2024 truly was a wild ride in the Vancouver real estate market. So many people predicted complete catastrophe for the Vancouver housing market in 2024...but it never happened.

Is 2025 going to be the year that the Vancouver housing market implodes?

What is the Vancouver housing market like right now?

How did we get here?

Why hasn't the Vancouver real estate market imploded?

Is now the right time to invest in Vancouver real estate?

Are there particular areas that are likely to see more (or less) growth in 2025 and beyond?

These are questions that anyone considering buying or selling real estate in Vancouver should be asking themselves as we enter 2025...and beyond.

If you are thinking of moving to Vancouver in 2025 this is a MUST WATCH video...and be sure to stay tuned to the end where I discuss some of my personal prediction for what's going to happen in the Vancouver real estate market and where I see some opportunities in Vancouver housing in 2025.

Momentum. I think that's the key word to describe the Vancouver real estate market as 2024 wraps up.

For the last couple of years we've seen a lot of sideways movement. A few months in one direction and then a few in another...but ultimately, we've stayed pretty flat since hitting all-time highs in the Spring of 2022.

Most of 2024 was marked by a decided lack of enthusiasm and confidence in the market. While demand didn't fall off a cliff it bounced along the lower end of historical norms (typically about 20-30% below the 10-year averages).

What was different in 2024 was that we finally saw supply increase significantly. Back in 2023 (a year also marked by low demand but also low inventory) prognosticators predicted that IF supply increased significantly then prices would start to fall in Vancouver...that being the obvious basic economic principle of supply and demand.

However, that just didn't happen in 2024. Prices remained remarkably resilient (something that I get more into in my video...

 

After demand jumped in October, November didn't continue that trend. 

Sales fell month-to-month (-13.2%) but rose (+33%) compared to a year ago. More significantly, the number of sales last month was -9% below the 10-year average....continuing our trend this year of below-average demand, but starting to see that demand consilidate now towards the end of the year.

New listings fell for a second month in a row (-31% month-to-month and +10% year-to-year). This was +7% above the 10-year average. Total active listings meanwhile dropped from last month (-9.8%) but despite that drop, supply is still well above the 10-year average (+24.9%).

Prices continue to fluctuate. All housing types in Vancouver find themselves either flat or more expensive than a year ago...except for Westside houses (-2.3%). Over the last couple of years prices have bounced around a bit but are still hanging right around all-time highs...despite weakness in demand (and higher than usual supply).

I don't like to predict the...

 

 

Long story short, August was another slow month in Vancouver's real estate market. All activity slowed further as we progressed through the summer of 2024 (as I predicted).

Sales fell to 531 which was down significantly (-22%) from the 682 sales that happened in Vancouver in July....and coincidentally that's about the same difference (-22%) with sales a year ago. After trending more positively in the spring we are hoverinig now close to 30% below (-28.5%) the ten year average.

It appears that sellers have mostly received the markets message in the last couple months. In August we saw new listings taper off considerably to just 1,211 new listings for the month. This was down -30% from July, -16% from a year ago, and -4% from the 10 year average.

With fewer listings coming to market our overall listing inventory took the sharpest drop we've seen all year to 4,215. This was a decline of -8.4% from the previous month but +22% over the previous year (and +19.4% higher than the 10 year average)....

Newly listed properties rose nearly +13% in July 2024 from a year ago. This was -5.6% from the previous month but well over the 10-year average of 1,520 (+13.9%) which continued to support healthy levels of inventory in the Vancouver real estate market.

Total inventory was up +25.1% over the past year to 4,490. While this was also well above the 10-year average of 3,629 (+23,7%) it was actually a decline of -2.4% from the previous month' peak.

Meanwhile, on the demand side we saw sales slip in July to 682. This was a -5.7% decline from a year ago, a -7.7% drop from the previous month and -20.9% below the 10-year average.

Despite the second straight interest rate cut by the Bank of Canada, demand continues to be soft. This isn't entirely surprising given the time of year...but the elevated inventory levels and weaker demand is finally having an impact on prices.

For the first time, we saw prices drop across the board for all housing types. The most significant decline was for Townhouses on...