Last month, 348 single-family homes sold on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) System compared to 467 in August and 511 one year ago. The number of apartments and townhouses changing hands last month dropped by 26 per cent and 41 per cent year over year, respectively. Inventory of single-family homes in September rose slightly, up four per cent from last year.
The benchmark price of a single-family home for the overall board area hit $508,800 in September, a 12 per cent increase from one year ago. (Benchmark pricing tracks the value of a typical home in the reported area. Nanaimo’s benchmark price rose 10 per cent to $554,000 while the Parksville-Qualicum area saw its benchmark price increase by 11 per cent to $575,100.
The Bank of Canada left its benchmark interest rate steady at 1.5 percent on September 5th 2018, in line with market expectations, following a 25bps hike in the previous meeting. Policymakers reinforced their vision that higher interest rates will be needed to achieve the inflation target of 2 percent. The Bank Rate is correspondingly 1.75 percent and the deposit rate is 1.25 percent. Interest Rate in Canada averaged 5.89 percent from 1990 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 16 percent in February of 1991 and a record low of 0.25 percent in April of 2009.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver says the supply of homes across Metro Vancouver continued to increase in September, while buyer demand remained below typical levels for this time of year. The composite benchmark price of a home was just over $1 million, a three per cent decrease over the past three months but up 2.2 per cent from September of 2017.
In our local market we have price ranges that continue to be active, each area and market as well as home style can react differently. My recommendation if your thinking of selling in the spring is to try and take advantage of our current market conditions. Call me to discuss why and which homes are moving.