With agents reporting busier open houses, and sales-to-listings ratio rebalancing, are there tiny signs of life in the region’s real estate market?

Joannah Connolly
Western Investor

The region may have had the coldest February on record, but could there be early signs of a spring awakening in the Metro Vancouver real estate market? It depends how you look at the latest statistics for February activity, released March 4 by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

Home sales across the region looked fairly dismal, down 32.8 per cent year over year at 1,484, and a whopping 42.5 per cent below the 10-year average for February (see graph below). However, this sales total is also a 34.5 per cent increase since January, 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 per cent higher than the same month in 2018, and 7.2 per cent 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 per cent year over year and down nearly 20 per cent from January, perhaps because of nervousness over the slow market.

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 per cent. However, February’s improvement in sales pushed the ratio back up to 12.8 per cent, 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 per cent for a sustained period of several months.

 Greater Vancouver Home Sales – Infogram

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?

The composite benchmark price for Metro Vancouver homes is currently $1,016,600. This is a 6.1 per cent drop since February 2018, and a 0.3 per cent slip compared with January 2019.

“Home buyers face less competition today, have more selection to choose from and more time to make their decisions. Homes priced well for today’s market are attracting interest. However, buyers are choosing to take a wait-and-see approach for the time being,” added Moore.

However, as is usually the case, the story diverges greatly when breaking it out by property type, with condo prices still proving relatively resilient.

Sales and prices by home type and area

Having gone through a steeper decline, detached home sales in the region saw the lowest annual decline, compared with townhomes and condos. There were 448 single-family home sales in February, which is 27.9 per cent lower than the same month in 2018, but 32.2 per cent higher than January (339 sales).

The benchmark price of a typical detached home in the region is $1,443,100, which is 9.7 per cent decrease from February 2018, and a 0.7 per cent decline from January 2019.

Once again, West Vancouver and Vancouver West saw the sharpest declines in detached home prices, down 16.7 and 13.5 per cent respectively, with Richmond and North Vancouver also seeing more than double-digit decreases. The Sunshine Coast and Bowen Island remained the most resilient, with prices up 3.2 and 1.6 per cent respectively, although the size of those annual increases is slipping. Squamish and Whistler also saw detached prices increase on a year-over-year basis.

Attached houses such as townhouses, duplexes and rowhomes saw sales across Metro Vancouver decline 30.9 per cent year over year to 401 in February. However, February’s total is nearly double the 205 attached sales of January 2019.

The typical price of an attached home in Metro Vancouver is now pegged at $660,300, which is 3.3 per cent lower than February 2018, and 1.4 per cent down from January 2019.

The steepest townhome price slides were in Tsawwassen and Ladner, down 7.0 and 7.1 per cent year over year respectively. The only annual rise in benchmark townhome prices was a modest 0.3 per cent increase in Burnaby East.

Condo sales in Metro Vancouver jumped the most in volume, on a month-over-month basis. There were 759 condo sales in February, compared with 559 in January, which is a 35.7 per cent increase. However, that 759 total is also 35.9 per cent lower than one year ago.

Condo benchmark prices fell four per cent, year over year, to $660,300. However, this is a 0.3 per cent increase compared with January 2019, making condos the only property type to see a slight uptick in prices so far this year.

West Vancouver’s typical condo price fell the most out of all Metro Vancouver’s areas, down 10.8 per cent year over year, followed by Burnaby East (-9.6 per cent) and Whistler (-9.3 per cent). Tsawwassen, Ladner and Port Coquitlam all saw slight year-over-year increases in condo prices. Seven areas (out of 18) saw month-over-month increases in condo benchmark prices, including Vancouver East and Vancouver West.

Home prices vary widely in different areas throughout the region. To get a good idea of home prices in a specific location and by property type, check the detailed MLS® Home Price Index in the full REBGV stats package.

© Copyright 2019 Western Investor

5% of residential property in Metro Vancouver owned by non-residents

Neil Sharma
REP

While it’s no surprise that non-resident buyers comprise a substantial portion of British Columbia’s housing market, a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation representative elucidated just numerous they are, and questioned when society at large should be concerned.

“The data shows that 4.8%—so let’s say 5%—of residential properties in Metro Vancouver are owned by people who don’t live or work here, so they’re non-residents,” Eric Bond, CMHC’s market analysis principal, said during a CMBA-BC panel earlier this week in Vancouver. “In general, these properties have much higher assessment values and also tend to be newer, so this has been a growing phenomenon in the region the last couple of years.”

Speaking at the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association-British Columbia conference last week, Bond revealed starker numbers when analyzing the condominium market throughout the Greater Vancouver Area.

“For condominium apartments, non-resident ownership is higher. It’s 10% for Metro Vancouver as a whole, and for condominium apartments built in the last two years, the share of the stock owned by non-residents is 15%,” said Bond.

“It’s 20% in the City of Vancouver, and it increases to 25% in Richmond and Coquitlam. So if every one in five to one in six new condominium apartments are owned by people who don’t live or work here, non-residents are an important component of housing demand, and the question for society, then, becomes whether this matters and whether we want to do anything about it.”

Bond did not proffer to the audience an opinion on whether or non-resident buyers are a deleterious force with respect to domestic buyers, but he did say that their impact should be studied further. In particular, he wonders if people who don’t live, work and pay taxes in the region are distorting housing prices?

“Most of the concern is around whether demand from non-residents is creating a distortion and shutting others out of the housing market,” he said. “So there’s an element of equity, and that could impose costs on other parts of the economy, but we don’t, unfortunately, have data to answer that question.”

