It has been a rough month globally and I am glad here in BC, we seem to have a better handle on the pandemic than the States. I hope everyone is healthy and doing well. I have included the help-links from the province and federal government in case someone needs the help.
BC Government COVID-19 Page:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/emergency-preparedness-response-recovery/covid-19-provincial-support
Federal Government COVID-19 Page:
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-response-plan.html
In terms of the real estate market in April, sales are slow, inventory is holding steady and so are the prices.
There were 1,109 sales in Metro Vancouver last month. That is a 39.4% decrease from last year. But last year was a bad year. Last April’s sales were 29.1% below the year before. For comparison, at the market high in March 2016 there were 4,769 sales. The current sales volume is 62.7% below the 10-year April sales average. You will have to go back to 1982 to find a slower April.
Between March and April of this year the sales number dropped by 56.1% and newly listed properties dropped by 47.9%, but because of the existing pool of inventory, the total number of homes listed only dropped 2.3% which makes it surprising that the prices have held up so well.
Detached home and attached home prices actually increased by 0.8% and 0.6% respectively over last month. Apartment prices dropped 0.2% over the same time period. I expect the prices to adjust lower in the coming months. And the longer this drags on, the more devastating it will be for the market. As tenants stop paying rent, small mom and pop investors will reassess the viability of keeping the property as the mortgage payments accumulates, assuming they are deferring the payments. They will probably be the ones to sell first. Then comes everyone who has lost their jobs or closed their businesses. The latest statistics showed 1 million people lost their job in March and another 1.3 million Canadians who were employed worked zero hours. With air traffic ground to a halt and economies all over the world in contraction, foreign buyers will not have a chance to support the market. If there is anything that could derail Vancouver’s real estate market, this is it.
