It was another painful month to be a home buyer in Greater Vancouver. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did. Sales increased 12%, rising to their second highest levels on record, falling just short of November 2015. Meanwhile, inventory collapsed a whopping 40% from last years levels. Obviously this is creating an environment for bidding wars and higher prices. This is particularly true in the detached segment where inventory dropped 25% from the obscenely low levels buyers were facing last year. Detached home prices are now up 21% in Greater Vancouver and 36% in the Fraser Valley. There have certainly been better times to buy a house, and today isn’t one of them. Similar to the last bull market of 2015-2017, a rising tide lifts all boats. When the detached market peaked out in 2016, the condo market ripped in 2017 as buyers bid up what was still cheap (in relative terms). We are now seeing that in the condo space, with sales up 33% and inventory plunging 46%. This is a recipe for disaster.
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