Week 8 – Vancouver Real Estate Week in Review (February 20th, 2022 - February 26th, 2022)

After revving up for the last two months, the last week in the Vancouver real estate market (Week 8 - February 20th - 26th, 2022) was a bit slower.

This was the first week of 2022 to break the trend of increasing activity.

Sales dipped for the first time in 2022, going from 281 to 238.

Meanwhile, New Listings also fell from 431 to 401...and overall the Total Active Listings rose once again to 2,685 (from 2,580).

The result was that the market backed-off slightly, but is still quite firmly in a Seller's Market with 2.82 MOI (up from 2.30).

There is water-cooler chatter amongst realtors that the market is "cooling off". That may be true...but I don't yet see that reflected in these numbers.

While the numbers did back off slightly, they are still at extremely high-levels of activity and a blazing hot Seller's Market in just about every sub-market.

The hottest continues to be East Vancouver condos at 2.05 MOI...but condos across the city continue to be a hotpoint with demand far outstripping supply.

After seeing a spike in sales in the previous week, it looks as though Westside houses returned to a more subdued pace of sales...going from 39 to 19 and seeing MOI rise to 7.12, a Buyer's Market...and the only sub-market not to be in a seller's market.

I believe that what we saw last week (and what many realtors are noticing) is the impact of the Family Day Long Weekend. It's very normal for long weekends to impact sales and listing activity negatively...and it usually has a greater impact than what we saw recently.

That being said, there is some uncertainty on the horizon. The government Bank of Canada is expected to increase interest rates next week...and the Provincial government is said to be implementing some changes to the real estate market in the coming weeks as well.

While these shifts may give some market participants pause, I don't believe they will have a significant long-term impact. Even if what we are seeing right now is more than just the impact of a single long weekend, demand has been so strong and supply so limited that these changes will quickly become absorbed.

I should also recognize the impacts of potential global uncertainty.

While at the moment, what is happening in the Ukraine has yet to impact us directly...it has the potential to....and there is always the possibility it turns into a conflict that becomes more global in scope...that could be far more concerning.

Vancouver West (Westside)

East Vancouver (East Van)

Downtown Vancouver