Vancouver home sales up 59% in February

Ottawa

HOME sales in Vancouver's once-boiling housing market rose 59.2 per cent in February from a month earlier but were down 41.9 per cent from the record-setting pace a year ago and 7.7 percent below the 10-year average, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said on Wednesday.

The most expensive housing market in Canada has come off the boil since the provincial government imposed a 15 per cent foreign buyers tax in August 2016 amid concern that speculation by global investors was fuelling a bubble.