Vancouver’s housing market conditions have shifted A decline in housing demand in the Vancouver Region in April has brought sales counts down to a level not seen in almost two years. And what is that level? It’s the typical monthly average.
March), conditions have markedly improved for buyers insofar as having a greater range of housing options to choose from. Despite this, the market is still tilted in favour of sellers (a sales-to-listings ratio above 21% is considered a sellers’ market). Despite these recent changes to supply and demand conditions, prices (per the “benchmark” definition) remain at historic highs for all home types across both the Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley board areas. However, elevated economic uncertainty of late—in the form of inflation near 7% nationally, along with continually rising interest rates—potential buyers and sellers may be choosing to delay their real estate decisions until the economic context becomes more stable. The early returns for May are showing moderate sales counts, similar to those in April, as inventory continues to expand. Maybe—just maybe— we’ll find ourselves with balanced market conditions just in time for summer.
It’s fair to say that the second-most discussed dimension of Vancouver’s housing market over the last couple of years (after constrained inventory) has been the elevated sales activity we’ve experienced—elevated until now, that is. While the typical seasonal pattern between March and April is one of declining sales (the long-run average decline is 4% between these two months), the drop in sales last month represented something much more significant and is likely a sign of a shifting market. Specifically, total MLS sales for the Vancouver Region in April were 4,826, which was a 30% drop from March and 38% below April 2021’s level. Having noted this, we’d be remiss if we didn’t also point out that both March 2022 and April 2021 posted atypically-high sales totals; indeed, compared to the past-decade April average, last month’s sales only came in 1% lower. Interestingly, though, while April’s sales
were just a hair below what is considered typical for the month, the last time sales counts in this region were below the previous 10-year monthly average was all the way back in June 2020, at the tail-end of the original Covid-19 lockdown. Meanwhile, as sales counts have waned, new listings activity has been on the rise, and that dynamic (receding sales and rising new listings) yielded another increase in inventory in April. It was the fourth consecutive monthly increase in supply, though inventory remains relatively constrained overall: the 13,475 homes for sale at the end of April are still 14% below April 2021’s level, and 25% below the past 10-year April average. It can be said, then, that market conditions have shifted—moderated, more pointedly: as measured by the sales-to-listings ratio (which dropped to 36% in April from 59% in
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