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Home for sale Vancouver

Vancouver Detached Home Sales Register a 27 Year Low in March

Steve Saretsky -

As the Vancouver Real Estate market gears up for the usually busy spring buying season, sellers might be caught off guard. Home buying activity in Vancouver’s single family housing market has been eerily quiet to start 2018.

Official numbers from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver show detached home sales in the city of Vancouver registered a twenty seven year low for the first quarter of 2018. There were just 352 sales from January 1st to March 31st, eroding the previous low set in the first quarter of 2009.

Vancouver detached sales
Vancouver detached sales history for the first quarter.

While it would be convenient to chalk this one up to bad weather, this slowdown has become even more acute in the month of March. Detached sales for the month of March ticked in at just 136 sales, resulting in a 44% decline on a year over year basis, while simultaneously recording a 27 year low of it’s own.

March home sales Vancouver
Vancouver Detached home sales for the month of March.

The steep decline of Vancouver’s luxury property market appears to be suffering the effects of a global pullback of overseas capital. Luxury markets across the globe have cooled significantly following China’s capital controls. With Vancouver home buying peaking in 2016.

Further, the BC Government hasn’t made lower prices any more enticing for offshore investors. Having fenced off much of the province following political backlash. Foreign buyers of luxury homes are now subject to a 20% foreign buyers tax, a 5% property transfer tax, and an annual 2% property speculation tax. A typical buyer of a $3M home will have to cough up $668,000 in taxes to Government officials upon closing.

We may soon find out if local pockets are deep enough to fill the void.

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The Canadian Economy

Steve Saretsky -

Happy Monday Morning! We got a string of new data this past week confirming inflation in consumer goods, and housing are proving to be more than transitory. Canada’s consumer price index continued to drift higher with prices hitting an 18 year high, up 4.7% from last October. The recent floods in BC...

Steve Saretsky -

The calls for impending interest rate hikes continues. CIBC’s chief economist, Benjamin Tal, was out recently suggesting the Bank of Canada could hike its benchmark interest rate at least six times beginning in early 2022. “I think there is a risk of getting into the market at today’s rates,” noted Tal....

Steve Saretsky -

The BC Government announced it is looking at several cooling measures for the housing market in 2022. They have highlighted two measures. The first is an end to the blind bidding process, and the other is a mandatory “cooling off period” which will allow any buyer a 7 day recession...

Steve Saretsky -

The Bank of Canada continues to slowly drain liquidity after flooding the system with a firehose of cash during the pandemic. Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem announced the end of Canada’s QE program (also known as money printing). Furthermore, in Macklems words, “We expect to begin increasing our policy...

Steve Saretsky -

Consumer price inflation ripped higher in September, surging 4.4% year-over-year, the fastest pace of price increases in 18 years. Let’s discuss this further. We have an inflation problem and the Bank of Canada remains of the view that inflation will be transitory. Although they really can’t say otherwise, for if...

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The Saretsky Report. December 2022