Surrey Realtor Steve Karrasch rarely hears complaints about interest rates from buyers sitting on the sidelines of Metro Vancouver’s housing market.

“They’re not holding off, waiting for interest rates to come down,” he said.

More often, they’re watching house prices.

Karrasch, a Realtor with Macdonald Realty, believes the quarter-point interest rate cut announced Wednesday won’t directly bring prices down, but the economic instability that the Bank of Canada is responding to could eventually lead to decreases.

That might be good news for first-time buyers, he said, although it’s unlikely to influence the larger factors contributing to the current sales slump. Most buyers are also sellers at the moment, and if they can’t get the price they deem fair, they can’t go on to buy the next

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