Detached Market Continues to Stabilize, Inventory Up 9%
The detached market appears to have begun it’s seasonal downturn. This comes after a relatively decent spring season where sales returned to more normal levels. In case you missed the May 2017 numbers, you can check those out here. Let’s analyze the June numbers below.
Detached Sales
REBGV detached sales fell 14% year over year in June. Although it’s still a pretty substantial drop, you’ll notice it’s not nearly as steep as the 50% declines we were seeing back in the winter of 2016. However, the detached market really began to cool in the Spring of 2016, therefor the year over year sales declines from here on out should not appear very significant. REBGV detached sales were 3% below the 10 year average, which suggests a stabilization.
New Listings & Inventory
New listings are also recovering. There have been wild swings over the last 8-10 months as sellers have faced a ton of uncertainty with new housing policies. It appears to be business as usual, REBGV new listings were up 1% year over year in June, while Inventory is also up 9% overall.
Sales to Actives Ratio
REBGV- 24% Vancouver East- 20% Vancouver West- 15% Richmond- 20% Burnaby- 20% All areas dropped month over month. Again signalling the end of the busy spring market.
Prices
The average sales price also turned down month over month. The REBGV Detached average sales price now sits at $1,719,453. That’s good for a 2.5% decline year over year. I believe there’s a long enough trend here to suggest prices have been flat in the detached market for quite awhile now.
Summary
There’s not much headline news for the detached market these days. Everything seems to have normalized. Sales are near the 10 year averages, inventory is recovering from a ridiculously irrational market the last few years, and new listings are climbing, now 10% above the ten year average. This is encouraging news for potential buyers, and I would expect the balancing to continue as we head into late summer/early fall.