Housing Market Continuing Its Recovery

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January 15, 2010

World and money by Peter Ashley Jackson

The world housing market is continuing in its recovery, the newest Global Real Estate Trends report by Scotia Economics claims. Canadian real estate market is doing very well and in couple of other states, clear signs of the market recovery are showing too.

The approximate number of MLS home sales was 465,000 last year, which means a seven percent increase from 2008. However, there was a decline in the number of new homes in 2009 compared to the year before. In 2009, the number of new homes was approximately 146,000 and in 2008 it was 211,000. Home prices increased by four percent to $315,000 over the year.

Canada is actually the leader in the property price increases. Average home prices in the country increased by 11 percent in the third quarter of 2009. “Canada still leads the pack among the markets we track.” Adrienne Warren, Senior Economist of Scotia Economics said. “Inflation-adjusted average home prices in the July to September period were up 11 percent from the same quarter a year ago, a dramatic turnaround from the 10 percent yearly decline recorded in the opening months of 2009.” Warren continues. There is no need to be worried about the rising prices in the country, according to Scotia Economics, though. As they claim, prices in the country rose mainly due to basic demand-supply factors and they should stabilize in the near future.

In Australia, the average home prices are in positive territory again, as they increased by 5 percent from third quarter of 2008 to third quarter of 2009. In the US, however, average home prices declined by six percent in third quarter of 2009 compared to third quarter of 2008. That still is a pretty good result, if we consider that there was a fourteen percent decline in first quarter of 2009 from the year before. As for Europe, in the UK the situation is quite similar to the situation in the US, and in France the prices seem to be stabilizing. “A shortage of homes for sale, alongside strengthening housing demand, is contributing to the firming in prices in a number of countries, including Canada, Australia and the U.K.” Warren stated.

Nice results. Quite expected, too, as we have been hearing about successful recovery quite a lot lately. I’m very pleased to hear again that Canada is indeed doing very well. Even in comparison with the US, our results are great. Honestly, I feel quite proud.