What is the fastest way to add buyers to the market and thereby increase activity? Raise mortgage rates or threaten too. If you are a buyer, consider yourself threatened. The Bank of Canada has signalled a change in the way it is handling interest rates by failing to lower the Bank Rate as was widely expected today. Most analysts now expect rates to increase to dampen price inflation caused by oil and food price increases. Hold on it's going to get interesting!!

Vancouver Radio Station 1410 The Buzz interviews Vancouver Real Estate Analyst Milo McGarry on their Morning Show, Monday, April 14.

One thing that I recommend when purchasing real estate is to avoid emotional entanglement with the seller. A buyer is better off to remain in a zen like state of 100% non judgement in regards to the purchase process. Why is this important? In this world there are all kinds of people and therefore all kinds of sellers. It helps to imagine a bell curve. You remember the bell curve from high school math don't you. Most people are in the middle of the bell curve. They are easy to get along with. Some people are at either end of the bell curve and are, by degree, less easy to deal with. If the seller of your dream home is one of these people you will be tempted to get emotionally involved. In fact one of the biggest mistakes that realtors make is to transmit a seller's level of difficulty to a buyer. It's our job to make the purchase process as smooth as possible. We have to insulate buyers from the less pleasant parts of the process. After all, buyers buy homes, they don't buy difficult sellers. So when the negotiation is not going as smoothly as you would like, become like Buddha and pass no judgement. You'll end up with the house and by the time you move in you won't even remember what it was that was so upsetting in the first place.

It's looking like spring is just around the corner. You would think that the real estate market would be getting busier. The truth of the matter is that real estate sales activity is more about timing than weather. Over the past 20 years I have seen the market take major turns after significant events. For example after the last change in government in BC (May 2001) the market became very busy. I've also seen the market get busy immediately after Christmas. Often the "Spring" market arrives in early January. But does weather effect the market. During our recent snow events the market remained busy. That was quite unexpected. Now that the weather has begun to look spring like we may expect buyers to take a day off or two to have fun in the sun but don't expect the lull to last.