Home Listings In Vancouver Real Estate Escalates

January 2017 is definitely a month to be remembered for Vancouver as the real estate market goes through a rough patch as home prices decline, home sales drops and home listings escalates.

Quite recently, there were projects that that capital control in China will have great impacts on the Vancouver real estate market but no one was certain as to when this will happen. But to the surprise of speculators, it is occurring sooner than expected.

Data from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver indicates the effect of the restrictions on Chinese buyers has already begun to take a toll on the market. Home listings are reaching record high whereas sales are dropping at the same pace. Home prices have also begun to declining since the ending of December of 2016.

Technically speaking, this is definitely not a good sign for the city.

The drop in home prices is ongoing with the average home price in February at $896,000, a 0.2% drop from January. Over the last 6 months, there have been a 3.7% drop in home prices and even though many have described this situation as a market crash, it has however not reached to that point yet.

However, the most price decline was seen in West Vancouver with the average home price dropping from $31,600 to $2,436,700 which is a 1.3% drop for the month. But the drop was not experienced in all regions, as some markets such as Squamish and Sunshine Coast had impressive increases of 2.1% and 2% respectively.

Along with the drop in home prices, home sales are also on the decline with home sales in January at 1,523, an 11.1% drop from December.  It is also a 39.5% drop from the previous year.

But not all market activities are on the declining side. Home listings took a different direction as there were 4,140 new homes put up in the market which is a 215.5% increase from December 2016. Making comparison for the same period last year, there is a 9.1% increase making available 7,238 new homes to be sold.

Although having more homes on the market is not a major issue, but with home prices and home sales declining, it’s something to be concerned about.