Fraser Valley Residential Land Market Report, Vancouver BC

Fraser Valley Residential Land Market Report, Vancouver BC - Vancouver

Key Take-Aways from the November Statistics

The November statistics from the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board continue to tell a story of a relatively balanced market. Many of the month-over-month changes in key metrics are mild and mostly consistent with a typical lead up to the winter slow down, so its difficult to tell whether the market is equalizing to a new normal or being tempered by the protracted high interest rate environment.

Highlights from the November statistics include:

The Benchmark Price of condos held flat again, outperforming another month of mild price decreases for detached homes and townhomes.
Sales decreased 3-11% depending on home type with townhomes seeing the smallest decrease.
The average days on market for condos held steady while townhomes and detached homes took 31% and 26% longer to sell in November than October.
Sale price as a percent of list price dropped in November, landing all home types below their respective 10-year averages.
Total active listings dropped 6% in November, and new listings dropped 21%, both typical for November.

How the Fraser Valley land market is reacting

November brought a marked increase in buyer activity and genuine offers submitted across many of our listings. The jury’s out on whether it’s correlation or causation, but this jump in purchaser confidence came on the heels of an interest rate announcement that held the Bank of Canada’s policy rate steady, and the good “bad” news of weak GDP data and falling inflation rates. The culmination of this drove a notable shift in the media’s tone from “How bad is it going to get?” to “Is the first interest rate decrease coming in Q3 or Q4 of 2024?” Either way, buyers of residential development land have regained just enough confidence to consider committing to their next purchase, albeit cautiously. Land values are down everywhere, and terms are long, but deals are happening again

The refreshed sense of optimism is a welcomed conversational undertone and I’m optimistic November’s momentum will continue, following a brief intermission for the holidays.

A snapshot of key metrics

November 2023

Detached homes

The single family detached home market is consistently the first segment to move, either up or down, when the market is shifting. As a result, we look to this segment as an indicator for market directionality and velocity.

Home sales in the Fraser Valley

The following charts summarize the month’s total home sales throughout the Fraser Valley.

Days on Market

Days on Market is the average length of time listings of that home type stayed on market before selling firm. This metric is an indicator of competition among buyers and the month-over-month change can tell us whether the market is accelerating or decelerating.

New and active listings in the Fraser Valley

New listings is the cumulative quantity of listings posted for the month. Active listings is the quantity of active listings on the last day of the month.

Listings over time

Listing metrics tend to be seasonally cyclical making month-over-month reports misleading as indicators of market shifts. The below chart shows each month's active and new listings over the past decade. The current month is highlighted on each line to illustrate how today's data compares to the past 10 years of data for the same month.

HPI benchmark prices

HPI Index establishes "Benchmark Prices" for a typical home in each major housing category. Benchmark Prices, as a relative metric, tend to be a more accurate indicator of market direction and velocity as they are not subject to the composition of home types being sold, like average home prices.