Vancouver home sales remained sluggish in February but a few indicators hint that the trend toward recent weakness is subsiding.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reported March 4 that there were 1,797 residential property sales in Metro Vancouver in February. That is a 29.4% drop in sales compared with February 2012.
Sales were the second lowest February total in the region since 2001 and 30.9% below the 10-year sales average for the month, the REBGV noted.
Two signs of strength were a much higher sales-to-listings ratio and slightly higher prices.
Metro Vancouver home prices reached a peak of $625,100 in May and have since fallen 5.6% to $590,400 – a 3.3% decline compared with the same time last year. February's average price was 0.4% more than the average in January of $588,100.
The sales-to-listings ratio currently sits at 12.2% in Metro Vancouver. That's an increase of two percentage points compared with the 10.2% rate in January.
A "buyers' market" is generally considered to be when the sales-to-listings ratio is lower than 13%, REBGV president Eugen Klein told Business in Vancouver.
To get a sense of how the sales-to-listings ratio has plummeted and rebounded during the past year, the rates were:
- 19% in March 2012;
- 13% in June 2012; and
- 11% in October 2012.
"With a two-point increase in our sales-to-active-listings ratio and a reduction in the average number of days it's taking to sell a home, February showed some subtle indications of a changing sentiment in the marketplace compared with recent months," Klein said.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) is forecasting that Vancouver will shift from being in a "buyers' market" to a "balanced market" later this year.
