The Neal Estate Group's Real Estate Market Update for Victoria for June 2022

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 sales/day and 41 new listings/day in June last year.

Market pressure has started to ease on the higher-end market with some detached homes and townhomes beginning to sit with more days on the market. Pressure is still strong on the condo market as affordability restraints move buyers into this segment roughly at the same rate that it pushes buyers out.

Getting into the Numbers, there was a total of 761 properties sold in the Victoria Board area in May which was 27.5% fewer than the same month last year and 7.6% fewer than April of this year. Of those 761 sales, 367 of them were single-family homes and 250 were condos. Detached home sales were down 31.7% from June last year while condos were down 23.1% in the same period.

Inventory in the Victoria area increased 30.1% from the end of April to the end of May reaching 1,776 active listings. The increase was also a 22.5% jump from the inventory levels of May 2021. Last year at this time we were at about 1.4 months of inventory (live listings divided by number of sales in a month), and now we are at about 2.3 months of inventory. 2 months of inventory is a break-out point we have not surpassed for a few years. While we are still in a seller's market by the “months of inventory standard” we can clearly see which direction the market is moving.

The hesitancy we have been seeing from buyers has led to a decrease in multiple offers and fewer offers being written without conditions. We are also seeing some buyers choose not to remove conditions, which would have been a rare occurrence even a few months ago. Considering Price, these aforementioned situations play a factor. We are also hearing of large decreases in prices elsewhere in Canada through the media which is causing many buyers to hesitate further. So far Victoria and Vancouver Island have been somewhat sheltered from any significant price decreases.

On Looking Forward, last month we predicted longer-term stagnation and said it was hard to imagine a significant backslide in prices while inventory remains so low. Longer-term stagnation still seems like a likely outcome but now we are seeing some pretty big jumps in inventory. June is typical for a spike in new listings, so it isn’t super unusual yet, but if inventory continues to grow at this pace that backslide in pricing will be looking more and more likely.

The Neal Estate Group in May continued settling in and welcoming clients to our new office on Douglas across from Uptown while also squeezing in a few games of company softball in spite of the timid summer weather.

Click Here for a FREE consultation or call 250-386-8181. Find new listings before they get to MLS and ask us about featuring your home on VictoriaComingSoonListings.com, where we generate interest while you're getting ready to come to market. Ask us also about our FREE Staging Consultation for advice on preparing your home in its best light for the market, ensuring you the best results.