Greater Vancouver listings also take jump
Derrick Penner
Sun
The Fraser Valley hit a near-record high for total inventory of homes for sale in April and Greater Vancouver listings also took a substantial jump, according to reports from respective real estate boards, as markets continued to slow.
The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board reported 4,458 new listings added to the Multiple Listing Service in April, a 53-per-cent jump from the same month a year ago. Total listings of 11,111 is up 43 per cent from a year ago.
MLS sales in the Fraser Valley, at 1,787, were virtually unchanged from the same month a year ago.
In Greater Vancouver, new listings added to inventory were up almost 26 per cent to 7,010 units. Total inventory stood at 13,575 at the end of April, up 18 per cent from last year.
Greater Vancouver‘s MLS sales of 3,218 were down five per cent from the same month a year ago.
The rise in listings “is consistent with people believing they’re at the [market] peak and are rushing to sell before market conditions change,” Tsur Somerville, director of the centre for urban economics and real estate at the Sauder School of Business at the University of B.C., said in an interview.
Somerville added that the normal model of an economic cycle heading into a downturn sees sales drop while new-listing activity plateaus.
Robyn Adamache, a senior analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., said some sellers appear to be motivated by a bit of the same concern that is keeping some buyers on the sideline.
They’re watching the U.S. housing-market decline and worrying it might be repeated here, “and we’d better get our house on the market now.”
Markets, however, have still not slowed into territory that favours buyers. Adamache estimated that there is about five months worth of unsold inventory in the Greater Vancouver board’s area, which runs from Whistler and the Sunshine Coast to Maple Ridge, including Richmond and South Delta.
In a market that is balanced between supply and demand, inventory would be about seven or eight months, Adamache added. Inventory was as short as two to three months in the record-sales year of 2005.
Kelvin Neufeld, president of the Fraser Valley board, characterized the rising listings as “profit taking” among sellers, many of whom own more than one property.
Adamache said that “prices still haven’t adjusted much yet, “although I think they are starting to slow,” with the Fraser Valley coming closer to the “balanced” point.
The average Fraser Valley single-family home price of $547,590 in April is down from the previous month, but still up 4.7 from the same month a year ago. The Fraser Valley board area runs from North Delta to Mission, including Surrey.
The average Fraser Valley townhouse price in April was still 7.5 per cent higher, year-over-year, at $344,659 and condo prices 10.3 per cent higher at $235,840.
In Greater Vancouver, the benchmark price of what is considered to be a typical detached home on the board’s housing price index was $771,321, up 11 per cent from April a year ago.
For townhouses, the $477,900 benchmark price was up 1.05 per cent from a year ago, and in condominiums, the benchmark was up 9.6 per cent to $389,070.
The average detached-home price, however, was down from the previous month. In April, the average detached-home sale across the region was $880,844 in April compared with $919,593 in March.
Adamache added that it is difficult to read much into a single-month change in average price because the mix of sales could simply have been different.
Dave Watt, president of the Greater Vancouver board, said the recent peak in the region’s average house price would have been skewed by the massive $28-million sale of a home in West Vancouver.
Otherwise, while sales have slowed, Watt said there are “lots of buyers,” and the fact that houses, on average, sold more quickly in April speaks to their confidence.
“It took an average of six fewer days to sell a home than it did in the previous year,” Watt said. “That is probably as telling as anything.”
SHIFTING INTO NEUTRAL
With listings rising and sales declining, Lower Mainland real estate markets are shifting towards what economists term balanced conditions.
Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver
MLS sales: 3,387 -5%
Total listings: 13,475 +19%
Benchmark house price*: $771,321
Fraser Valley Real Estate Board
MLS sales: 1,787 (no change)
Total listings: 11,111 +43%
Average house price: $547,590 +4.7%
* Benchmark refers to an estimate of what is considered a typical home in that class.
Source: Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, Fraser Valley Real Estate Board.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
