Summer home sales in the Royal City were up 18 per cent compared to the same period last summer, says an economist with the British Columbia Real Estate Association.
New Westminster is in line with rest of Metro Vancouver with the upward trend in the number of sales this season, said Brendon Ogmundson.
"The year-over-year numbers are fairly large mostly because the summer of 2012 was pretty bad. So we saw really weak sales last summer," Ogmundson said, explaining the surge. "If we look at New West, in particular, sales were up 18 per cent year over year in all products, that included a 35 per cent increase year over year in the sale of single-family homes. That lead the increase and an 18 per cent increase in apartment sales."
At the same time, inventory in the market has been pretty stable, he said.
"It's flat year over year. So the supply of existing homes has been stable, and demand has been increasing and that's lead to a pretty balanced market where prices are more or less flat but are keeping pace with the rate of inflation."
Prices have remained fairly flat for most of the region and in New Westminster have inched up only slightly by half a per cent, he said.
The market is fairly balanced between buyers and sellers, Ogmundson said, but added it's nudging closer to a seller's market with the changing conditions.
There were several factors depressing demand in Vancouver previously, Ogmundson said.
"One of those there was a lot of stories in the media, especially in the winter of this year and kind of into the spring, that prices were going to be falling ... ," he said. "That hasn't materialized, and I think some of the buyers, that may have been on the sideline because of those fears, are now looking at what's going on in the market and seeing that those fears haven't materialized."
