There’s been quite a bit of talk about the Vancouver real estate market “stabilizing” last month. In the region overall, sales picked up a bit while inventory eased up a bit. The real estate board referred to this action as “green shoots”.
I don’t quite see the same pattern specifically in the City of Vancouver…at least not quite as much.
Vancouver did NOT see a jump in sales in July. In fact, sales fell to 640. This was a monthly decline of -6.8% and -6.2% lower than a year prior. It was also -23.4% below the 10-year average.
New listings continued to slow reaching just 1,623. Quite significantly this was down -16.7% from June and -5.8% lower than a year ago. It was also just 5.8% over the 10-year average.
And then the total active listings dropped for the second month in a row to 5,026 (-6.1% month-to-month and +6.6% over last year). This was +36% over the 10-year average.
Sales have really just remained at the same level since March. We’ve drifted between a low 0f 640 to a high of 687. We usually see sales peak in March – May. This year demand has really been muted…but hasn’t collapsed.
The strongest “green shoot” in my opinion is that the supply in the market isn’t running away with us (unlike what we saw in the last weakest period back in 2008). We saw the second month of declines in listings and declines at a greater rate than we typically see at this time of year.
The result of all this is that prices have generally been softening up since the beginning of the year. We saw (almost) all housing types decline last month…as has been the case for much of this year.
I’ve heard some people refer to this as one of the “worst markets ever”. I think that’s mostly coming from people with relatively limited experience in Vancouver and/or in real estate as that’s definitely not my opinion.
It IS possible to sell homes in this market. I’ve been selling listings all through this year, and occasionally still see multiple buyer’s competing. That is to say that there IS activity and deals can be made…unlike in the early 80s or in 2008 for example.
The high amount of supply, “relatively” lower interest rates and declining prices are offering an opportunity for opportunistic buyers/investors…and add into this that sales are happening, it can also be a great market for people looking to upsize their home.
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