The Hidden Reason Metro Vancouver Sales Hit a 25-Year Low

Remember 2021? If you were trying to buy a home in BC, you probably remember it all too well — and not fondly. Homes were gone in days. Sometimes hours. Buyers were lining up to waive their inspection rights, offering way over asking just to stay in the game, and making six-figure decisions under the kind of pressure that would make anyone’s palms sweat. It was a seller’s market taken to its absolute extreme.

Now look around. Inventory is at levels we haven’t seen in decades. Interest rates have come down meaningfully from their 2023 peak. And yet, the buyers who were supposedly waiting on the sidelines for exactly this moment… are still on the sidelines. Sales across Metro Vancouver in 2025 hit their lowest point in over 25 years, even as the number of available listings climbed to heights not seen since the mid-1990s. So what is going on?

The short answer: buying a home is as much a psychological event as it is a financial one — and right now, the psychology is complicated.

Too Many Choices Can Actually Stop You from Choosing

Here’s something that might seem counterintuitive: having more options doesn’t always make decisions easier. In fact, it often makes them harder. Psychologist Barry Schwartz spent years studying this phenomenon and found that when people are faced with an overwhelming number of choices, many of them simply freeze. They keep looking, keep comparing, keep waiting — convinced that the perfect option must be out there if they just look a little longer.

Sound familiar? With listings in Metro Vancouver running more than 34% above their seasonal average at the end of 2025, today’s buyers are swimming in options. And rather than feeling empowered, a lot of them feel stuck. There’s always another open house to attend, another unit to compare, another neighbourhood to consider. The abundance that was supposed to liberate buyers is, for many, quietly paralyzing them.

The Hangover from FOMO

To really understand today’s hesitation, you have to go back to what the 2020–2022 market did to people emotionally. That era ran on pure FOMO — the fear of missing out. Buyers felt like every day they waited was a day they fell further behind. So they moved fast, sometimes too fast. They stretched their budgets. They skipped conditions. They bought in neighbourhoods they weren’t sure about because at least they got something.

The fear of missing out drove people to act. Now, the fear of making a mistake is keeping them from acting at all.

And then rates rose. Sharply. Suddenly some of those buyers — the ones who had ‘won’ the bidding wars — found themselves quietly wondering if winning had been worth it. That feeling doesn’t just go away. It spreads. Today’s prospective buyers have heard those stories from friends, family, and coworkers. They’ve seen the headlines. And somewhere in the back of their minds, they’re asking themselves: what if I’m the next cautionary tale?

Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance — the discomfort of holding two conflicting thoughts at once. ‘I want to buy a home’ versus ‘what if I regret it?’ It’s a very human reaction. And it’s one of the quieter forces keeping buyers on the fence right now.

It’s Not Just Feelings — The Outside World Isn’t Helping Either

On top of the emotional weight, buyers are also navigating a genuinely uncertain economic backdrop. Trade tensions with the US, questions about employment, shifting immigration numbers — none of these are small concerns when you’re about to take on the largest financial commitment of your life. The BCREA’s own chief economist has noted that despite clear pent-up demand in the market, broader economic uncertainty is actively holding that demand back.

The result is a feedback loop that’s hard to break. Buyers hesitate because things feel uncertain. Their hesitation keeps sales volumes low. Low sales volumes make the market feel uncertain. And so the cycle continues — even as the underlying fundamentals quietly shift in buyers’ favour.

The pendulum has swung hard to one side. Understanding why it got there is the first step toward figuring out how to move forward — which is exactly what we’ll dig into in Newsletter 2.

Sources & Further Reading

Schwartz, B. (2004). The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. Harper Perennial.

Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.

Herman, D. (1996). Journal of Brand Management — original research coining the term FOMO.

Greater Vancouver Realtors (2025). December 2025 Market Statistics Report.

BCREA (2025). Q2 2025 Housing Forecast — Ogmundson commentary on pent-up demand.

RBC Economics (2026). Canadian Housing Market Update, February 2026.