Even the supply of new homes is petering down
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Slow sales and significant price declines mainly characterize Vancouver’s housing market at present, according to the latest figures from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
Residential sales across all property classes fell by 32.8% year-over-year in February, ending up at 42.5% below the 10-year sales average for that month, BNN Bloomberg reported.
Breaking down by housing type, detached properties had 28% fewer sales last month compared to February 2018, while apartments had an almost 36% annual sales slowdown. Townhome activity suffered a nearly 31% decrease.
Even supply was not spared from the declines, as the number of new residential listings entering the market fell by 7.8% year-over-year in February. This placed the sales-to-active listings ratio for the month at 12.8%.
Benchmark prices for all residential properties shrank by 6.1% annually last month, down to $1,016,600. Detached homes experienced the largest decline at 9.7% to reach $1,443,100. Meanwhile, condominium prices went down by 4% to $660,300, and townhomes down by 3.3% to $789,300.
Read more: B.C. mortgage delinquency at near-record lows
In its recent market outlook, the Conference Board of Canada warned that Vancouver’s lethargy, among others, will make itself especially felt in a slowdown in the provincial economy.
B.C.’s real GDP growth is predicted to fall from 2.6% in 2018 to 2.5% this year, and further down to 2.4% in 2020 “despite ongoing megaprojects in the energy sector.”
These projections are considerably below the 3.2% growth average that B.C. enjoyed from 2014 to 2017.
The Board’s report attributed this boom period to unprecedented demand for the province’s real estate, which significantly petered down after the implementation of extremely tight mortgage lending regulations at the beginning of last year.
