(Bloomberg) -- Vancouver home sales plunged 39 percent in October from a year earlier, the biggest drop since 2010, as new regulations chill Canada's most expensive property market.
Sales in the Pacific coast city fell to 2,233 in the month, from 3,646 a year earlier, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said Wednesday. That was 15 percent below the 10-year average for October.
The slowdown follows a series of measures aimed at curbing price gains in Vancouver, which topped a list of global cities identified by UBS Group AG as most at risk of a housing bubble. The British Columbia government imposed a 15 percent tax on foreign buyers in August, the city plans to start taxing vacant homes next year and the federal government tightened mortgage insurance eligibility requirements on Oct. 3.
The benchmark price for a detached property in Vancouver rose 29 percent in October from the same month last year to C$1.55 million ($1.16 million). Prices for all residential properties in metro Vancouver climbed to an average of C$919,300, a 25 percent increase from a year earlier and a 0.8 percent decline from the prior month.
To contact the reporters on this story: Erik Hertzberg in Ottawa at eschmitzhert@bloomberg.net, Natalie Obiko Pearson in Vancouver at npearson7@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Scanlan at dscanlan@bloomberg.net, Chris Fournier, Steven Frank
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