Vancouver Real Estate Statistics - May 2017

The last couple of months in the Vancouver real estate market have been a wild ride.

Months of Inventory (MOI) reached over 15 months for detached homes in January in Vancouver's Westside.  This is the highest it has been since the 2008 credit crisis.  MOI in April sat at 5.43 months for detached homes, 2.13 months for attached homes and only 1.44 months for apartments. 


While active listing volumes for detached homes are about the same as they were in April, the sales volumes are less than half.  Apartments have been the hottest segment of the market.  Lower active listing volumes coupled with average sales volumes have created multiple offers and rising prices.

The rising prices of apartments and attached homes are gradually diminishing the spread between themselves and houses per square foot.  In June 2016 the difference was more than $350/sq.ft.  it is now less than $200/sq.ft.

 
Apartments, particularly lower value apartments have been a hot commodity.  Anecdotally, my last four condo listings all quickly sold in multiple offers well over their original listing prices.  
Looking forward it is unclear if we will see a recovery in house prices soon or not.  Apartment pricing can not likely rise much more before either stalling or house prices rising too.  It seems more likely that we will see apartments hit a ceiling mirroring the slow down in house sales that we saw last fall rather than a new surge in house prices.

*Remember that Months of Inventory (MOI) is a measure derived from the number of active listings during a given month divided by the number of sales that month. It indicates the theoretical length of time it would take to sell all of the properties on the market if nothing changed. Historically, 0-5 months of inventory has generally implied upward price pressure ("Seller's Market") for the ensuing six months, 5-8 months ("Balanced Market") of inventory meant a flat market with respect to pricing and over 8 months of inventory ("Buyer's Market") has, for the most part, precipitated downward price pressure.

By Sam Wyatt - Vancouver Realtor