REBGV 2011 Market Wrap-Up

The Year

Single-family detached houses in Metro Vancouver saw remarkable double-digit price increases in 2011. Nine areas led the charge: North and West Vancouver, Port Moody, Burnaby, Vancouver East and West, Richmond and South Delta.

For the overall region, including all housing types, the benchmark price increase was a more stately 7.6 per cent — which would be pretty impressive in any normal real estate market. It would have been higher except for a 1.5 per cent retreat after June.

Only a few areas experienced year-on-year decreases. Detached house prices declined in Port Coquitlam and Squamish. South Delta saw a slump in attached properties, and apartment prices decreased slightly in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows.

Listings for all property types were up 2.7 per cent over 2010, putting Metro Vancouver in balanced territory for most of the year.

In all, 32,390 properties changed hands in the REBGV area, a 5.9 per cent increase over 2010.

December

December was slow — as always — but a little bit slower than usual, with sales of all types of property declining from December 2010 numbers.

Benchmark prices were basically stable in December, with very little change from the three-month average benchmark price, particularly for attached and apartment properties. In detached homes, Port Moody, Burnaby, Maple Ridge and the Sunshine Coast saw the biggest increases over the three-month average benchmark.

The white-hot West Vancouver and Vancouver West detached home markets actually cooled down a little in December. Maybe everybody who could afford to buy there went out of town for the holidays.

You can read the full stats package here.

You can watch the video update here.