Greater Vancouver suddenly has exuberant homebuyers once again, armed with cheap debt. Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) data shows composite prices made a big jump in February. Actually, almost all measures of home prices made a big leap. Some segments even added more than $44,000 to the value just last month. Let’s dive into the numbers.
The “Typical” Home Price Increased $27,000 Last Month
The price of a typical home across the Greater region made a sharp monthly increase. The composite benchmark price reached $1,084,000 in February, up 2.6% (+$27,470) from the month before. The increase brings prices 6.8% (+$69,019) higher than they were this time last year. Breaking down the composite, we see detached homes are responsible for the big climb.
Greater Vancouver Composite Benchmark Price
The price of a typical home across Greater Vancouver, in Canadian dollars.
Source: REBGV, Better Dwelling.Detached Homes Increased $44,000 Last Month
Greater Vancouver detached home prices made a face ripping increase last month. The detached benchmark price reached $1,621,200 in February, up 2.8% (+$44,157) from a month before. Compared to the same month last year, prices are now 13.7% (+$195,342) higher.
Detached homes in the region are seeing the rate of price growth accelerate. The rate is now at the highest level since 2017, but needs to more than double to clear 2016’s high. Despite rapidly escalating prices, the board’s data shows they’re only up 1% from 3 years ago.
Vancouver Condo Prices Up $17,000 From Last Year
Greater Vancouver’s condo apartments also made an oddly large move last month, despite being a slow year. The benchmark price reached $697,500 in February, up 2.5% ($17,012) from a month before. Compared to the same month a year ago, prices are now 2.5% (+$17,012) higher. In case you missed that, prices increased the same on the month as they did for the year.
Greater Vancouver Composite Benchmark Price Change
The annual percent change of a typical home across Greater Vancouver.
Source: REBGV, Better Dwelling.All of the condo gains over the past 12-months were in last month’s increase. There’s slight acceleration for the annual growth but it was small relative to detached homes. In fact, it looks like it’s going in the opposite direction when compared side by side.
The month was really big in terms of gains, but there’s some index components driving the trend. Most of the price growth is driven by detached homes – mostly in the suburbs. In the City, prices haven’t moved much over the past 3 years. Despite this, it would be silly to write off a single-month move like that. Especially when it’s the second month in a row to see such large price gains.
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Sounds healthy.
I get the feeling there’s some overlap between this and the residential investment peaking.
With basically the lowest real estate tax rate in North America and an expected immigration boom, it is just a great investment. With the exception of short blips in ’08, ’13 and ’19, keeps going up.
Except those charts show you wouldn’t have made anything over the past 3 years, during the biggest bull run in equities history.
Buy a house because you want it, not because you think it’s a “great investment.” They’re money pits that are constantly wrung for tax dollars. If you don’t have enough to be hit with school taxes, and you’re looking at a cheap condo, maybe. That’s a different story though.
Whenever Vancouver real estate prices collapse in on themselves if I hear anyone saying they “didn’t see it coming” I’m going to lose it. This is the most obvious and long running setup for a tulip-mania’esque real estate price implosion you’re ever going to see.
Oh there’ll be a few who are going to say that. They’re the same ones currently arguing it’s too big to fail… mania has set in.
After 25 years living in Vancouver Area, it’s time to leave. 300,000 (UK pounds) approximately $528,000 (Canadian Dollars) buy a new brick built house in a nice area in the UK.