In Vancouver’s real estate market, the January sales seem to have picked up significantly. It was 38.5% more than January of last year. That sounds bullish but last year was a terrible year. It was 42.9% below the 10-year average. This January the sales were 20.2% below the 10-year seasonal average. Not great historically but the trend does seem to be turning.
The sales-to-active listings ratio have stopped falling after 7 months of declines. This ratio is a key market indicator, where falling values typically signal decreasing demand, and rising figures suggest the opposite. As you can see from the tables below that while demand has increased a little bit, the price direction is still generally down. But it is likely that the price trend lags that of the sales-to-active listings ratio. So prices may stabilize in the months ahead.
Recent economic data show a moderately strong performance. This has pushed out the predictions of rate cuts by the bank of Canada to June from March. The general view is for the rate to drop 0.75% to 1.00% in the last half of the year. This will spur real estate sales but prices overall will still drop this year. Hoping to keep housing price down, the government has just extended the ban on foreign purchases of real estate to January of 2027.
