Vancouver home buyers still in bidding wars despite being more risk-averse
Posted June 13, 2019 11:20 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Home buyers dealing with the ups and downs of the Metro Vancouver real estate aren’t feeling very comfortable with taking financial risks these days, but that hasn’t stopped many from entering into bidding wars.
A survey from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation finds three quarters of buyers are not willing to take financial risks.
But Eric Bond, an analyst with CMHC, says over half of recent buyers say they were involved in bidding wars.
“The proportion of home buyers who reported being in a bidding war in Vancouver was 55 per cent,” says Bond. “Interestingly, that was actually the same in 2018 as in 2017, despite the big changes in the resale market that we’ve seen over that time.”
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One area that has shown change is in the expected price growth expectations of recent home buyers.
“Recent home buyers are expecting price growth of just one per cent, whereas last year they expected price growth of 10 per cent,” says Bond.
Vancouver home buyers still point to foreign investors having the most influence on price, followed by domestic investors, land scarcity and population growth.