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However, he warned that price drops are coming, for a number of reasons.

First, the economy would be fundamentally changed due to unemployment and weak economic growth due to coronavirus restrictions.

“The reason real estate has been so good over the past five years is that we have had low unemployment, a relatively strong economy and low interest rates. That allowed everybody to get a mortgage and leverage up and that pushed prices higher,” Saretsky said. “Now we are in a situation where the economy is going to be really weak, unemployment is going to be high and banks are going to be tight.”

The second reason is tightness in the money market.

“Over the next week or two the banks are going to tighten,” he said. “Even if you want a mortgage they might not give you one. As a bank you can’t blame them.”

And third, Saretsky said that coming into the coronavirus crisis, “consumer insolvencies were growing at a pretty rapid pace, the quickest in 10 years, and that was when the economy was buzzing and we had the lowest unemployment in 10 years.

“Now unemployment is up to 15 per cent, consumer insolvencies are going to go up. Everyone thinks prices will be down 10 per cent by May. It’s a much more drawn-out process because real estate is so illiquid. There’s no price discovery right now because nothing is selling.”

According to the latest Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver figures, last month there were 2,524 sales across all classes of residential homes. This was an increase over the same time last year, that included a 2.1 per cent increase in values.

However, the board noted that everything changed midway through March, when the state of emergency was called. Realtors are considered an essential service.

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