MONTHLY STATISTICS UPDATE FOR AUGUST 2022
Posted by Team Biberger on
AUGUST 2022 Market Update
NANAIMO, BC – Inventory was up, and sales were down in August, reminiscent of a typical summer market in pre-COVID times.
Last month, active listings of single-family detached properties (not acreage or waterfront) jumped to 1,368, a 153 per cent increase from August 2021. VIREB’s inventory of condo apartments hit 332 last month, up from 164 listings one year ago.
There were 280 row/townhouses for sale last month compared to 109 one year ago. The quieter August gave consumers and REALTORS® time to catch their breath after the frenetic pace VIREB’s housing market has been setting since 2020. Additional inventory is good news for buyers, giving them more options to choose from and easing the pressure to move too quickly when making an offer. On the other side of the transaction, sellers may have to adjust their expectations somewhat.
“After months of historically low listings, January posted a small inventory bump, and active listings have risen steadily since then accompanied by slightly lower demand,” says Erica Kavanaugh, 2022 VIREB Chair. “What we’re seeing now is more about conditions returning to what they were before the pandemic. We’ll have to see how the rest of the year shapes up to determine whether we’re looking at a more significant trend.”
Kavanaugh adds that while demand has dipped, the underlying supply issues that caused low inventory and rising prices still exist.
“The British Columbia Real Estate Association crunched the numbers and determined that it will take a substantial decline in demand to return active listings to a healthy state on Vancouver Island,” says Kavanaugh. “Province-wide, we’re dealing with decades of insufficient supply, and that’s not a quick fix.”
For more information, check out the following resources on REALTOR Link®.
Our August 2022 Market Update is provided above and available on YouTube; it summarizes our housing market in about two minutes.
Please note: The Vancouver Island Real Estate Board (VIREB) transitioned to a new MLS® System in July 2020 and now uses a significantly different data model, which has affected our categories and terminology. For the boardsupplied graphs, single-family is now referred to as single-family detached, apartment as condo apartment, and townhouse as row/townhouse, which now includes patio homes. However, when reporting HPI numbers, VIREB still refers to single-family, apartment, and townhouse in the media release.
ABOUT VIREB - VIREB represents over 1,000 REALTORS® in nearly 90 member offices on Vancouver Island, from the Malahat in the south to the northern tip. VIREB cautions that average price information can be useful in establishing trends over time but does not indicate the actual prices in centres comprised of widely divergent neighbourhoods or account for price differential between geographic areas. Trademarks are owned or controlled by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) and identify real estate professionals who are members of CREA (REALTOR® ) and/or the quality of services they provide (MLS® ). Visit our website for updated information at www.vireb.com. HPI Note: Areas with insufficient data do not generate statistics and are not included in the HPI graphs.