The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) recently released the statistics package for August 2008. The headline tells the story, “Summer lull sees properties stay on market”. We saw sales down 53.7% % (1,568 vs 3,384) and new listings also fell 1.7% (4,331 vs 4,408).

We are also continuing to see a decline in the benchmark housing prices on a month-to-month basis. Detached properties in Greater Vancouver declined 4.3% since May 2008 and now sit at $737,985. The biggest drop this past month (in my market of Vancouver East and West) was in the Vancouver West Attached properties. These fell -4.85% to $696,507 from July to August 2008. The highlight was Attached properties in Vancouver East rising +4.87% to $530,806.

“In August, properties on average remained on the market longer than we’ve seen in recent years,” REBGV president, Dave Watt said. “As the market heads into the traditionally more active fall season, we have begun to see property listings recede and prices moderate.”

The month of August is traditionally one of the slowest periods of the Vancouver real estate market. It appears that our slow market exacerbated this annual trend. We should see the market begin to pick up coming into the busier Fall season.

While the numbers looked stronger for Vancouver East last month, they have reversed this month. Vancouver West had a much stronger month relatively speaking. Here are some specific numbers for the month of August 2008. The numbers in brackets indicate the month-to-month change for that statistic:

Vancouver West
Sales: 317 (-27.79%)
Listings: 874 (-32.77%)
Sell/List Ratio: 36.27% (+2.50)
Months Supply: 11.52 (+33.97%)
Active Listings: 3651 (-3.26%)
Detached Benchmark: $1,371,663 (-1.36%)
Attached Benchmark: $696,507 (-4.86%)
Apartment Benchmark: $468,812 (-2.75%)

Vancouver East
Sales: 178 (-31.01%)
Listings: 537 (-18.26%)
Sell/List Ratio: 33.15% (-6.12)
Months Supply: 10.70 (+50.31%)
Active Listings: 1904 (+3.70%)
Detached Benchmark: $664,709 (-1.48%)
Attached Benchmark: $530,806 (+4.87%)
Apartment Benchmark: $325,636 (-0.21%)

Copyright © 2008 by Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside ”August 2008 Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver Statistics”

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Statistics, Monthly Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.