Vancouver Real Estate Sales Drop to Lowest Point in Twenty Years
Over this past year, the Vancouver real estate market has experienced a number of dips and valleys. In many parts, including Metro Vancouver, the market saw a drop, unlike anything that it has seen for decades. Let’s take a look.
Metro Vancouver
In 2018, the number of homes sold in Metro Vancouver fell to the markets lowest amount since 2000. According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, only 24,619 were sold – that is a whole 25% drop from the region’s 10-year average and a 31.6% drop from the sales in 2017. Additionally, the benchmark price of a home in Metro Vancouver finished the year at $1,032,400 – a 2.7% drop from the end of 2017. (This benchmark includes townhomes, detached properties, and condominiums).
As the total supply of homes on the market being in to increase the real estate market will begin to see downward pressure on prices across all home styles throughout the second half of the year.
Detached homes fell to $1,479,000 – almost an 8% drop since December 2017. The prices of condominiums also dropped about 0.6% in November and the prices of townhomes fluctuated about 1.1% between months.
Professionals have referred to this current time as a transition period for the Vancouver housing market that is moving away from the seller’s market that it has been for years.
But Why is This Change Taking Place?
There are a number of reasons as to why this dramatic shift in the Vancouver housing market is taking place. Some of the primary reasons being: rising interest rates, high home prices, taxes, and the new federal mortgage requirements.
Metro Vancouver Isn’t the Only Location Feeling the Drop in Prices
While Metro Vancouver has seen a dramatic shift, the housing market in the Fraser Valley also saw a significant change in late 2018. The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board said sales dropped just more than 30% last year. This brought the number of sales down to 15,58 – the lowest number of sales in the area since 2013.
Other Areas
According to BC Assessment, the average single-family residential property value in North Vancouver, Vancouver, and Burnaby fell approximately four%. In the district of West Vancouver, the drop was even more significant at a whopping 12%. The University of Endowment Lands dropped about 11%.
This data was released just a day after the BC Assessment released data that showed a decline of 15% on the estimated values of detached homes in the Greater Vancouver Area. The BC Assessment is a provincial Crown corporation whose estimates are used as a tool to determine the cost of property taxes.
Not All Bad News
According to the BC Assessment many residential strata units, such as condominiums rose between zero and 25 % in many of the urban areas of Greater Vancouver.
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William Harries
Principal Mortgage Broker, Owner
The Mortgage Centre – Sky Financial Corporation
Licensed in BC. Alberta, Saskatchewan.
