The pendulum has swung and continues to swing. Reviewing May and the Start of June, It is clear that the Victoria Real Estate market is shifting. Sales are declining while listings are increasing and the result is more options for buyers. The end of June is typically peak inventory after a flurry of spring listings but the Real Estate market has been anything but typical lately and there is a good chance listings will continue to outpace sales past June.
Evaluating June to date by looking at sales per day and new listings per day compared to last June we see that the trend towards more listings and fewer sales is even more pronounced than in May. We are sitting at about 18 sales/day so far in June and 42.2 new listings/day. This is compared to 31
Vancouver Island Real Estate saw many of the same trends as the Victoria region which in summation was sliding sales and building inventory. While the new trend (after years of the opposite situation) is refreshing for buyers as far as the options that are being presented to them, the situation is somewhat tainted by rising interest rates and decreasing affordability.
Digging into the Numbers, there was a total of 1,411 properties sold on all of Vancouver Island in May 2022. 650 of those sales took place in the Vancouver Island Board Area with the rest happening in the Greater Victoria region. Of those 650 Island board area sales, 455 were detached homes, 92 were condos and 103 were townhomes. Here is a breakdown of year-over-year and month-over-month
Bank of Canada Interest Rate Announcement - June 1, 2022
As expected, the Bank of Canada raised its overnight policy rate by 0.5 points to 1.5 per cent. In the statement accompanying the decision, the Bank noted that inflation will likely move higher in the near term before beginning to ease later this year. That inflation is occurring against the backdrop of strong Canadian economic activity, widespread labour shortages and strengthening wage growth. While housing activity is moderating, consumer spending is robust and the Bank judges the Canadian economy is clearly operating in excess demand. As a result, the Bank judges that rates will still need to rise further to achieve its 2 per cent inflation target.
Canadian seasonally-adjusted retail sales were largely flat in March, hitting $60.1 billion. Despite declining sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers (-6.4 per cent), higher sales in all other subsectors resulted in no net change month over month. Core retail sales, which strips out gasoline and motor vehicle and parts dealers, increased 1.5 per cent in March. In volume terms, sales were down 1 per cent.
In BC, seasonally-adjusted sales declined 0.5 per cent in March. Compared to the same month last year, retail sales were up 0.6 per cent in the province. In the Greater Vancouver region, sales fell 0.8 per cent month-over-month and were up 6.2 per cent year-over-year.
Canadian prices, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose 6.8 per cent on a year-over-year basis in April, up from 6.7 per cent last month. This was the largest gain since January 1991 (+6.9 per cent). According to Statistics Canada, price rises were broad-based, with groceries up 9.7 per cent year over year, gasoline up 36.3 per cent, and shelter costs up 7.4 per cent. Excluding gasoline, the CPI rose 5.8 per cent year over year in April. On a monthly basis, prices were up 0.6 per cent, moderating from a 1.4 per cent increase in March. In BC, consumer prices rose 6.7 per cent year-over-year.
With inflation stubbornly high through the first part of 2022 and unemployment in
Canadian Housing Starts (April 2022) - May 16, 2022
Canadian housing starts rose by 18.9k (7.6 per cent) to 267.3k units in April at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate (SAAR). Comparing year-over-year, starts were down from April of 2021 (-3.1 per cent y/y). Single-detached housing starts declined 1.5 per cent to 83.2k, while multi-family and others rose 12.3 per cent to 184.1k (SAAR).
In British Columbia, starts jumped 59.3 per cent in April, rising to 52.1k units SAAR in all areas of the province. In areas in the province with 10,000 or more residents, single-detached starts rose 13.6 per cent m/m to 9.4k units while multi-family starts jumped 93 per cent to 39.9k units. Starts in the province were 32.5 per cent above the levels from
Vancouver, BC – May 12, 2022. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a total of 8,939 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in April 2022, a decrease of 34.9 per cent from a record April 2021. The average MLS® residential price in BC was $1.065 million, a 12.9 per cent increase from $943,765 recorded in April 2021. Total sales dollar volume was $9.5 billion, a 26.5 per cent decline from the same time last year.
“Canadian mortgages have sharply increased, surpassing 4 per cent for the first time in a decade,” said BCREA Chief Economist Brendon Ogmundson. “With interest rates rising, demand across BC is now on a path to
Vancouver Island Real Estate saw an increasing gap between new listings and units sold with new listings coming out on top in the month of April 2022. This dynamic eased pressure further and allowed a little bit of much-needed inventory to build. That said, the easing of pressure does not mean it isn’t still a hot market and the inventory situation is still keeping sellers in a strong position.
Digging into the Numbers, there was a total of 1,551 sales on Vancouver Island in April with 727 of them taking place in the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board Area (the rest in the Victoria board area). Of those 727 sales, 507 were single-family homes, 114 were condos and 96 were townhomes. Here is how those numbers look as percentage changes from the previous
ReviewingApril and the Start of May, we see a general hesitancy in the Victoria Real Estate Market. Sales to listing ratios were down in April. So were both new listings and sales individually. It appears that the array of environmental factors has both buyers and sellers in somewhat of a holding position as we all wait to see what happens next. The sales to list ratio is particularly important for judging the pressure of demand on supply and those numbers for single-family homes especially appear to be balanced out at the moment (although certainly not yet even). Pressure on the condo market is slightly less affected and it is arguable that townhomes are the most in-demand product at the moment. The numbers are certainly backed up by common sense as
After growing in February and March to a record level, Canadian employment was little changed in April at 19,601k. The labour market is tight, with the Canadian unemployment rate declining by 0.1 to 5.2 per cent, the lowest rate on record since comparable data became available in 1976. The total hours worked fell 1.9 per cent in April while average hourly wages were up 3.3 per cent on a year-over-year basis, similar to March and February. Wage gains are below the inflation rate, however, which clocked in at 6.7 per cent year-over-year in the most-recent data. The employment rate held steady at 61.9 per cent.
Employment in BC was largely unchanged in April at 2,736k. Metro Vancouver's
