46 - Friday, July 20, 1990 - North Shore News

NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

A CARPENTER pounds nails into a rew home being constructed in

North Vancouver.

Sales slow

RESIDENTIAL SALES in
the first half of 1990 regis-
tered a 35 per cent decrease
from the comparable period
in 1989 which was a record
year for activity through the
Multiple Listing Service of
the Real Estate Board of
Greater Vancouver.

“Until interest rates come
down to a level where the
ordinary Canadian can once
again depend on qualifying
for mortgaging, this
downturn in sales is likely to
continue,’’ says John
Eastwood, president of the
7,700-member Lower
Mainland board.

While sales have not kept
up with the frenetic pace of
last year, the simplistic
average price per unit has
risen by 14 per cent to
$237,292, compared to
$206,695 at the end of June
in 1989. However, a one per
cent drop was noted from
the $240,335 average at the

end of this year’s first
quarter.

Eastwood says year-
over-year increases are as
much a result of a changing
product as increasing indi-
vidual values. A construc-
tion boom in the past year
produced larger, more ex-
pensive homes and con-
dominiums, and sales of
these are included in dollar
volume totals from both the
existing stock and the new
product.

Higher priced properties
tend to skew the simplistic
average and Eastwood cau-
tions home owners not to
automatically add the per-
centage increase to calculate
a potential vaiue of their ex-
isting property.

At the end of the first
quarter of this year, 45 per
cent of all residential units
sold under the $200,000
price range, compared to
some 60 per cent last year.
Second quarter statistics re-

cord a slight increase to 47
per cent, showing lower-end
buyers have increasing op-
portunities in a market well
below the statistical average
price per unii.

A review of second
quarter sales shows that af-
fordability exists to a rising
degree ia the condorainium
segment, with 81 per cent of
all strata title units selling at
$200,000 or less. Townhouse
sales under that price level
increased to 76 per cent of
all sales, up from 72 per
cent at the end of the first
quarter. Eighty-four per
cent of all apartment sales
were under $200,000, un-
changed from the first
quarter.

Detached home buyers
will be pleased that sales
under the $200,000 limit
rose to 33 per cent of all
units, up from 28 per cent
at the end of the first
quarter.

United Way

ZF leople helping people.

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