Highlights From the Real Estate Board, January 2019

Home listings continue to increase across all housing categories in the Metro Vancouver* housing market while home buyer activity remains below historical averages.

“REALTORS® are seeing more traffic at open houses compared to recent months, however, buyers are choosing to remain in a holding pattern for the time being.”

“As the total supply of homes for sale began to accumulate in the spring, we began to see downward pressure on prices across all home types throughout the latter half of the year,” Moore said.

“Economic fundamentals underpinning our market for home buyers and sellers remain strong. Today’s market conditions are largely the result of the mortgage stress test that the federal government imposed at the beginning of last year,” Moore said. “This measure, coupled with an increase in mortgage rates, took away as much as 25 per cent of purchasing power from many home buyers trying to enter the market.”

Sales of detached homes in January 2019 reached 339, a 30.4 per cent decrease from the 487 detached sales recorded in January 2018. The benchmark price for detached homes is $1,453,400. This represents a 9.1 per cent decrease from January 2018, and an 8.3 per cent decrease over the past six months.

Sales of apartment homes reached 559 in January 2019, a 44.8 per cent decrease compared to the 1,012 sales in January 2018. The benchmark price of an apartment property is $658,600. This represents a 1.7 per cent decrease from January 2018, and a 6.6 per cent decrease over the past six months.

“NOTE: this representation is based in whole or in part on data generated by the Chilliwack & District Real Estate Board, Fraser Valley Real Estate Board or Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver which assume no responsibility for its accuracy.”

Download The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver’s January statistics Package. Click Here

Download Fraser Valley’s Real Estate Board’s January Statistics Package. Click Here