Carmen Leal- Vancouver Real Estate: Metro Vancouver housing sales soar by 30%, property values up 11.2%

Thursday, 3 September 2015

Metro Vancouver housing sales soar by 30%, property values up 11.2%

Demand remains exceedingly strong in Metro Vancouver’s housing market, to the extent that there has been a major drop in the number of home listings.

According to the newest data from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, there was a 26.3 per cent decline in listings for July 2015 compared to what was experienced the same month a year ago. Approximately 11,500 properties were listed for sale last month.

All the while, the number of sales recorded during the period rose by 30 per cent compared to the 3,061 sales in July 2014. There were 3,978 property sales in July 2015, but this is a decrease of 9.1 per cent compared to the 4,375 sales in June 2015.

Compared over the long-term scale, last month’s sales were 33.5 per cent higher than the 10-year sales average for the month.

Much of today’s activity can be traced to strong consumer confidence, low interest rates, and a reduced supply of homes for sale. We have about 5,000 to 6,000 fewer homes for sale today than we’ve seen at this time of year over the last five to six years.

The pent up demand likely played a role in the significant one-year increase in property values. The average price for a Metro Vancouver residential property is now $700,500, an increase of 11.2 per cent compared to July 2014.

The average value of a detached property is now $1,141,800 (+16.2%) while an apartment property is $400,900 (+5.9%) and an attached property is $511,500 (+7.8%).

Sales of detached properties