Vancouver home sales fall 17% in August despite interest rate cuts: real estate board

Cherry blossom trees line a residential street in Vancouver, on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Greater Vancouver Realtors says home sales in the region dropped 17.1 per cent in August from a year earlier and were more than a quarter below the 10-year seasonal average.

The real estate body says sales in the market totalled 1,904 last month, down from the 2,296 recorded in August 2023.

The composite benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver was $1,195,900, a 0.9 per cent decrease over August 2023 and a 0.1 per cent decrease compared with July.

There were 4,109 newly listed detached, attached and apartment properties in August, which was 4.2 per cent more than the same month last year.

Greater Vancouver Realtors' director of economics and data analytics Andrew Lis says sales remained in a "holding pattern" in August, suggesting buyers were still feeling the pinch of higher borrowing costs despite the Bank of Canada's two previous cuts to its key interest rate.

He says he's optimistic buyers will come off the sidelines after the central bank's third consecutive decrease by a quarter percentage point, announced Wednesday, coupled with the fact September typically sees more homes changing hands.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2024.