Copyright © 2019 Key Media Pty Ltd

Soleil trades on an unbeatable location

Simon Briault
The Vancouver Sun

Soleil

Project location: 1588 Johnston Road, White Rock

Project size and prices: 178 homes, ranging in size from 638 to 1,795 square feet. There are one-, two- and three-bedroom plans available and prices range from $474,900 to $2,199,900

Developer: RDG Management

Architect: Ciccozzi Architecture Inc.

Interior designer: The Creative DesignWorks Inc.

Sales centre: 1588 Johnston Road, White Rock

Sales phone: 604-379-3022

Website: soleilwhiterock.com

For many buyers of new condos, location is everything. Soleil, a new residential tower planned for the centre of White Rock, does not disappoint on that front.

With a convenience score of 98 out of 100, the building will stand right across the street from Semiahmoo Mall and residents will be within a few minutes walk of more than 300 hundred shops and services.

That location is already proving popular with buyers, according to Craig Anderson, marketing and sales director at Magnum Projects, which is handling the sales and marketing for Soleil on behalf of the developers.

“This is the best-value ocean view in the Lower Mainland,” Anderson said. “At the same time, it’s an authentically urban location with everything you need right on your doorstep. When you compare these ocean views against North or West Vancouver, there’s a bunch of value here and you’re not compromising on convenience or finishes either.”

“We did a bunch of work beforehand with realtors and potential buyers,” Anderson added. “Many of them told us that they would be selling houses in the 1,300-square-foot range and that they wanted to put about $500,000 in their pocket after buying a new condo. We reverse-engineered it from there to come up with the floor plans at Soleil.

“So, for example, they could sell their home for $1.3 million and buy a Soleil apartment for about $800,000 and that makes sense for a lot of people. We’ve had extremely healthy sales figures as a result, even in a slow-moving market like White Rock, where people have single-family homes and a lot of time to decide on their next move.”

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Soleil is a 26-storey tower that will stand at the corner of Johnston Road and North Bluff Road, right in the heart of White Rock’s downtown core. The building will have 178 homes in total, ranging in size from 638 to 1,795 square feet. There are one-, two- and three-bedroom plans available and prices range from $474,900 to $2,199,900.

The building also features 25,000 square feet of office and retail space and an 8,000- square-foot amenity space. Located on one level of the building and incorporating both indoor and outdoor space, the facilities will include two guest suites, a yoga room, a sauna, a steam room, a gym, indoor and outdoor lounges, an entertainment kitchen, a terrace, a hot tub, a children’s play area and two fire pits.

 “We’ve never been in a condo before so it will be totally new for us,” said Jeff Whitford, who has bought one of the homes at Soleil. “We live in White Rock right now so we get this big view already and we didn’t want to give it up. Then we saw what the 20^th floor in Soleil would look like and we thought, hey, this looks like our house. It’s the same view and we get Mount Baker thrown in as well.”

Soleil is only a few blocks from the water and the area enjoys more sun than virtually any other area of the Lower Mainland.

“People who want the great ocean views at Soleil will happily pay for them,” Anderson said. “Then you get others that are just looking for that lock-and-leave lifestyle where they can go and spend six months of the year down in the desert. They might be buying something a bit lower down in the building and putting some more money in their pocket so they can enjoy themselves more in a warmer climate.”

Homes at Soleil feature engineered wood flooring in entries, kitchens, living rooms, dining rooms and dens. Kitchens have polished stone countertops, under-counter garbage and recycling systems and full-sized Bosch stainless steel appliance packages, including stainless steel drawer microwaves. Bathrooms feature soaker tubs, frameless glass showers and large-format wall and floor tiles.

RDG Management, the company behind Soleil, is run by John Rempel and Anderson said he and his father have been working together building multi-family homes for more than 40 years.

“John’s a very passionate guy and he sees homes through the eyes of buyers,” Anderson said. “In some cases, he’s willing to forgo revenue if it means the end product is better for the homeowners – taking out one of the floors in a building so that homes can have higher ceilings, for example.”

For Whitford, who has been living in White Rock for more than a decade, the location of Soleil in the centre of the city was a big factor in his decision to buy.

“I think we got a lot of a value for what we paid per square foot for our new condo compared to anywhere else,” he said. “We love the location too. We’ll be able to walk across the street and go to Brown’s, go to Starbucks, get some great sushi, go shopping or go to the liquor store. It’s all right there. It’s a two-minute walk to everything. It’s awesome.”

© 2019 Postmedia Network Inc.

BCREA says commercial real estate to be flattening for 2019

Steve Randall
Canadian Real Estate Wealth

British Columbia’s commercial real estate sector will find some challenging conditions this year according to the province’s real estate association.

BCREA’s Commercial Leading Indicator (CLI) points to flattening activity for 2019 with a decline of 1.8 points to 134.5, about 1% below that of a year ago.

“Following several years of robust growth, the BC economy slowed in 2018 and the CLI is reflecting that slowdown,” says BCREA Deputy Chief Economist Brendon Ogmundson. “That means the economic environment for commercial real estate activity will be less favourable in 2019.”

Weak fourth quarter retail sales and forestry manufacturing shipments were joined by a jump in short-term credit risk spreads, and weaker manufacturing employment, to create an overall slowdown in economic activity.

As a result, each component of the CLI posted a decline in the fourth quarter. Recent volatility in the CLI has left the underlying trend in the CLI flat over the past two quarters, signaling a slower growth environment for commercial real estate activity.

Copyright © 2019 Key Media Pty Ltd