Written by  Omid Jalili

The Royal LePage House Price Survey has just been released and it shows a trend toward rising prices they feel should continue. For the fourth quarter of 2011 last year, the numbers reported that the average price of a new home here in Canada rose between  3.6 and 6.1 per cent.

This evidence comes contrary to calls in the media that Canada’s housing market is continuing to soften. The Royal LePage survey lists low interest rates and a fairly stable national economy as two of the reasons for the continued upward trends in housing.

There’s even further evidence that Canadians remain confident in their real estate investments with the survey showing that a large number of our fellows either entered the market for the first time or moved up to a house that better suited their family’s needs.

Phil Soper, president and chief executive of Royal LePage Real Estate Services explains to Mortgagebrokers.com.

“Widespread calls for a major real estate correction in 2012 simply can’t be justified. The industry has significant momentum entering the year, and buoyed by the stimulative effect of very low interest rates, we expect the market to continue to expand – albeit at a slower pace.”

There’s more recent indication that the kind of homebuyer that’s signing on the dotted line here in Canada is changing too. A recent Toronto Sun article noted that new Canadians are no longer primarily European based. Those coming from Muslim majority countries grew to 65,684 or almost 25% of the people entering the country and the Philippines , China  and India accounted for another 35% of new arrivals last year alone.

These numbers are significant because they will have a cumulative effect over time and bigger urban centres like Toronto and Vancouver will necessarily see a change in overall real estate buying habits over time.