TOWNHOUSES SELL WITHOUT SALES CENTRE
More than half of the 48 townhouses at the Signature Estates at Raven Woods were bought before the sales centre opened, the partners in the North Shore community report.
The presentation centre, located off Dollarton Highway at 590 Raven Woods Dr., is open noon to 5 p.m. daily except Friday.
HOUSING STARTS HIGHER IN FIRST FIVE MONTHS
Initial numbers show that housing starts in Metro Vancouver were 10 per cent higher in the first five months of 2008 than in the same period last year, reports Canada Mortgage and Housing.
While single-detached starts continued to decline, Canada's national housing agency says, multiple-unit home building, especially of condominiums, was well above last year.
"High starts and longer completion times have pushed the number of apartment homes under construction to record highs," said Robyn Adamache, CMHC's senior market analyst.
"However, an estimated one-half of apartment units under way are presold, and over the past year, virtually all (98 per cent) were sold within the same month they were completed.
"This has left a very lean supply of completed and unsold new apartments on the market. While the supply of unsold new condominiums has been edging up since last year, it remains at less than one-third of the 10-year average."
Single-detached starts in the region were down seven per cent, from 1,578 to 1,461, while over-all starts went rom 7,659 to 8,448.
In the Abbotsford census metropolitan area, says the CMHC release, overall starts rose by one-third, from 593 to 795.