Falling detached-home prices in some Metro Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»areas are not enough to cancel out increases in others, with the region's aggregate home sale price rising 2.1 per cent year over year in 2018’s fourth quarter, according to Royal LePage.
The national real estate brokerage’s quarterly , released January 11, found that home prices were holding firm in most Metro Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»municipalities, although the trend varied by property type.
Across the region as a whole, only bungalows saw a slight year-over-year price decline of 1.4 per cent to a median sale price of $1,402,002. Two-storey houses increased 2.9 per cent year over year to a median of $1,599,785, while condo sale prices across the Metro region rose by 4.6 per cent to $680,991.
“While we’ve seen a significant reduction in the number of sales across all housing types, condominiums continue to outperform all other housing types in Greater Vancouver,” said Randy Ryalls, general manager of Royal LePage Sterling Realty.
Royal LePage’s survey of homes sold in the fourth quarter found that Vancouver, North Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»and Burnaby were the only areas to see an overall price slip compared with the same quarter in 2017.
Vancouver’s aggregate (all home types combined) sale price in Q4 fell 0.6 per cent year-over-year to a still-staggering $1,418,251. The city’s median condo sale price saw a slight rise of 1.4 per cent year over year to $792,321, while two-storey home and bungalow prices fell 0.3 per cent and 3.8 per cent to $2,218,632 and $1,466,006, respectively.
North Vancouver’s aggregate home price fell by a similar amount, 0.7 per cent year over year, to $1,435,007, with condo sale prices up 3.4 per cent to $679,526.
Aggregate home prices in Burnaby fell the most in the fourth quarter, by 1.1 per cent year-over-year, to $1,093,001.
West Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»and Richmond both defied expectations in 2018’s fourth quarter. West Vancouver’s all-home-types sale price rose 0.2 per cent to a whopping $3,034,685, with the median price of a two-storey home increasing 0.3 per cent to $3,453,541, and condo prices up 3.7 per cent, to $1,240,252.
Richmond aggregate home sale price in Q4 rose a surprising 2.8 per cent on an annual basis to $1,165,134, which was the steepest rise in the region. This is largely due to median condo sale prices rising 8.1 per cent year-over-year to $595,070.
In Coquitlam, aggregate home prices rose 0.4 per cent year-over-year to $1,138,387. Prices in Surrey’s aggregate home sale prices rose 2.3 per cent year-over-year to $936,357, while Langley’s aggregate home price increased a solid 2.4 per cent year-over-year to $1,015,021.
Ryalls added, “While the condo market is showing balance, in contrast, sales activity within the detached housing market has slowed down considerably and is firmly in a buyer’s market. The mortgage qualifying regulations have severely attenuated the purchasing power of interested buyers including the all-important ‘move-up’ buyer eager to purchase a townhome or detached home.”
The analysis of aggregate and median sale prices offers different results than average sale prices, which can be more heavily skewed by extremes at each end of the market.
