July 2023 - Vancouver Real Estate Market Update

We're now in July and school is out! Vancouverites are away on vacation. What this means for the Vancouver real estate market is there are fewer homes for sale since Sellers are gone! In fact, 8% less compared to last June 2022 and 8.6% below the the 10 year June average. The total number of listings on the market for June was the lowest for any June since 2017. Is this normal market behaviour for this time of year? Absolutely, this is a typical seasonal trend.

What did this do to home prices? We saw the benchmark price for all home types increase with the home price index benchmark at $1,203,000. This is a slight 2.4% decrease from last June and a 1.3% increase from May 2023. 

If we dissect the pricing data from June  further by home type, we see that condos showed the greatest strength in the Vancouver real estate market last month relative to townhouses and single detached homes.  The benchmark price for condos overall is at $767,000 and this is at the peak of Greater Vancouver's 10-year June average for condo prices! There have been calls to the BC government to increase the first time home buyer property transfer tax exemption threshold from $525,000 to a purchase price that's more reflective of the current market condition, especially for those first time home buyers living in metropolitan areas of the province! So keep your ears open for updates!

Now with last two Bank of Canada interest rate hikes in June 7th and July 12th, we may see some changes to our market in the coming months. We won't be able to know the effects of the latest interest rate hike until at least a month from now. However, since the June interest rate hike, there hasn't been much effect if at all on the entry level priced homes. When I say entry level homes, it's under $1 million for a condo, under $1.5 million for a townhouse, and under $3.5 million for a house for the Vancouver West neighbourhood as an example! These entry-level homes are still selling competitively in multiple offers very quickly after the June interest rate hike. However, we're seeing the interest rate hike affecting more of the higher end market as affordability is more limited.

We're seeing sold median prices for single detached homes and condos decrease by 2% and 0.4%, respectively. Is this the start of the market cooling? Honestly, it's hard to say but in Vancouver, we haven't seen strong indications that this will be the case yet! Median prices for townhouses though is up 4% and I'm finding more up-sizers who might not be able to buy a single detached house in the region shift their expectation towards a townhouse and hence could the main driving factor for this price boost and for this segment's sales numbers staying consistent month over month.