Vancouver home sales rise in January as demand outpaces newly listed properties
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver says home sales got off to a strong start in the first month of 2024 but the pace of newly listed properties did not keep up with demand.
The board says January home sales totalled 1,427, a 38.5 per cent increase from the same month last year, though it was still 20.2 per cent below the 10-year seasonal average of 1,788 for the month.
There were 3,788 new listings of detached, attached and apartment properties last month, a 14.5 per cent increase from January 2023, but new listings were 9.1 per cent below the 10-year seasonal average.
The composite benchmark home price in January for Metro Vancouver was $1,942,400, a 7.3 per cent increase from a year earlier and a 1.1 per cent decrease from December.
Andrew Lis, the board's director of economics and data analytics, says the strong sales figures last month were somewhat surprising after a quiet December, adding that if sellers “don't step off the sidelines soon, the competition among buyers could tilt the market back into sellers' territory as the available inventory struggles to keep pace with demand.”
He says the board is forecasting a two to three per cent increase in home prices by the end of the year due to higher demand and too little inventory, but that could be an “overly conservative” estimate based on the January figures.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2024.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.