January 2024 – Monthly Vancouver Real Estate Update

So things turned a little positive in 2024.

As I've been talking about in recent months, the winter is usually the slowest period in Vancouver's real estate market. We typically see the lowest amount of activity mid-November through to the end of January.

However, THIS past January bucked that trend a little. What's normally our slowest month of the year actually saw a jump in activity not just in comparison to December 2023 (month to month) but also a very significant increase over January 2023 (year over year).

Sales rose to 412 (from 382). That's a +7.9% increase from last month and a whopping +31.6% increase over a year ago. Notably, it's still -16.4% below the 10-year average for the month of January.

New listings rose a whopping 236% over the month to 1,339. This was up +26.2% from a year ago. To put it into context this was up just +2.9% over the 10-year average.

And despite a big jump in new listings, active listings remained fairly stable. This number rose by just +0.8% to 2,897 from 2875. This was also +4% from a year ago and up +8.1% over the 10 year average.

For the most part, prices continued to slide through various property types in Vancouver last month. The exceptions being Westside townhouses (+1.53%) and condos (+1.69%). The biggest drop was seen in Westside houses with a fall of -4.74% last month.

Anecdotally, I'm seeing the impact of pricing vary around the city and through property types. Some are still at a discount, but others are already back at peak pricing (April/May 2022). Deals are out there, but valuations in our market haven't been weakened substantially by interest rates.

I would keep in mind that January 2023 was a very bad month. Looking back, it proved to be the low point in our market. And so, year over year comparisons are easy to make and are bound to make today's numbers look good.

I do think our market is moving into the direction of an upswing, though. Despite the easy comparisons, there has definitely been a shift in market sentiment...to one that's much more upbeat and confident.

Buyer's (including both first-time buyers as well as investors) are once again active in our market...driving demand that we haven't seen since the spring of 2023.

At this point, I think we will continue to see increasing demand, low inventory and most likely increasing prices. That is, unless the bank of Canada decides to increase interest rates.