As I've talked about over the past few months, winter is typically the slowest time of year in the Vancouver real estate market. We typically see the lowest level of activity from mid-November to the end of January.
However, THIS past January bucked that trend a bit. What's usually our slowest month of the year actually saw a jump in activity not only compared to December 2023 (month to month), but also a very significant increase compared to January 2023 (year to year).
Sales increased to 412 (from 382). That's a +7.9% increase from last month and a whopping +31.6% increase from a year ago. Notably, it's still -16.4% below the 10-year average for the month of January.
New listings rose a whopping 236% over the month to 1,339. This was up +26.2% from a year ago. To put this in context, this was only +2.9% above the 10-year average.
And despite the big jump in new listings, active listings remained fairly stable. This number rose just +0.8% to 2,897 from 2875. This was also +4% from a year ago and +8.1% above the 10-year average.
For the most part, prices continued to slide across various property types in Vancouver last month. The exceptions were Westside townhouses (+1.53%) and condominiums (+1.69%). The biggest drop was seen in Westside houses with a drop of -4.74% last month.
Anecdotally, I'm seeing the impact of pricing vary across the city and across property types. Some are still at a discount, but others are already back to peak pricing (April/May 2022). There are deals out there, but valuations in our market haven't been significantly weakened by interest rates.
I would keep in mind that January 2023 was a very bad month. Looking back, it turned out to be the bottom in our market. So year-over-year comparisons are easy to make, and they certainly make today's numbers look good.
However, I think our market is moving in the direction of an upturn. Despite the easy comparisons, there has definitely been a shift in market sentiment...to one that's much more optimistic and confident.
Buyers (including both first-time buyers and investors) are once again active in our market...driving demand that we haven't seen since the spring of 2023.
At this point, I think we will continue to see increasing demand, low inventory and most likely rising prices. That is, unless the Bank of Canada decides to raise interest rates.
Take a look at the charts below:
Source: Sebastian Albrecht, Royal LePage real estate agent.
