Week 32 – Market Update
Overview

After a brief week of respite, inventory levels generally increased this past week once again. Meanwhile, sales numbers dipped…albeit only slightly.

East Vancouver houses continue to be the market hotspot. Sales dipped here from 31 to 27 but 13 were still over-asking price. Westside houses continue to impress with a solid 22 sales (although only 5 were over-asking). Eastside condos had another strong week with 35 sales (up from 34)….while Westside and Downtown condos had lower sales week over week.

This type of market activity is fairly typical of what we often see in late July and August. Sellers were hoping to take advantage of increased buyer activity. But, those buyers are now less focused on real estate and more on taking advantage of the last bit of summer.

It’s likely that we will continue to see this trend continue until mid-September when most families will be back from holiday and will get refocused on real estate…so...

Summary

July continued the trend of improvement in market activity. The worst month was April and since then each subsequent month has increased activity levels.

Across the board, there were positive improvements over June. Sales were up 19% over the previous month (7% over the previous year). Total listings rose just 9% from the previous month and were down 12% y-o-y. Meanwhile, every housing type saw increases both m-t-m as well as y-o-y.

The weekly stats that I’m following indicate that we might be starting to see the beginning of this positive momentum stall…but that’s not surprising given that we are now at the height of summer and most people are focusing on vacations rather than real estate.

July 2020 - Vancouver Real Estate - Total Active Listings

Parting Thoughts

As I mentioned last month, there is definitely a wide disparity in the market. Certain pockets are seeing enormous amounts of demand while others are languishing.

Of note, the hottest market is East Vancouver...

Week 30 – Market Update
Overview

The keyword of the week is consistency. For the most part, the pattern established over the course of the last month has held fairly firm for the Vancouver real estate market.

Sales are hovering at similar levels across the city for just about all housing types. At the same time, we are seeing inventory levels increase but not alarmingly.

The most significant strength is still seen in East Vancouver houses where this past week saw 50% of sales over the asking price.

Vancouver West (Westside)

Westside detached homes had another week of steady sales. Meanwhile, listing inventory rose but new listings did not flood the market. With the median price exceeding the average price for the first time this year, it indicates that for this particular week there was significantly more sales activity at the lower end of the price scale.

Meanwhile, Westside Apartments had their strongest week of the year with 49 sales (the previous high was 44). Inventory still rose...

Week 29 – Market Update
Overview

The “spring” market continues so far this summer in Vancouver,.

Overall, listings rose in just about every category across the city this past week. New listings continued to come onto the market as sellers confidence has increased in recent weeks…but the pace of new listings slowed somewhat over the previous week.

Meanwhile, sales numbers remained at the higher levels we saw in the last couple of weeks.

At this point, I think it’s safe to put any concerns about the CMHC lending rule changes behind us. This makes two consecutive weeks of solid sales number AFTER these rules came into effect.

Vancouver West (Westside)

The Westside remains the geographic division that is seeing a slower recovery.

In particular, houses on the westside are not seeing the market surge seen in East Vancouver. Listings are increasing as elsewhere in the city, but sales have not yet recovered to pre-COVID levels (albeit sales were faster this past week...

Week 28 – Market Update
Overview

The market continues to behave more like the early spring than summer. That seems somewhat appropriate given the weather in recent weeks…but it’s not typical of this time of year.

This week saw a rise in inventory levels as well as (mostly) increasing sales. New listings coming onto the market saw a bigger jump than in recent weeks. Some segments of the market had the highest sales numbers of the year in the past week (such as East Vancouver houses).

This first full week after CMHC lending rules came into effect July 1st appears to indicate sales numbers were NOT artificially inflated by this change.

Vancouver West (Westside)

On the Westside the market is flashing some signals of weakness. Houses in particular have struggled in the last couple of weeks with inventory rising, sales numbers shrinking (for two consecutive weeks) and days on market growing.

Similar weakness is showing for apartments as well as townhouses but not as significantly....

