A recent Province headline declared, "Era of $599,000 homes over in Vancouver, real-estate experts say." The article referred to the very cheapest detached houses for sale within Vancouver city limits, all in the $600,000s.
Ah, but the era of the $599,000 house is far from over in the Fraser Valley. With the exception of White Rock, in every community covered by the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board both the MLS® benchmark price and the median price for detached houses are below $599,000, which means there are lots of houses priced under that.
Buyers are well aware of that fact, and there's more house shopping going on in the Fraser Valley than this time last year, with the sweet spot for prices at $500,000 to $600,000.
Sales and Listings
There were 1,114 MLS® home sales* in FVREB territory in March: 651 were detached houses (58.4 per cent of sales), 253 were townhouses or attached properties (22.7 per cent) and 181 were apartments (19.7 per cent).
FVREB president Ray Werger notes that "Last March, sales of detached homes accounted for 55 per cent of sales of our three main residential property types and this year that increased to 58 per cent. It may not sound like much, but that translated into over 100 more sales. The property type that lost ground was townhouses. Our main buyers are families looking for the best value possible by taking advantage of continuing low interest rates and stable home prices."
What's Up, What's Down - At a Glance Mar/Feb 2014 Mar 2014/ Mar 2013 Overall Home Sales +15.6% +13.6% - Detached +17.7% +20.3% - Townhouse +10.0% +0.4% - Apartment +16.0% +11.7% New Listings +8.4% +4.2% Active Listings +7.9% -11.1%
New listings:2,322 homes came on the market in March, compared to 2,142 in February and 2,228 in March of 2013. That put the MLS® active listings total for residential properties at 6,300 at the end of February, with a sales-to-active-listings ratio of 18. That means that the Fraser Valley real estate market has finally cracked the "balanced market" threshold for the first time since early 2011.
Condos are still in buyer's market territory, with a sales-to-listings ratio of 12.6 per cent, while the ratio for townhouses is 18.4 per cent and for houses is 19.8 per cent.
Detached houses made up over half of the new listings (53.7 per cent) and the active listings (52.4 per cent). March ended with active listings of 3,060 houses, 1,215 townhouses and 1,562 condos.
MLS® Benchmark Prices
Fraser Valley MLS® Benchmark Prices, % Change Mar 2014 Feb 2014 Mar 2013 Detached $563,400 +0.9% +3.5% Townhouse $297,100 -0.6% -0.4% Apartment $193,200 +1.1% -4.3%
Here's FVREB's breakdown of MLS® benchmark prices by community. It tracks movement of the MLS® Home Price Index. For detached houses, price changes are almost entirely upwards, but there's movement up and down in townhouses and condos.
For more details on local markets, see the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board statistics, broken down by community. FVREB comprises North Delta, North Surrey, Surrey, Cloverdale, South Surrey & White Rock, Langley, Abbotsford and Mission.
* FVREB's overall sales numbers include all types of property including commercial, agricultural and industrial. The statistics given in this article are strictly residential.
See also:
Greater Vancouver Real Estate Market: March 2014
Fraser Valley Real Estate Board MLS® benchmark prices March 2014 by community
