Vancouver housing sales accelerate in September

The market is steadily moving towards more balanced conditions

Vancouver housing sales accelerate in September

Amid falling prices, Vancouver’s home sales activity enjoyed a massive 46.3% year-over-year gain in September, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

The market saw 2,333 homes getting sold in September, a sharp rise from the 1,595 sales during the same time last year.

Last month’s activity level ended up just 1.7% lower than the 10-year average for September.

REBGV added that the market is moving towards more balanced conditions. In terms of supply, a total of 4,866 homes were newly listed last month, representing a 29.9% increase compared to August, and a 7.8% annual decrease.

These trends accompanied overall lower prices. The composite benchmark price across all housing types in Metro Vancouver shrunk by 7.3% annually and 0.3% monthly in September, to end up at $990,600.

Single detached housing saw its benchmark price drop by 8.6% year-over-year, while condos had a 6.5% decrease. Attached home prices went down 7.2%.

Over the past few months, Vancouver prices have suffered declines while much of Canada has gone up.

The TeranetNational Bank of Canada House Price Index released last month showed that Vancouver’s average housing price (across all asset classes) fell by 6.63% year-over-year in August, bringing composite prices down by 6.96% from the peak seen in July 2018.

“The city’s index has shown negative growth every month this year,” Better Dwelling stated in its analysis of the data – an observation that has been mirrored in another study.

“In recent months, home prices have generally been stabilizing in British Columbia and the Prairies, a measure which had been falling until recently,” the CREA noted recently.

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