September 2020 - Vancouver Real Estate Update

September 2020 - Vancouver Real Estate Update

It’s almost criminal we are coming to the end of the year, in fact, one cannot quite believe it! Yet here we are about to break down the monthly recap in Vancouver real estate for September! Yes you heard correct, that’s September. For such a slow Spring, the rest of the year seems to have flown by fast (thankfully!)

So let’s take a look at this, frankly weird right now, Vancouver real estate market. It’s really a tale of two stories -- What’s HOT, and what’s NOT!

Without further ado, let’s jump into the overall Great Vancouver Real Estate numbers. After this we’ll take a specific look at Vancouver itself.

Greater Vancouver


By all accounts these are EXTREME sellers market activity levels. Detached home sales up 76.8%, Attached home sales up 73%, and finally inventory is down 2.6%! These are gigantic variances. In fact, for overall sales, once again we broke records for the most home sales ever recorded in a month. That’s the third month running we’ve done that. Especially when you take into consideration we were already going through a market rise this time last year, and now we’re in the mix of a pandemic recovery, those numbers only serve to be more crazy. 

Yet this market doesn’t feel like a sellers market all around. That’s because it’s not. Now more than ever, individual markets are fluctuating drastically. Let’s compare these statistics, but just for Vancouver’s East and Westside condos:



Now immediately, you don’t see any drastic concerns. However, take a look at the Greater Vancouver numbers again and you’ll see apartment sales were up 36.9%, with inventory levels DOWN 2.6%. That’s not the case for Vancouver Condos, in fact, inventory has outgrown demand in this market sector.

Let’s take this a step further by looking at the same statistics, but for the Vancouver Detached Market:



In this example we can see inventory has risen 33.14%, however this time, buyer demand is almost double the increase in inventory. This paints a very different picture of what is happening in the market.

Two very different scenarios taking place at the same time, with very different strategies needed when it comes to buying OR selling. Without the extra steps in research, one could easily walk themselves down the wrong path without being the wiser.

Now more than ever it’s dangerous to base your decisions on an overall market view. It will quite literally be the difference between success and failure. Given one of our areas of expertise, I expect Vancouver condos to drop in pricing, especially as pressure mounts and people who need to sell will reduce their prices. Even if a large number of people take their homes off market, it won’t stop some people needing to reduce to get a sale done. On the other hand, the Detached market is seeing nothing but pressure upwards on pricing, that would explain the 7.8% increase to the Detached Home-Price-Index year-over-year, and the 1.1% increase from August 2020.

Hopefully the above has inspired you to get educated in your areas of interest! If you want to learn more about a particular type of area, feel free to reach out and let us do the research for you. You can find our contact details below:

Until next week,


Jay Mcinnes
T: 604.771.4606
jay@mcinnesmarketing.com

Ben Robinson
T: 604.353.8523
ben@mcinnesmarketing.com

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