Home sale and price activity remain steady in Metro Vancouver to start 2020 while home listing activity declined in January.
Realtors registered 1,571 sales on our regions MLS in January. This is +42% above last year’s January total and about -7% below our 10 year average for the month.
Looking at supply we are seeing few homes listed for sale than is typical for this time of the year.
Seller’s listed 3,872 homes in January bringing total listings to 8,617. Which is well below our long term averages for this time of the year; down -13.7% (9,989 January total listing average).
The balance between supply and demand is a driving factor behind home price trends. We measure this balance by comparing the inventory of homes listed for sale by the number of sales in a month. We call this the Sales-To-Active Listings Ratio.
Generally analysts say downward pressure on home prices occurs when the ratio dips below 12% for a sustained period (Buyers’ Market) while home prices often experience upward pressure when it surpasses 20% over several months (Sellers’ Market). Today this ratio is 18% suggesting ‘Balanced Market’ conditions.
By housing type we can see here that home buyer demand is stronger in the townhome and condo markets for the time being.
The benchmark price for all housing types in Metro Vancouver is $1,008,700. This is down about 1% over last year. We see similar modest fluctuations when we look at price trends by housing types over the last year.
The beginning of 2020 has been a continuation of the trends we seen over the last few months. With home buyer demand turning to more typical level and supply and demand dipping below long term average.
As we approach the traditionally more active Spring Market we will keep a close eye on supply to see if the number of homes being listed for sale is keeping pace with today’s demand.
