New home inventory down in Vancouver
Ephraim Vecina
Mortgage Broker News
Attesting to sustained feverish demand for the market’s residential property, new home inventory in Greater Vancouver fell by 72.24% year-over-year in October, according to MLA Canada.
New inventory declined by 31.39% from September, despite a slight drop in overall sales. Pre-sales launched in October also suffered a 14.2% month-over-month and 69.52% annual drop.
“Falling new unit launches, follows soft sales leading up to [October],” real estate information portal Better Dwelling stated in its analysis of the MLA figures. “In response, developers have been delaying and cancelling new units, helping to improve absorption.”
Third-quarter data from Statistics Canada showed that the region’s average condo prices went down by 3.49% annually, but up by 17.9% from Q1 2017. New build condos were up 1.05% year-over-year and up 15.63% from Q1 2017.
Fluctuating conditions in the resale apartment segment largely drove these results, Better Dwelling added. Resale condo prices shrunk by 5.87% annually during Q3 2019, but were still 18.87% higher than the levels seen at the start of 2017.
Meanwhile, single-family home price growth has entered a prolonged period of relative slowdown. During Q3 2019, the average price of this housing type fell by 5.95% from a year before.
Compared to Q1 2017, single-detached prices are 5.74% higher, roughly just one-third of the growth exhibited by the condo market during the same time frame.
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