About BCREA’s Housing Monitor Dashboar

The BCREA Economics team has created the Housing Monitor Dashboard to help REALTORS^® monitor BC’s housing market. This dashboard, which is updated monthly, provides up-to-date data on key variables for public education and use. Focuses include: 

• Resale Home Market

• Construction

• Rental Market

• Borrowing Costs

• Other BCREA Data

In the dashboard, the image and data are available for download under each chart, where possible.

For more information, please contact: Gino Pezzani.

To view the BCREA Housing Forecast Update PDF, click here.

BCREA 2024 First Quarter Housing Forecast Update

Vancouver, BC – January, 2024. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) released its 2024 First Quarter Housing Forecast Update today.

Multiple Listing Service^® (MLS^®) residential sales in BC are forecast to increase 7.8 per cent to 78,775 units this year. In 2025, MLS^® residential sales are forecasted to strengthen further, rising to 86,475 units.

"In 2023, the housing market faced headwinds due to elevated mortgage rates, but the recent decline in fixed mortgage rates and potential Bank of Canada rate cuts present an optimistic outlook for 2024," said Brendon Ogmundson, Chief Economist. "As we navigate through 2024, we expect a delicate balance between rising sales and normalizing inventories, which should lead to a relatively quiet year for prices."

With substantial progress in bringing inflation back to 2 per cent and a softening in economic growth and employment, there is less necessity for monetary policy to remain stringent. Therefore, we anticipate the Bank of Canada will begin to lower its policy rate this year, leading to higher provincial home sales. The ultimate impact on prices hinges entirely on how inventory evolves this year. While risks to the economy remain, our view is that new listings normalize following a lull in activity last year. That normalization of new listing activity should result in a more balanced market this year with relatively stable pricing.

For the complete news release, including detailed statistics, click here.

For more information, please contact: Gino Pezzani.

The Bank of Canada maintained its overnight rate at 5 per cent this morning.  In the statement accompanying the decision, the Bank noted that the Canadian economy has stalled since the middle of 2023 and that growth will likely remain flat until the second quarter of 2024. Slow economic growth has allowed supply to catch up to demand and the Bank now judges that the economy is operating with moderate excess supply. On inflation, the Bank expects inflation to remain close to 3 per cent in the first half of 2024 before gradually falling back to its 2 per cent target in 2025. However, the Bank cautions that while price pressure is falling across a broad number of CPI components, core inflation is not showing a sustained decline.  As such, the Bank is still concerned about the risk to the outlook from persistent underlying inflation.

Today's interest rate decision and the tenor of the accompanying statement were not surprising given slightly hotter than expected core inflation in December.  However, we expect inflation will resume on its trajectory down to 2 per cent, with some stickiness due to supply side driven shelter costs. Falling inflation, along with weak economic growth and a softening labour market will necessitate rate cuts this year to jumpstart a fledgling economy heading into 2025. We expect the Bank of Canada will lower its overnight rate in June, ultimately lowering to 4 per cent by the end of the year. Financial market expectations for more aggressive rate cuts prompted a steep decline in 5-year bond yields, and therefore 5-year fixed mortgage rates, to start 2024 but yields have since retraced slightly following December's CPI data.  We anticipate that 5-year fixed mortgage rates, currently averaging 5.39 per cent, will eventually fall to 5 per cent by the end of the year and will settle near 4.5 per cent by the end of 2025. 

Link: https://mailchi.mp/bcrea/bank-of-canada-interest-rate-announcement-jjlqosxjet

For more information, please contact: Gino Pezzani.

Canadian retail sales fell 0.2 per cent in November to $66.6 billion. Excluding volatile items, sales were down 0.6 per cent month-over-month. In volume terms, retail sales decreased 0.2 per cent in November. Retail e-commerce trade fell by 1.5 per cent to $3.9 billion in November, amounting to 5.8 per cent of total retail sales.

Sales in BC rose 0.7 per cent in November. BC retail sales are up 1.4 per cent from the same time last year. In the CMA of Vancouver, retail sales were up 1.2 per cent from last month and 3.3 per cent from November of 2022.

Link: https://mailchi.mp/bcrea/canadian-retail-sales-november-2023-january-19-2024

For more information, please contact: Gino Pezzani.

Canadian housing starts rose 18 per cent to 249,255 units in December at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR). Starts were down 1 per cent from the same month last year. Single-detached housing starts fell 3 per cent from last month to 52,426 units, while multi-family and others rose 25 per cent to 196,830 units (SAAR).

In British Columbia, starts jumped 58 per cent from last month to 62,458 units SAAR in all areas of the province. In areas in the province with 10,000 or more residents, single-detached starts fell 8 per cent to 4,559 units while multi-family starts leaped 71 per cent to 55,329 units. Starts in the province were 8 per cent above the levels from December 2022. Starts rose from last month by 19.5k units in Vancouver, 2.2k in Victoria, and 3.8k in Kelowna while falling by 4.5k in Abbotsford. The 6-month moving average trend in BC fell by 1 per cent to 49,785 SAAR.

For the full year of 2023, starts in areas of Canada with 10,000 or more residents declined 7 per cent to 223,513, driven by a 25 per cent decline in single-family homes. However, starts were up 8 per cent in British Columbia and 28 per cent in Vancouver from 2022. 

Link: https://mailchi.mp/bcrea/canadian-housing-starts-december-2023

For more information, please contact: Gino Pezzani.

For the complete news release, including detailed statistics, click here.

Vancouver, BC –  January, 2024. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that 73,109 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service^® (MLS^®) in 2023, a 9.2 per cent decline from 80,506 units sold in 2022. The annual average MLS^® residential price in BC was $971,144, a 2.6 per cent decrease from $996,943 recorded the previous year. Total sales dollar volume was $71 billion, an 11.5 per cent decline from 2022.“The highest mortgage rates in over 15 years led to the slowest sales in a decade for BC,” said BCREA Chief Economist Brendon Ogmundson. “With mortgage rates falling to start the year and the potential for Bank of Canada rate cuts on the horizon, the outlook for 2024 appears much brighter.”

A total of 3,596 residential unit sales were recorded in Multiple Listing Service^® (MLS^®) systems in December 2023, an increase of 2.6 per cent from December 2022. The average MLS^® residential price in BC was $965,447 a 6.5 per cent increase from $906,356 recorded in December 2022. Total sales dollar volume was $3.5 billion, a 9.3 per cent increase from the same time last year. 

For more information, please contact: Gino Pezzani.

Metro Vancouver’s housing market in 2023 saw surprising resilience in the face of the highest borrowing costs seen in over a decade.

Learn more at www.rebgv.org

For more information, please contact: Gino Pezzani.

Canadian employment was nearly unchanged from the prior month in December at 20.313 million. The Canadian unemployment rate also held steady at 5.8 per cent. Average hourly wages rose 5.4 per cent year-over-year to $34.45 in December, while total hours worked were up 1.7 per cent from December of last year.

Employment in BC rose 0.6 per cent to 2.84 million, while employment in Metro Vancouver rose 0.6 per cent to 1.62 million. The unemployment rate rose 0.3 points in BC to 5.6 per cent while rising in Metro Vancouver at 6.2 per cent in December. 

Link: https://mailchi.mp/bcrea/canadian-employment-december-2023-january-5th-2024

For more information, please contact: Gino Pezzani.