Home Sales Spread Across Vancouver
There is a current high demand in home sales driven by condominiums and townhomes. Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver president Jill Oudil says this is a shift from booming single-family home sales last year,
“First-time buyers and people looking to downsize from their single-family homes are both competing for these two types of housing,” she said in a news release.
Residential property sales totaled 4,364 in May, a leap of 22.8 per cent over the homes sold one month earlier, the real estate board said.
New listings for all property types also increased 23.2 per cent across the region compared with April, but available townhomes for sale climbed at the slowest pace, followed by apartments and detached homes, Oudil said.
“Homebuyers are beginning to have more selections to choose from in the detached market, but the number of condominiums for sale continues to decline,” she said.
Numbers from the board show that sales-to-active listings are 94.6 per cent for condominiums, 76.1 per cent for townhomes and 31 per cent for detached homes.
Some analysts have pointed out that home prices often go higher when sales-to-active listings are above 20 per cent over several months.
The general average price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver is currently $967,500, which is an 8.8 per cent increase over May 2016 and a 2.8 per cent increase compared with April 2017.
Based on the kind of property, the average price for a condo is currently $571,300, which is a 17.8 per cent increase over May 2016 and a 3.1 per cent jump since April.
The average price for a townhome is $715,400, which is up 13.1 per cent since last May and 1.9 per cent compared with April, while the average price for a detached property is $1,561,000, a 3.1 per cent increase in one year.
The real estate board says May’s sales numbers, while strong, remain 8.5 per cent below the all-time sales record of 4,769, recorded in the same month last year.
At that time, Vancouver’s real estate market was the most expensive in Canada, with prices rising at alarming rates that surprised governments at various levels.
The B.C. government implemented a 15 per cent tax last August on foreigners buying properties in Metro Vancouver in a bid to cool down the city’s housing market.
Sales and supply reduced, keeping prices balanced or higher. Jill Oudil points out that home prices are likely to continue to increase until there’s more housing supply coming on the market.