Summary

The rebounding trend that began in May continued in June.

Every indicator (except price) moved in a positive direction this past month.

Sales were up nearly 60% from last month (and almost 19% from the previous year). While new listings matched that pace up 60% over last month, TOTALl listings increased only 10% over the previous month (and -25% from the previous year).

In hindsight, it appears that the market saw an ebb in activity levels in mid-April. The trend that I’ve been noticing in my review of the weekly real estate statistics, is that nearly every week since has seen improvements in activity.

It would appear that both buyers and sellers are becoming more and more comfortable in our current environment. Messaging from government has helped to shape sentiment, but also efforts by realtors to make the entire buying or selling process safer have helped.

Parting Thoughts

I do want to point out that we are seeing an unusually disparate market. Some pockets are incredibly...

Week 27 – Market Update
Overview

Mostly, the last week saw the trends we’ve been following in the last few weeks continue. Inventory levels are levelling while sales continue to increase.

As I mentioned last week, we do need to put this activity in perspective. While sales are up, they are NOT at normal levels for this time of year…and are generally hovering around the levels we were seeing just prior to pandemic in the early spring.

I believe that the boost in sales we’ve seen MAY be due to buyers trying to get deals completed prior to new lending rules coming into effect on July 1st. The next few weeks will be telling in that regard.

Vancouver West (Westside)

Of note on the Westside, is that all categories saw a drop in inventory. Sales didn’t increase much, if at all…but they held firm across the board. The one exception to this was for Westside houses where sales fell from 25 the week before to 18 this past week.

I also found the rise and divergence...

Week 26 – Market Update
Overview

This was another good week for the Vancouver real estate market. That is, at least in relative terms.

Activity is significantly below what is normal for this time of year. However, across the board the trends are positive. We are seeing a return to sales levels not seen since pre-pandemic.

That being said, we need to watch to see what happens in coming weeks. This boost in activity COULD be due to buyers trying to get deals done prior to new CMHC lending rules coming into effect this week.

Vancouver West (Westside)

Westside houses are saw sales return to levels more in line with early spring pre-pandemic numbers. They increased this past week from 16 to 25. Inventory levels, meanwhile decreased (marginally) for the first time in a month.

Westside apartments didn’t fare quite as well. Sales fell for the first time in a couple of weeks from 40 down to 29 and inventory levels inched up from 651 to 675. Although, the units that did sell sold much...

eek 25 – Market Update
Overview

This was another week where there were many signs of improvements in the Vancouver real estate market. Pretty much across the board there were increasing levels of activity.

The boost we are seeing right now MAY be due to active buyers attempting to get deals done before new CMHC lending rules come into effect as of July 1st…something which we will only know for certain in a couple of weeks.

Vancouver West (Westside)

Both detached homes and apartments saw steady improvement in the last week. While total listings increased, it was at a slower pace keeping supply levels low. Meanwhile, demand held steady (for houses) or increased (for apartments).

The Westside Townhouse market saw a big drop in sales, though (from 10 the previous week to just 3 this week).

East Vancouver (Eastside)

The bright spot in the market appears to be East Vancouver detached homes. On all fronts there were significant improvements in the last week.

Specifically, after weeks...

Week 24 – Market Update
Overview

This past week in the Vancouver real estate market was generally flat, with marginal signs of improvement. The general trend is that sales are increasing modestly along with total active listings.

For the most part, it would appear that we’ve found a balance between buyers and sellers. Vancouver West (Westside)

The Westside showed the most consistent improvement week to week. Across the board, the Vancouver West market got better whether that was houses, apartments or townhouses…but only marginally so.

Sales rose in all three categories. Total listings increased, but only slightly (normal at this time of year) and days on market (DOM) either held firm or fell.

East Vancouver (Eastside)

This past week we saw improvements in the East Vancouver market. Most notably, in houses where sales increased while DOM (days on market) fell significantly.

Houses and Apartments improved marginally, but East Vancouver townhouses saw a reversal of last week...