Invest in Canada

House prices skewed, CREA says

by investor on 30/12/08 at 2:28 pm

The Canadian Real Estate Association says the price of your home is not down as much as you think, as long as you don’t live in one of the country’s larger cities.

The Ottawa-based group, which represents 100 boards across the country, says major markets such as Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto are skewing the average sale price.

So CREA has come up with a new way of calculating the figure. Using a weighted national average price for sales on the Multiple Listings Service, it has prices down 4.7% in November from a year ago. The weighted average compensates for dramatic changes in sales activity in some provinces. Not using the weighted average, prices fell 9.8% last month from a year ago.

In the case of Greater Vancouver, sales were off almost 70% last month from a year ago. Vancouver is the most ex-pensive market in the country, with an average sale price of $500,747 last month, so any decline in sales will drag down the national average price.

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