There is more than one measure to determine how a real estate market doing. For example, months of inventory, sales-to-active listings ratio, new listings-to-sales ratio, days on the market, and house price index.
MOI or Months of Inventory is a measure of how fast all the actively listed property types on the market last. You simply divide, at the end of a month, the number of active listings by the number of sales to determine the number of months of inventory remaining.
As a general rule, over a sustained period of time, 4 to 6 months of inventory is considered to be a normal or balanced market. Over 6 months of inventory and we have buyer’s market. Less than 4 months and we have a seller’s market.
Friendly reminder, that statistics are not really facts, they are more generalities. Looking at one graph on it’s own will not provide you a complete and whole picture of the market. Real estate is hyper-local, meaning that conditions vary not only from neighborhood to neighborhood, but often times down to a specific street or property type!
Have a look at the trend since 2020 year-to-date with North Vancouver MOI for different property types including detached homes, apartments and townhomes:
