October 2008 Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver Statistics

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) released the statistics package for October 2008 yesterday. The headline always gives it away. This week, it reads, “Residential Housing Price Decline Creates Buying Opportunities”. From May to October 2008, the residential benchmark declined 8.8%, year-over-year the decline was 3.9%.

“Homes sales are not keeping pace with the positive economic conditions in BC,” said REBGV president, Dave Watt. “That’s a direct result of a loss of consumer confidence in the overall market. Accordingly, today’s housing market is characterized by moderating home prices and wide selection. It’s definitely a buyer’s market.”

Vancouver West continues to be the area of the city that is hardest hit by price declines. The attached property benchmark was down -9.65% over last month (-6.71% in Vancouver East). While the apartment benchmark rose month-to-month in Vancouver East (+0.81%), it fell in Vancouver West (-3.58%).

Active listings looks to be on the decline over last month throughout the city (-3.59%). This is a positive, and it will need to continue to decline before the market can stabilize. I’m encouraged by a recent increase I’ve seen in expired listings as well as cancelled/terminated listings (you can review these by following my weekly statistics in the link below).

Here are some specific numbers for the month of October 2008. The numbers in the right column indicate the month-to-month change for that statistic:

More Info on Vancouver Real Estate

Should you want to learn more about the Vancouver real estate market generally you can check out this page. You can also review all of the statistics for Vancouver East and Vancouver West broken down for you here:

Enjoy Vancouver real estate statistics? You can find all of the latest stats by area right here:

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