The worst of Canada’s real estate woes appear to be past.

Real estate experts say first-time buy­ers and Bank of Canada rate cuts have helped restore sta­bil­ity to a real estate mar­ket that slumped from late 2008 to early this year, when the worst leg of the global finan­cial cri­sis bat­tered con­sumer confidence.

We should be less fear­ful than we were six months ago, but I don’t think we should be exu­ber­ant yet. The real estate mar­kets in Canada are very strong. May num­bers were pretty good, and June num­bers are even bet­ter. It might not be time to party, but we can cer­tainly smile.

Recent data sug­gest Canada’s real estate mar­ket, which weath­ered the finan­cial cri­sis much bet­ter than its hard-hit U.S. coun­ter­part, has been thaw­ing for sev­eral months.

The lat­est Cana­dian Real Estate Asso­ci­a­tion data shows May resale home prices rose 0.4% to $319,757, beat­ing the pre­vi­ous record set a year ear­lier. It was the first year-over-year increase since May last year. And sales activ­ity climbed for a fourth straight month.

The indus­try group, which rep­re­sents more than 97,000 real estate bro­kers and agents, also cut its fore­cast for a drop in home prices this year and said it expected sales activ­ity to trend higher.

Mean­while, the Canada Mort­gage and Hous­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, the national hous­ing agency, fore­cast in its second-quarter out­look that new home con­struc­tion is expected to decline to 141,900 units in 2009 but rebound next year.

A sta­ble but unre­mark­able period for the real estate mar­ket is expected this year. And sta­bil­ity is some­thing you can’t overem­pha­size in terms of its impor­tance for the hous­ing mar­ket right now.

Unless the global finan­cial sys­tem suc­cumbs to another cri­sis, ana­lysts expect the Cana­dian home mar­ket is likely to sta­bi­lize further.

Activ­ity from first-time buy­ers appears to be pro­vid­ing sup­port because of stim­u­la­tive mea­sures by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment that allow these buy­ers to defray clos­ing costs and with­draw more from retire­ment funds.

The Bank of Canada has also pledged to keep inter­est rates near zero until mid-2010, which could bol­ster confidence.

But at least we have a sta­ble mar­ket and sta­ble prices, which is some­thing that you need to encour­age con­sumers to buy and sell houses.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion  -  416−388−1960

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Related posts:

1. Five signs a hous­ing recov­ery is on the way
2. Irre­sistible rates drive Canada’s recovery
3. Canada hous­ing mar­ket down, but not out
4. Recov­ery under­way in Cana­dian res­i­den­tial prop­erty market
5. Global Real Estate Recov­ery Continues