It is said that no one has a crystal ball for future market price of houses.  If we take into account any changes we can foresee which will affect our housing economy, such as the slowly rising employment level, the rising BC retail trade, housing starts, sales-to-active listings ratio and mortgage rate you will agree to Vancouver’s steady future housing price.

Vancouver’s mortgage rate is holding low and steady for 5-year term. Sales-to-Active Listings is on the rise since the last dip in 2011. It means houses are being sold faster. This will influence the price of the housing market positively, because sellers don’t have to put their house on the market for too long and reduce the price to have their price sold.

The graph provided by the Real Estate Board shows average BC MLS price forecast. The white column predicts the average MLS price in the next half 2013 and 2014 to be on a steady rise.

About 26 years ago, the province of BC introduced the tax called “property transfer tax”. 1% is added on the first $200k, and 2% on the balance of the total purchase price. PTT is being generated to fund public services. Each time a property changes hands during the development processes, such as from a developer to the builder, and from the builder to the home buyer, PTT is being paid each transfer. This is becoming a burden to the new home buyers in today’s market as the PTT has never been updated to reflect the higher price of home ownership in today’s market.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver is calling out for support from you to raise voter awareness about supporting the change of PTT and to help “like” the facebook campaign page at facebook.com/helpreducetheptt.

For more information on the PTT campaign