The vice-president of the Yukon Real Estate Association won't say the Whitehorse housing market is hot.

'The market is active, there is no two ways about,' Don MacDonald acknowledged with a smile during an interview earlier this week. 'It is one of the better markets I have seen in 25 years.'

He cites what others have when describing the reasons behind similar real estate markets across the country.

Interest rates are favourable and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. has changed qualifying requirements for mortgages, MacDonald pointed out.

'We have gone in the last 10 years from 10 per cent down, to five per cent down to zero,' he said.

'It opened the market up to a lot of additional buyers, and of course the interest rates are at an all-time historical low, and that adds a lot of buyers because they are capable of buying more and paying more.'

Records at the Coldwell Banker real estate office where MacDonald works show that 25 per cent of buyers over the last four months were first-time clients, or those who had owned a home previously but were now living in rental accommodations but getting back into homeownership.

Thirty per cent was accounted for by those moving into Whitehorse, half of whom were from different Yukon communities, and half from other areas of Canada. Approximately one per cent were coming from outside Canada.

Coldwell records indicate 20 per cent of buyers were moving up in price, and two per cent were downsizing, MacDonald said.

Six per cent of purchases in the last four months were for investment purposes, and seven per cent were prompted by a change in family status, either recent marriages or separations.

An article in the May 10 edition of Maclean's magazine lays out evidence of a hot real estate market across the country, with few exceptions.

In Whitehorse, the average number of days a multiple-listed property stayed on the market was 111 days last year, he noted, adding the average has fallen recently to 94 days.

The first-quarter report from the Yukon Bureau of Statistics also points to a general increase in sales, and the total value of sales.

There were 56 single-family homes sold in Whitehorse in the first three months of this year, compared to 46 in the first quarter of 2003.

The total value of real estate transaction for single-family homes in this first quarter of 2004 was $9.88 million, or almost $2 million more than the total value of $7.94 million in the first three months of 2003.

MacDonald, however, cautions about the use of the bureau's statistics to draw too many conclusions.

They can, he said, be used as a general indicator of trends, but there are variables unaccounted for which can skew results.

The bureau, for instance, reports the average price for a house in Riverdale fell from 10.2 per cent from in the first quarter of 2003 ($179,600) to $161,200 this last quarter.

On the other hand, the average price for homes in Porter Creek climbed over the same period by 10 per cent, from $155,300 to $170,900.

In Copper Ridge, they rose by 9.6 per cent, up from $174,200 to $191,000.

MacDonald said the statistics are somewhat fallible because they don't compare apples to apples.

In the case of Riverdale, for instance, he questions whether the real estate value has gone down, and suggests it may be more a reflection of the type of homes that have sold recently.

'I would say Riverdale is doing very nicely,' MacDonald said. 'The prices we have seen are not going down, but are going up ... and doing as well as the rest of the market.'

He said the Bureau of Statistics does not track the types or sizes of homes sold, but simply the value of the transaction.

The statistics do not differentiate between the sale of a $150,000-home in Riverdale that may pull down the average price, nor the sale of a $220,000 dwelling in Copper Ridge what may pull up the average, MacDonald explained.

Nor does he concur with the suggestion that prices are going to go through the roof, and the time to get into the market is now; nor with the suggestion the bubble is going to burst if interest rates begin to climb steadily, leaving behind a wake of first-time buyers swimming over their heads in increasing mortgage rates.

The Whitehorse market, said MacDonald, is not influenced by the availability of land for development or lack of, as it is in cities like Vancouver.

As the body responsible for land development in the city, the Yukon government is under a commitment to maintain a healthy inventory of new urban lots.

There is, however, a shortage of country residential lots, he noted, adding when existing country residential properties do come on the market, they're highly sought after.

He believes the recent increase in the market prices can also be explained by an increase in construction costs, and a correction in market conditions from the early 1990s to just a couple of years ago when the market wasn't so active.

The statistics bureau, for instance, points out that the average house price in Whitehorse increased by 19.1 per cent since 1998, from $148,100 to $176,400 in the first quarter of this year.

But if you subtract the rise in inflation of 8.3 per cent over the last six years, the actual rise in value since 1998 is 10.8 per cent, the bureau points out.

As for the potential for a spike in interest rates, MacDonald declined to speculate, saying he's not an economist.

But when interest rates change, they affect the entire economy, not the just the real estate market, he said.

For now, though, MacDonald agrees, it's a seller market.