Real estate transactions across the Fraser Valley fell again in September, putting the region back into balanced market territory and easing pressure on buyers, according to Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB) figures released October 4.
There were 1,305 sales registered with the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) – including all residential, industrial and commercial properties – which was a decline of 24.4 per cent compared with September 2015 and 23 per cent fewer than August 2016.
Taking a look at residential transactions only, it was a similar story, with home sales dropping 22.5 per cent year over year and by 22.4 per cent versus the previous month. The only home type to see a year-over-year increase in sales was condo-apartment housing.
“Demand is producing numbers in line with what we’ve seen historically,” said Charles Wiebe, president of the board. “[The decline in sales] seems dramatic, as would anything else that wasn’t the incredible, continuous uptick we’ve seen for the last 18 months.”
New listings in the Fraser Valley rose annually by nearly 10 per cent, at 2,267 units, which was 6.6 per cent fewer than were listed in August. However, with sales down, total listings at the end of September stood at 4,492 units, 6.7 per cent higher than at the end of August, although still seven per cent lower than last September.
The average sale price of a Fraser Valley property (all property types combined) in September was $596,310, an increase of just 1.2 per cent compared with September 2015 and a decline of 2.8 per cent since August. Like the previous month, this monthly drop in average price was caused the sharp drop in sales of detached houses, which pulls down the average price of properties sold that month. However, the board’s benchmark home prices told a slightly different story (see “Benchmark Prices” below).
Sales and Listings
There were 1,164 residential property sales in the Fraser Valley in September, down 22.5 per cent compared with September 2015 and a similar drop of 22.4 per cent over the previous month’s figures.
As ever, breaking the numbers down by home type offers a clearer indication of trends. There were 493 sales of detached houses in September, which again echoed Greater Vancouver in being the property type with the steepest sales decline, a drop of 44.4 per cent since last September and 22.2 per cent compared with August. The average number of days a Fraser Valley detached home took to sell was 27 days in September, compared with 17 days in June this year.
Sales of townhouses, row homes and duplexes also fell, albeit less sharply, down 5.5 per cent year over year to 342 sales. This was a decline of 16.8 per cent compared with August’s 411 attached home sales.
Sales of condo units in the Fraser Valley continued to stubbornly rise year over year, up a considerable 29.5 per cent to 329 sales, compared with September 2015’s 254 units. However, this was a drop of 27.7 per cent compared with 455 condo transactions in August.
New home going on the market in the Fraser Valley were nearly 10 per cent higher than one year previously, totalling 2,267 in September. This was a decline of 6.6 per cent compared with August, contrasting with Greater Vancouver’s monthly increase in new listings.
At the end of September there were 4,495 active home listings on the MLS®, which is seven per cent fewer than the 4,830 active listings in September 2015. However, this was a 6.7 per cent boost in total housing inventory compared with August, as sales of listed homes continued to slow.
The sales-to-active-listings ratio in the Fraser Valley dropped to 20 per cent in September, which is the top end of a balanced market, and takes the region out of the strong sellers’ market that it has been in for many months.
“The level of available inventory is rising as we had hoped, and homes are taking a bit longer to sell than they have throughout the year. It’s encouraging, and gives buyers a bit more room to navigate the market more comfortably,” said Wiebe. “At 20 per cent, our sales to active listings ratio has moved towards a more normalized state.”
Benchmark Prices
The benchmark sale price of a typical Fraser Valley home (all home types combined) in September was $638,600, a slight drop of 0.7 per cent compared with August’s $642,800, but still 35.2 per cent higher than September last year.
September’s month-over-month decline in the overall benchmark price in the Fraser Valley was led entirely by a reduction in the benchmark price of a typical detached house, which was set at $879,200. This price is 1.1 per cent below that of August ($888,600), but is a rise of 37.5 per cent compared with September 2015’s $639,500.
The typical price of a townhome or other attached property rose 35.8 per cent year over year in September to $419,500. This was an increase of 0.3 per cent over August’s $418,400 benchmark price.
A typical condo-apartment unit in the Valley costs 26.5 per cent more than a year previously, at $249,800, up 0.4 per cent over the previous month ($248,800).
Prices in the Fraser Valley differ by city, neighbourhood and property type. To see home prices, sales and listings broken down by community, see the FVREB September 2016 statistics package.
