August 2020 – Vancouver Real Estate Market Update

Summary

We have come a very long way since April.

This August saw one of the strongest performances for the month in the last 5 years. Normally, August is one of the quietest months of the summer as everyone packs in their final summer holidays and turns their attention to the beginning of the school year. That was not the case this year.

For the City of Vancouver, sales hit 819 which was up only slightly over last month (+().24%) but a massive increase over a year ago (+24.66%). This was approximately 10% over the 10-year-average for sales in the month of August.

Meanwhile, Total Active Listings edged lower (-3.5% from last month and -4.1% from last year). The 3,637 listings was about dead even for the 10-year-average which stands at 3632.

This is particularly noteworthy given that we had a slower start to the month (a trend that I pointed out in my regular weekly market update) . The first two weeks of August actually saw a bit of a dip in activity…something that would have been very typical to continue throughout the month. However, it would appear that homebuyers and sellers cut their vacations short this year.

All market segments are seeing increasing levels of activity. Those activity levels are putting increasing pressure on prices as we saw healthy gains across all housing types this past month.

The market is somewhat more active in the more “affordable” price categories and also in lower density areas/housing types…so that translates into East Vancouver seeing the hottest market and a little quieter for downtown condos.