Vancouver’s resale housing market posted a small month-over-month decline in activity in December 2010, according to a release from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) addressing national trends.
“It’s stabilizing,” said Gregory Klump, chief economist for CREA, honing in on the Vancouver situation.
“There was just a little bit of give back in terms of monthly activity on a seasonally-adjusted basis in December, compared to the previous month,” he said.
“But that falls on the heels of some pretty impressive monthly increases in preceding months. It had peaked earlier in the year, and as with many other markets in Canada, it did enter a softer patch going into the summer. But throughout the third quarter and onward it has rebounded, and its about half-way between the recent peak in January 2009 and the valley reached earlier this year.”
Klump noted B.C.’s number of months of inventory – which represents the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity – crept up slightly in December to 7.8 months from 7.5 months, but it has been on a downward trend since July 2010 when it stood at 10.5 months.
“It’s not a significant increase,” he said. “It’s really a picture suggesting stability.”