January 2022 – Monthly Vancouver Real Estate Update

January 2022 was an unusually active month in the Vancouver real estate market.

In a typical year, January is usually the slowest time. It's when we see the nadir of annual activity...and most years realtors take the opportunity to schedule their holidays in the month for that very reason.

As you probably know by now, the world is far from typical...and that has played havoc with all types of things, not the least of which is real estate.

There were 702 Sales (-7.99% Month-to-Month and +8.22% Year-to-Year). That's a whopping +34.5% higher than the 10-year average.

New Listings wer 1,461 (+138.24% M-to-M and +5.87% Y-to-Y)...down -7.7% from the 10-year average...and Total Active Listings were just 2,492 (-11.9 from the 10-year average).

The greatest activity is currently in condos and townhouses. Specifically, in East Vancouver but all across the city. Detached homes are lagging those markets...especially at the higher end of the market.

Generally speaking, the most active segments are the "affordable" price points no matter the category. Even the slowest sub-market, Westside houses is seeing very high demand for homes at the lower end.

2022 is beginning very much as 2021 ended...with extremely high-levels of demand and limited supply. If anything, it's moving into more extremes....demand is ratcheting up and good quality supply is withering.

The result is that there is tremendous pressure on prices...something that likely won't change until either demand drops significantly or supply grows dramatically.

Some are pointing to interest rate increases on the horizon. Yes, these are inevitable but they are unlikely to have a dramatic effect on our market.

The strength that we are seeing so early in the year indicates to me that we will have an even busier spring market a head of us. Buckle up!