Real estate flattens in May

Buyers now have more control in the Fraser Valley real estate market due to more listings, fewer sales and lower prices in a lot of locations, the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board reported Thursday.

Fraser Valley board realtors recorded 1,477 sales through the Multiple Listing Service in May, down two per cent from May 2009 and down almost 18 per cent from April. New listings of 3,457 homes for sale topped May of 2009 by 23 per cent.

Fraser Valley board president Deanna Horn said that while May sales were 16 per cent below the board's 10-year average, it still represented solid activity.

"Certainly we've got sales, they're good, but people are taking their time to look," Horn said, adding that buyers are also negotiating harder on price.

Horn recalled a recent listing she dealt with that attracted multiple offers to buy, but all the offers were below the asking price, "which was unusual."

Across the Fraser Valley, the average price for all property types hit $452,039 in May, up 10.5 per cent from the same month a year ago, and up almost one per cent from the previous month.

However, within board communities, prices slipped off recent highs for certain property types.

In Abbotsford, the average detached-home price dipped 2.5 per cent from April to $459,734, though it remains 3.5 per cent over the same month a year ago.

In Mission, the average price for a detached home of $360,647 was almost nine per cent off April's average mark, though still almost four per cent higher than the same month a year ago.

Horn said that reflects the level of competition in the Fraser Valley's market, which had a total inventory of 11,411 unsold homes in May, up almost 14 per cent from the same month a year ago.

"The last time this many homes were available on Fraser Valley's MLS in May was 1995," Horn said.

Higher mortgage rates and the introduction of stricter mortgage-qualification rules following a strong rebound out of the recessionary downturn are expected to push prices down.

Andrey Pavlov, a business professor at Simon Fraser University, said this spring's slowdown in the Fraser Valley has not been particularly startling considering the unpredictability of real estate sales a year ago.

Pavlov said developers stopped building new homes and possible vendors of existing homes became reluctant to sell just as buyers began jumping back into the market.

"Of course that was going to push prices very high very quickly," Pavlov said. "Now that situation has been remedied," he added, with developers building new projects and a flood of listings in the existing-home market.

("Fraser Valley real estate flattens in May" prepared by Derrick Penner/Vancouver Sun)