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The national mortgage insurer counted 1,173 new homes across Metro Vancouver in May, a dramatic 150-per-cent improvement on the same month a year ago, which was still in the doldrums of B.C. housing downturn.

For the year to date at the end of May, builders have started work on 5,631 new homes, which is 103 per cent more than for the same period a year ago.

However, Robyn Adamache, Canada Mortgage and Housings senior analyst for Vancouver, said the annualized pace of construction, the estimate for the number of starts that will occur by the end of the year, had slowed some seven per cent compared with April.

Adamache said builders are likely taking their cue from the housing resale market where sales, while still brisk, have eased off their torrid pace of late 2009 and price gains have slowed.

Its the resale market that sets the tone for whats happening in new housing, Adamache said. I think builders are looking at that and will be adjusting accordingly.

Construction of single-family homes has been particularly strong, Adamache said, with the 424 starts in May a 102-per-cent increase from May 2009. Surrey alone accounted for 180 of those single-family starts.

And in Surrey, single-family starts topped multi-family (townhouse and condominium) housing starts both in May, when there were 74 multi-family starts, and for the year-to-date with 921 single-family homes versus 569 multi-family housing starts.

In Vancouver, by contrast, single-family starts are up dramatically, but the 78 homes builders started work on last month and the 261 begun by May 31 were still overshadowed by the 324 multi-family starts in May and 1,306 started as of May 31.

Adamache said the strength of single-family starts, which are higher than their 10-year average for this time of year, was not a surprise given the dynamics of the recent housing downturn.

She added that single-family housing starts slowed the least when builders scaled back construction plans and were the first to come back because single-family construction projects are the easiest to stop or start.

The multiple-unit sector remains below their 10-year average, although market indicators still suggest that the new-home construction market is in balanced conditions, Adamache added.

Vancouver saw the highest number of multi-family starts in May with 324 compared with only 20 in the same month a year ago. For the year-to-date at May 31, Vancouver recorded 1,306 multi-family starts and 1,567 total housing starts.

Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association, said his members are cautiously optimistic about the future and are launching new projects while keeping one eye on whats happening around them.

They are concerned about where interest rates are going, thats kind of very much up in the air, Simpson said. They’re concerned about the HST [harmonized sales tax] impact.

However, the builders he’s talked to are confident about the projects they are launching and sales they are making.

Deborah Calahan, vice-president of sales and marketing for Morningstar Homes, said the company has seen solid sales at its developments, including North Delta and Abbotsford, and we don’t see that changing.

The market is cyclical, you get your ups, you get your downs, Calahan said. We address the market at whatever point it is at, and always do it in a very positive way.

depenner@vancouversun.com

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The Conference Board of Canada noted that Metro Vancouver’s average home price dipped 2.6 per cent to $662,348 in April from March, though it remains almost 20 per cent higher than the same month a year ago.

Conference Board analyst Robin Wiebe said that with a dramatic rise in Metro Vancouver’s new listings, it isn’t a surprise to see prices adjust as buyers take their time with offers.

Wiebe’s report observed new-listing activity in Metro Vancouver in April that was almost 63 per cent higher than it was a year ago with sales up just 17 per cent from the same month a year ago.

“[The data] says that buyers might be getting a little cautious,” Wiebe said in an interview. “But just a little.”

And Wiebe cautioned that “one month [of data] is not a trend.”

University of B.C. professor Tsur Somerville said whether Metro Vancouver prices dip or stay stable from one month to the next essentially tell the same tale.

“Instead of looking at a market where prices rose 15 per cent in a year, we’re looking at a market where large price increases are not what anybody expected,” Somerville, director of the centre for urban economics and real estate in the Sauder School of Business, said in an interview.

He expects prices “would be steady for a while,” and “getting price declines would be somewhat of a challenge in absence of something going wrong [in the economy.]”

Somerville added that the Conference Board’s report, which repurposes the monthly data compiled by Canada’s major real estate boards, is further evidence that the market is slowing and is in keeping with the forecasts of major agencies and banks.

The psychology of the market now, Somerville said, is “if we don’t buy this month, we’ll be okay next month,” which is different from the frenzy at the end of 2009.

Metro Vancouver was one of 16 markets that saw prices slip back from the previous month among the 28 that the Conference Board tracks in the index.

Victoria also saw a dip in prices, down 1.4 per cent to $515,499, as did the Fraser Valley, which was down 0.5 per cent to $451,480. Calgary saw a 1.6-per-cent dip to $392,646 and Toronto saw a 3.3-per-cent drop to $425,011.

depenner@vancouversun.com

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While TransLink collects funding from fares, tolls, senior government contributions, and from a range of taxes, it now requires more.

Starting in July 2010 Metro Vancouver homeowners will pay 1.6% more on the TransLink portion of their property taxes.

As Metro Vancouver’s regional transportation authority, TransLink plans to increase the portion it receives from property taxes collected by local governments so Port Moody and Coquitlam homeowners will soon be paying more.

On a detached home with a benchmark price of $800,796, this increase amounts to approximately $4.82, bringing the TransLink portion of the annual property tax bill for this house to approximately $306.

Why the increase?  Transit ridership is growing and so are operating costs.  TransLink will spend a whopping $1.225 billion this year to run Metro Vancouver’s bus system, the three SkyTrain lines, and the Seabus, as well as the regional road and bridge system.

With little chance of any new capital funds coming from TransLink, the Evergreen Line for Coquitlam and Port Moody remains nothing more than empty promises, a long series of meaningless political photo-ops, and a figment in the minds of locals.