COVID-19 slowed down Vancouver real estate sales, but not its prices

Vancouver real estate had its quietest April in nearly four decades as coronavirus put the typically busy spring market into slow motion. But that doesn’t mean opportunist buyers got discounts in Canada’s highest-priced city.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) says that a total of 1,109 properties were sold in April 2020, this is a 39.4 per cent decrease year-over-year. It's also 62.7 per cent below the 10-year April sales average and is the lowest total for the month since 1982.

However there is even a worse drop, in March of 2020 2,524 homes were sold, with 1,119 being sold in April, this is a 56 per cent drop, this is very severe.

Despite the massive plunge in sales, this is obviously not the entire story of the real estate market. You have to take for instance on how months of inventory for sale in the market have nearly doubled.

Realtor Steve Saretsky had this to say, “While price movements are hard to gauge in a low volume environment, I would say on average there was some minor price discounting.”

Listings fell to 2,313, this is a 59.7 per cent drop compared to 5,742 homes listed in April 2019. Compared from the previous month they fell a total of 47.9 per cent.

During COVID-19, only essential workers are at work, and realtors are essential, however, due to lockdowns marketing has become much more important and they are getting creative with how to do their jobs.

However there is no relief for buyers, despite the concerns of many about the global economy, Canadian economy, and millions of Canadians who are all out of work, the average price of a home in Vancouver, was not terribly affected, it went up 2.5 per cent compared to April 2019, and it raised 0.2 per cent from March 2020. Therefore we know that not only did the average price of a home improve year-over-year, yet it even improved month-by-month. The current average price of a home in Metro Vancouver is $1,036,000

As many Canadians know, rising home prices is a major source of wealth for many Canadians over the past decades, and is a huge part of many people's financial futures, moments like these can be very dangerous for these people, and let's hope for the best for the real estate market.