Justin da Rosa
Canadian Real Estate Wealth
Real estate association tries to find the positive in a downward trending market.
“BC home sales trend toward ten-year average,” the British Columbia Real Estate Association proclaimed in its latest sales report.
“Moderating consumer demand in the province’s largest population centres continues to trend home sales toward the ten-year average,” Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist, said. “The seasonally adjusted annual rate of MLS® residential sales was approximately 89,000 units last month.
The ten-year average is 83,000 unit sales, while the 15-year average is 85,300 unit sales.”
But is that the big story?
For investors with interests in the province, not likely.
Sales were down 20.1% year-over-year in November, coming in at 6,419 total residential sales.
Prices also took a dip, falling 6.4% year-over-year to $625,871.
Vancouver, specifically, had a tough month. Unit sales fell 37.4% to 2,225 and the average price dropped 3.8% to $895,084.
According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, Vancouver is no longer a seller’s market
“A sales-to-new listings ratio between 40 and 60 percent is generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions, with readings below and above this range indicating buyers’ and sellers’ markets respectively,” CREA said in its monthly stats release. “The ratio was above 60 percent in almost half of all local housing markets in November, the vast majority of which are located in British Columbia, in and around the Greater Toronto Area and across Southwestern Ontario.
“In Greater Vancouver, the ratio has moved out of sellers’ market territory and into the mid-50 percent range.”
Still, it’s not all bad news.
“Year-to-date, BC residential sales dollar volume increased 22.8 per cent to $74.5 billion, when compared with the same period in 2015,” BCREA said, again focusing on the positive. “Residential unit sales climbed by 12.1 per cent to 107,488 units, while the average MLS residential price was up 9.6 per cent to $692,745.”
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