Week 28 – Vancouver Real Estate Week in Review (July 5th – July 11th, 2020)

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. The exception being that sales numbers for Westside apartments actually increased going against that negative trend (still below early Spring numbers).

East Vancouver (Eastside)

Almost directly opposite of the Westside, East Vancouver houses saw the most improvement week to week. Inventory levels remained fairly flat, sales numbers jumped up significantly while more sold in multiple offers and more quickly.

Apartments also performed extremely well over the previous week. Inventory levels were up, but sales also increased. Meanwhile, townhouses also saw a rise in sales quickly recovering from that odd week last week.

Downtown Vancouver

Sales numbers rebounded last week for Downtown apartments. Meanwhile, we also saw a jump in inventory levels after they fell the previous week. The sales that are happening are happening quickly, but sales numbers are still well below levels seen pre-pandemic.

Summary

After a couple of weeks essentially holding the line, we saw more movement in the market this past week. Overall, trends were similar to early spring rather than mid-summer.

Inventory levels increased nearly across the board. This was driven largely by a more significant increase in new listings than we’ve seen in the last few months.

At the same time, sales numbers increased. This is a positive sign given the new CMHC lending rules that came into effect July 1st. In a couple cases, we even saw sales numbers reach a peak for the year (most notably for East Vancouver houses).