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

Reviewing February, Victoria’s Real Estate Market continues to find itself in rather tight conditions. Two and a half months into the new year and it is less a question of which metric is up and which is down and more a question of which metric is down less. We are still very clearly deep in a seller's market and despite a seasonally adjusted decrease in sales and month-over-month increase in inventory we still aren’t seeing any strong indicators of short-term change. 

The 105 unit increase of listings in February from January is certainly a boon for buyers but falls short of what could have been hoped for in regards to moving us closer to a balanced market. For example, new listings are down for the month of February compared to both 2021 and 2020. Sales are also generally slower but they appear to be very much throttled by the new listings coming on. Anecdotally, we can comfortably say that ALL of our new listings are selling quickly (accepted offers within a week).

As of March 7th, the Victoria board is averaging new listings at 32.8/day, about 13 listings per day less than March last year. You can see how that is affecting sales as we are selling 20.4/day which is about 17 per day less than last year.

February had a total of 718 sales, 16.8% down from Feb 2021 and 51.5% up from January. The monthly increase is largely seasonal and not at all surprising (although it is an indicator that demand is still strong). Of those 718 sales, 309 were single-family homes which was a 20.8% decrease compared to last year. 267 were condos which is 7.9% less than February last year.

Inventory hit 849 at the end of February with a very nice 14.1% increase from the end of January. Again, this is seasonally typical and we can expect to see further increases in the coming months. The key metric to look at when determining the relative value of seasonal inventory is months of inventory (total listings divided by sales). For the month of February, we had 1.18 months of inventory which is staggeringly low. As of March 7th, we are sitting at 902 listings.

Considering Price, properties are still going to multiple offers and commonly selling over asking price. The average sold price to list price ratio for all property types in Victoria Cores was 107%. That means properties are generally selling over their listing price. The benchmark price for a single-family home in Victoria Core was $1,196,300 (26.1% up y/y). The benchmark price for a condo in the core was $603,600, up 22.1 y/y. Without a significant decrease in demand or a huge influx of listings the trend on price will remain the same.

That being said, Looking Forward, there are reasons to believe that prices could stagnate or at least slow their increases. One reason being is that the government on all levels is very aware of the housing problem and it would be surprising if we don’t see legislative changes attacking the demand side. Whether the government's measures work is another matter entirely. Also, there will be rate increases coming, the amount and frequency is the only question, and how much those changes will affect affordability. If people cannot afford homes prices cannot rise. More fundamentally, the market naturally cycles. In Victoria, we will always have people who want to move here so we will always have pressure on the demand side. But the market simply cannot skyrocket indefinitely. While in the long term we will see growth, there is only so much room on each market push, and we will hit that at some point.

Highlights for The Neal Estate Group include our participation in the international RE/MAX convention which was packed full of learning and networking opportunities to keep us on the top of our game. We are always grateful to be part of the world's largest Real Estate family which helps us provide an unfair advantage for our clients and have a ton of fun doing it.

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.