I have been eagerly awaiting this month's statistics to see what sort of bounce back, if any, we would see after the slower Summer season. The answer, somewhat surprisingly, is that the we didn't seen any bounce back in sales activity at all - in any of the neighbourhoods we look at. The degree of sales drop varies quite a bit, with more than 30% drops in sales activity in the Downtown, Vancouver Westside attached and detached, and North Vancouver attached markets compared to just 6.7% in the Vancouver East attached market and 16.6% in the Vancouver East detached market. Interestingly enough, this decreased sales activity has not really impacted sales prices as both the average and median prices in most markets held relatively stable. We have also not seen a dramatic spike in listing inventories. Should listing inventory start to rise in October, we may be looking at some minor slips on the pricing side. It is my belief, however, that the commitment to hold interest rates until 2013, in conjunction with positive employment and immigration numbers, should keep prices steady through to next year.
One market to keep an eye on is the Vancouver Westside detached market. It is the one market that showed a large increase in active listings (up 22%) as well as a large drop off in sales activity (down 33%) and median sale price (down 6.3%). As a market that has experienced tremendous gains in median pricing over the past year, it seems the table may finally see an adjustment. I would speculate that the rapid rise in listings is stemming from those 'testing' the market as they see their neighbours sell far above what market conditions would have allowed for last year. As prices slip, we may see many of these listings simply get pulled off the market. If not, look for further drops here.
