According to the stats released by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the market has slowed down considerably. Home sales in March of 2018 is 29.7% lower than 2017 level and is 23% below the 10-year March sales average.
As the market digest the slow down, new listing has decreased as well. Compared to March 2017, new listings decreased 6.6%. The total number of listings have increased 10.5% compared to a year ago and 7.1% compared to last month. This means what is in inventory is taking longer to sell; thus, with lower new listings, the inventory is still growing.
A price drop? Maybe, especially for detached homes. The sales-to-active listings ratio by property type is 14.2% for detached homes, 39.9% for townhouses and 61.6% for condos. Generally, over 20% is upward price pressure and below 12% is downward price pressure. 39.9% and 61.6% indicate that there isn’t enough inventory to bring prices down.
So far this has been reflected in the price increases. Even detached home prices have gone up in the last month by 0.6%, 1.1% in 3 months and 10.1% over the last 12 months in the lower mainland. For townhouses, the price has gone up by 2% in the last month, 4.6% in 3 months and 20.4% over the last 12 months. For condos, the price increases have been 2.2% in 1 month, 7.5% in 3 months and 30.6% in 12 months.
We’ll have to wait to see if this slowdown will eventually stop the price growth of townhomes and condos.
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