The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver released their recent report on the September market that shows a drop in prices, but not the extent that many Vancouverites were hoping for.
Findings from the report show that there were more active sellers than buyers in the market. Last month’s sales were 35.7 per cent below the 10-year September sales average. A statistic that Clay Jarvis, a spokesperson for NerdWallet, says is not surprising. While the market saw an uptick in housing supply, it had little effect on prices.
Despite the 27.1 per cent increase in new listings for detached, attached and apartment properties since August, there was only a 2.1 per cent decrease in price.
Other statistics outlined in the report show that residential home sales in the region totalled 1,687 in September 2022, a 46.4 per cent decrease from the 3,149 sales recorded in September 2021, and a 9.8 per cent decrease from the 1,870 homes sold in August 2022.
“It's just that fewer people can afford today's prices, and those who can are buying. And as long as they do, sellers won't really feel much pressure to drop their prices unless they're really encouraged to sell,” Jarvis said.
He added that when you take a longer view, Vancouver’s supply has not increased that much with new listings in September still down by 18.2 per cent year over year.
“At the end of the month there were still fewer than 10,000 active listings across all of Greater Vancouver. And that's not a lot of supply, you know, for a population of 2.6 million people,” he said.
Jarvis recommends that prospective homebuyers reach out to a mortgage broker as soon as possible in order to find out what your budget is, the different loan options and to get pre-approved before rates increase any further.
He says that for those who have already purchased a home, this is probably the first time they’ve seen the market seize up which he acknowledges can be scary.
“Now, if the cost of homeownership is starting to worry you, it's time to think about a path forward, you know, at first, maybe look at generating some revenue from your property. Maybe you can rent out a parking space, a garage or a spare room and make a few 100 extra bucks every month,” he said.
“I think people are expecting prices to fall a lot faster than they have been. So it's always kind of good to take a look at that and just keep things in perspective. We're in a housing correction, it's not a crash.”
