. By the end of the year, the sales volume was typically around 30% below the 10-year average. The strong start and the weak finish, meant the total year’s sale was only 13.4% below the 10-year average. And the number of listings were only 3.2% below the 10-year average. The MLS Home Price Index composite benchmark price for all residential properties fell 3.3% for the year. In regards to the month

Starting January 1, 2023, a couple of measures to cool the real estate market will come into effect. The timing is a little off but that shouldn’t be a surprise. First there is the ban on foreign buyers for two years. There are rumours that there might be areas such as Whistler that might be exempt but nothing official has come out.  For foreign buyers, purchase agreements signed before January 1, 2023 will be allowed to close. Second is the residential property flipping rule (RPFR). Starting on January 1, 2023 if a residential property (including a rental property) were sold after owning it for less than 12 months, the profits would be deemed business income. That is, you cannot claim principal residence capital gains exemption

With at least one more rate increase by the Bank of Canada overhanging the real estate market in Metro Vancouver, sales continue to be slow in November. It is 36.9% below the 10-year November sales average. The inventory is building up as a result. It is 28.5% higher than November of last year. It seems sellers are not interested in selling into a weak market during an annually slow period as the number of newly listed properties dropped 24.2% from October 2022 which is also 22.9% less than November of last year. However, this has not stopped the price from deteriorating faster. The sales-to-active listings ratio is a measure of supply and demand in the market and does give an indication of the pricing trend.

If you are a senior and you are deciding whether to get a home equity line of credit (HELOC) or a reverse mortgage, you need to answer one question. Do you want to stay in your current home no matter what? If the answer is yes, then a reverse mortgage might be in your future. The problem with HELOCs are that the borrowing limits are set based on the income at the time of application. Unless you set this up before you retire, chances are your limit will not be large enough to last. This is why I like to advocate for getting a HELOC before you retire. This way you have an emergency fund should you need it. They do not charge interest if

The short answer is not really. There is almost no difference. Most people get this mixed up with accelerated bi-weekly where you are paying “extra” on top of the normal amortization schedule. All methodologies in paying off a mortgage faster, actually, are just paying “extra”. And this includes all the fancy “tricks” on YouTube. Accelerated bi-weekly arrive at their bi-weekly payments by dividing the monthly payments by 2. Because there are 26 bi-weekly payments, you are actually making an extra month worth of payments which would go directly against your principal. That is why the mortgage gets paid off faster. That’s it! If you want to see the numbers, continue reading. I ran the numbers for a $500,000 mortgage at 5% for 5 years at

The real estate market in Metro Vancouver continues to be ice cold. October sales were 45.5% lower than last October. That is 33.3% below the 10-year October sales average. The slowing sales the last few months are increasing the number of listings on the market. It is 22.6% more than last October. However, new listings slowed more in October, so inventory actually decreased by 1.2% compared to last month. This is reflected in the slightly stronger sales-to-active listings ratios: 14.3% for detached homes, 21.6% for townhomes and 23.2% for apartments. The higher the ratio, the higher the demand. As you can see from the chart below, the slightly improving demand is slowing the month over month price declines. And the lower priced properties are holding

Should I pay myself a salary or a dividend? This is a common question that incorporated business owners ponder and ask their accountant about. However, accountants are not up on all the insurance and mortgage rules. And I don’t blame them. Changes with the tax rules, laws and regulations are enough to keep accountants busy enough. This world is getting more and more complex and you increasingly need experts to help you navigate it effectively. Last month we covered this question from the perspective of an insurance advisor. This month we will take you through the perspective of a mortgage broker. It is not uncommon to see tax returns of business owners where some years they have a salary and some years they will have

Interest rates continue to go up and Vancouver real estate continues to drop, in price and sales volume. In September the sales were 35.7% below the 10-year September average. As new listings come online and the sales slow, inventory is slowly building and adding to the downward pricing pressure. This is reflected in the sales-to-active listings ratio. As you can see from the table, there has been a 6 months declining trend in all categories of housing with detached homes being the weakest. As a result, this is the 5th month of declining prices. Detached houses continue with the largest month over month price decline of 2.4%. Townhomes dropped 1.9% while apartments dropped 1.6% What is expected in the months ahead?   The key to predicting

Hope you enjoyed your Labour Day long weekend. The Vancouver real estate market continues to slow in August. The sales volume was 40.7% lower than last year and was 29.2% below the 10-year August average. New listings were 17.5% lower than last August and 16% lower than this past July. Nevertheless, the prices continue to go down. Month over month, detached homes lost 2.3%, townhomes lost 2.5% and apartments were 2.0% lower. Most of this month’s real estate news consisted of different institutions revising their house price forecast downward.  RBC, TD, BMO, Desjardins and Oxford Economics all predict about a 20% to 25% price drop from the peak by the end of 2023 or the start of 2024. Also, as the banks gauge the economic data