The Victoria Real Estate Board has released their latest statistics for the month of July. The following is an excerpt from their press release.
“The activity level in the Victoria real estate market continues to be brisk, though we always expect a slowdown in the summer months,” says 2017 Victoria Real Estate Board President Ara Balabanian. “This July, we saw a strong focus on the lower priced end of the market, with condos and townhomes and single family homes listed for under $700,000 in high demand. Many of those properties saw multiple offer situations.”
A total of 790 properties sold in the Victoria Real Estate Board region this July, 18.7 per cent fewer than the 972 properties sold in July last year.
“The ten year average for sales in July is just over 700 properties,” adds President Balabanian. “So the numbers from last month illustrate an ongoing demand for homes in Victoria. We anticipated at the beginning of the year that we would see another busy market - without the record breaking numbers we saw in 2016 – and we are seeing exactly that. The surprise has been the low inventory levels, with listings for sale consistently below 2,000. The good news is that compared to the start of the year we have 26.7 per cent more listings on the market, but that supply is still lower than we expected, which puts pressure on pricing and availability.”
There were 1,921 active listings for sale on the Victoria Real Estate Board Multiple Listing Service® at the end of July 2017, an increase of 0.3 per cent compared to the month of June, but 11.1 per cent fewer than the 2,161 active listings for sale at the end of July 2016.
The Multiple Listing Service® Home Price Index benchmark value for a single family home in the Victoria Core in July 2016 was $737,800. The benchmark value for the same home in July 2017 has increased by 13.1 per cent to $834,200.
This chart tracks the ratio of total residential sales over total active residential listings at month-end for each of the last 25 months. The active listing count and the sales count can be viewed as indicators of housing supply and demand respectively. Observing the ratio between them can thus help indicate a "buyers' market", where there is downward pressure on prices, and a "sellers' market", where there is upward pressure on prices.
- below 10%, there is downward pressure on prices (buyers' market)
- above 25%, there is upward pressure on prices (sellers' market)
- in the 15-20% range, there is little pressure on prices either way (balanced market)