Vancouver’s December Home Sales Down 52% From Year Ago: BC Real Estate Board

Homes are pictured in Vancouver on Apr. 16, 2019. The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward

The Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board says home sales and prices continued their fall in December, dropping by 52 percent and three percent respectively from a year ago.

The B.C. board says last month’s sales totalled 1,295, about 20 percent lower than they were in November and 38 percent below the 10-year December sales average.

The figures contribute to the 28,903 sales made over 2022, 34 percent lower than 2021’s total and seven percent below 2020’s.

The board attributed the decreases to the market experiencing “a year of caution” fueled by rising borrowing costs and an ongoing battle with inflation.

It says the composite benchmark price now sits at $1,114,300, a three percent decrease from December 2021 and a 1.5 percent decrease, when compared with November 2022.

Andrew Lis, the board’s director of economics and data analytics, will be watching prices this year to see if buyers and sellers have adjusted to higher borrowing-costs and will wade into the market at last.

“Closing out 2022, the data shows that the Bank of Canada’s decisions to increase the policy rate at seven of the eight interest rate announcement dates in 2022 has translated into downward pressure on home sale activity and, to a lesser extent, home prices in Metro Vancouver,” Lis says, in a news release.