Hi, I'm Cari Mai and this is your Vancouver Real Estate Market update for February 2024!
The Spring market started early for Buyers! We're seeing line-ups at open houses and buyers are having to compete in multiple-offers again. Sales in Greater Vancouver started strong with a 39% increase in sales compared with last January!
Ok, so what's happening here? Buyers are anticipating future Bank of Canada interest rate cuts and don't want to wait until competition gets fiercer once they happen. So that's why Buyers are starting earlier in 2024.
Home sales are increasing but newly listed homes for sale on the MLS is still 9% below the 10 year seasonal average. So where are all the home sellers because newly listed properties didn't keep up with the jump in home sales in January 2024!
The MLS benchmark price is $1,161,300 for all homes types across Greater Vancouver. This is 4% increase from last January and a negligible decrease from December 2023. But the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver predicts a 2% - 3% increase in prices by the end of 2024 largely because of the current home buyer demand exceeding the current housing supply! But there's still opportunity for the market to shift and we'll have to see whether this prediction holds true at the end of the year!
In every area of Greater Vancouver, there are 'winners' and 'losers'
- The strongest January home sales can be seen in North Vancouver, Burnaby North, Burnaby South, New Westminster, and Port Coquitlam with only 4 months supply of listings in seller's market territory.
- Sales in Vancouver's West Side was higher at 8 months supply of listings.
- The weakest sales can be seen in West Vancouver with 21 months supply of homes available - a market heavily favouring buyers!
Townhouses lead the way in highest percentage of homes sold in this home type (this is also known as the absorption rate). The townhouse absorption rate is higher than detached homes and condos. We're already seeing the provincial government make zoning changes but perhaps they should focus on building more townhouses and row homes than having up to 6 unit multiplex buildings across Greater Vancouver.
So as you may have heard, last week's announcement to extend the Foreign Buyer Ban until 2027 happened which prevents anyone or any corporation without Canadian citizenship or Canadian Permanent Residency status obtain residential property in Canada. Though it's most obvious to blame the housing crisis on higher interest rates because that's keeping new development from happening in addition to the cost of building so that presents a risk for developers. But policy experts and economists are saying that legislation like the Foreign Buyer Ban is limiting housing supply instead of providing more. But, more on this later!
That's your Vancouver Real Estate Market Update for February 2024! If you have any questions or need guidance navigating this market, I'm just a message away. If you'd like to be informed for future real estate news happening in Greater Vancouver, simply hit the subscribe button to never miss a future update! Hope that helps! Bye!
