Metro Vancouver home sales down year-over-year in February but up from January: REBGV

A total of 1,484 home sales took place across the Metro Vancouver region in February, which is down 32.8% year-over-year and is 42.5% below the 10-year average for the month (see graph below), according to Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) data released March 4.

This sales total is a 34.5% increase compared with January, however, as the market started to see its usual uptick approaching spring.

The number of homes for sale in the region, as of the end of February, is nearly 50% higher than the same month in 2018, and 7.2% more than in January this year, at 11,590. But fewer sellers took their homes to market this February, with new listings down 7.8% year over year and down nearly 20% from January, perhaps because of nervousness over the slow market.

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One of the key indicators of the strength of the market is the sales-to-active-listings ratio, which in January took the region into buyer’s market territory at just 10.2%. However, February’s improvement in sales pushed the ratio back up to 12.8%, edging back into more of a balanced market. A buyer’s market is considered to be in play when the ratio is less than 12% for a sustained period of several months.

Phil Moore, REBGV president, said, “Realtors continue to experience more traffic at open houses. We’ll see if this trend leads to increased sales activity during the spring market.”

So what does all this mean for home prices?