Metro Vancouver home sales fell in April, said real estate board
Cheryl Chan
The Vancouver Sun
The slowdown comes after the Bank of Canada increased interest rates in a bid to tamp down inflation.
Despite the slowdown in sales in April, residential home prices remained steady. Photo by REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo
Greater Vancouver’s housing market appears to be slowing down, although prices remain steady.
According to the latest report from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, there were 3,232 residential home sales in April — a 25 per cent drop from March and a 34 per cent dip from the 4,908 sales recorded last April.
Despite this, April sales still remain 1.5 per cent above the 10-year sales average for the month.
Daniel John, chairman of the real estate board, said home sales have eased from last year’s “record-breaking pace.”
“While a small sample size, the return to a more traditional pace of home sales that we’ve experienced over the last two months provides hopeful homebuyers more time to make decisions, secure financing and perform other due diligence such as home inspections,” said John in a statement.
The slowdown comes after the Bank of Canada increased interest rates by a quarter point in March and by half a percentage point in April in a bid to slow inflation. Experts are anticipating another hike at the rate announcement in June.
The total number of homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service in Metro Vancouver sits at nearly 8,800, up 15 per cent compared with March.
Home prices remained steady, inching up by about one per cent compared with March. The benchmark price for a detached home in the region is $2,139,200, $1,150,500 for a townhouse and $844,700 for a condo. The prices are about 16 to 25 per cent higher — depending on the type of home —— compared with April 2021.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver represents more than 14,000 real estate agents in Burnaby, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Pitt Meadows and Port Coquitlam.
Other municipalities in the Lower Mainland like Surrey, Delta and Abbotsford are represented by the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board.
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