Year Ending 2012 Housing Market Update

The Greater Vancouver Housing market experienced the following:

  1. Below average home sale totals.
  2. Typical home listing activity.
  3. Modest declines in home prices in 2012.

The real estate board of Greater Vancouver reports that total sales of detached, attached and apartment properties has a 22.7% decline from the recorded sales in 2011.  The ten year average for annual total recorded sales was also down 25.7%.
2011 Sales 32387
2012 Sales 25,032
Surprisingly, the total number of residential properties listed for sale in Greater Vancouver declined 2% over 2011.
2011 Listings 59,539
2012 Listings 58,379
For most of 2012 we saw a collective hesitation on the part of the buyers & sellers.  This reflected in the lower than average home sale activity and modest fluctuations in home prices. We saw home prices come down a bit during the latter half of the year. During the same period we saw fewer home sales and listings.Today it is taking a home 73 days on average for a home to sell, that is the longest Greater Vancouver has seen in the last 3 years.

Homes most affected by the market were:

Detached Homes
Richmond -6.5%
Vancouver West Side -5.5%
Apartments
Whistler -9.9%
West Vancouver -5.6%

Please see the video for more information.