On the surface, it looks like the August market is slowing some more from July. The residential sales figure in August is down 5.2% from the July. However, seasonally August is a slower month. Adjusted for seasonality, August was actually more active than July. The August sales figure is actually 20.4% above the 10-year August sales average, while last month’s sales was only 13.3% above the 10-year July sales average.
The pace of new listings is not keeping up with the sales. Compared to last month, the new listings dropped by 7.9%. The total number of homes currently listed for sales is 8.6% lower than in July. This is reflected in the general increase in the sales-to-active listings ratio and the pricing strength of the market. The sales-to-active listings ratio for all segments are still strong. Ratios between 12% and 20% are considered neutral. Currently, the sales-to-active listing ratio is 25.3% for detached homes, 51.8% for townhomes and 39.2% for apartments. This correlated with a price increase of 0.3% for detached homes and townhomes over the last month, while apartments bucked the trend with a 0.2% decrease.
Along a similar theme, the BC Real Estate Association predicts the prices of real estate will continue to increase in 2021 and 2022 due to supply shortage. They point to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. data that forecasts a 12.8% decrease in housing starts in 2022.
