There was a dramatic drop of detached home sales in February all through Metro Vancouver and the rise of taxes in Metro Area.

Affordable home ownership or rental accommodation is unavailable to most of the local younger population, even those with stable professions.

To paraphrase Mac Davis: Happiness was Vancouver real estate prices in our rearview mirror…

The sales to active listing ratio for November 2017 is 32%. By property type, the ratio is 15.9% for detached homes and 36.4% for townhouses.

In October 2017 the benchmark price for a detached home in North Vancouver was $1,700,200 up 2.1% in one year.

In September 2017 the benchmark price for an apartment property across the region was $635,800. This was a 21.7% increase from September 2016.

As the world was falling down around us with wildfires, hurricanes, terrorism, violent political demonstrations Vancouver real estate just skipped along to yet higher prices overall and extraordinary demand in the condo market.

Last year in July the provincial government announced their foreign buyer tax. It was a mad scramble to close properties before the tax took effect which distorted the market at that moment. However, there was a slowdown in sales for several months afterwards while the market adjusted to the changes. The tax was eventually absorbed by the seller and the buyer of the higher end properties that attracted foreign investment. It did impact the number of detached sales.

As projected in May the condo is King in June. The trend is for prices to rise continuously in the condo market because it is so in demand.

Last month’s sales were 23.7% above the 10-year May sales average and is the third-highest selling May on record.

Despite the media trumpeting stats that the real estate market is down the reports are referring to the numbers of sales, not prices

According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver the sales-to-active listings ratio for March 2017 is 47.2%, a 15% increase over February.

There’s an old Scottish saying that ‘you should cut your cloth according to your stipend’ meaning to live within your means. It appears that local buyers are taking that idea to heart and making housing decisions based in reality not dreams.

The sales numbers are down mainly due to the fall off in detached sales as there still is demand for certain products