Lower Mainland realtors say the market is alive and well

The housing market’s stability is no longer being questioned by some realtors in the Lower Mainland who say the low inventory of homes for sale and high demand from buyers is creating a positive trend heading into the spring.

Greg Pearson is a realtor in North Vancouver and says the area is experiencing a plateau of listings and an increase of sales, with various properties listed receiving multiple offers.

“If the inventory remains where it is, at least in the North Vancouver market, I anticipate this will continue,” Pearson told City News.

“For the foreseeable future, I think we are going to be quite busy … you never really know when the bottom of the market is, until you look back months after and you can kind of pinpoint when the bottom was. The indications are that we might of already passed market bottom as it were. Things have adjusted to the new interest rates and the new reality.”

Although, Pearson says the window to buy at prices considerably lower than averages in 2021 and the beginning of 2022 won’t last forever.

“I think the window will close rather quickly and we’ll see prices edge up over the next 12 months,” he said.

Pearson believes the reason there are so few homes on the market in his area is due to people believing it is not a good time to sell.

“The reality is that we have had a shift, where it’s a brilliant time to list. People out there are looking to buy, there’s just not enough good homes on the market to fulfill the demand.”

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Vancouver based realtor Keith Roy says he’s seeing similar circumstances.

“While it feels like it’s slow and things are bad, unless we see a massive increase of inventory we’re not going to see a drop in prices. We have a very small, busy market right now,” Roy explained.

Roy says there’s some certainty back within the market, which wasn’t there in the fall of last year.

“There’s been a number of sales that have happened which gives us some confidence where we know what homes are worth, compared to what other people would of paid. Where as they weren’t really selling much in the fall, so, we didn’t really know what homes were worth.” Roy said.

Roy feels that buyer’s can feel more confident that the home their purchasing and the price their paying right now makes sense, as there isn’t much further down to go.

“That’s evident in the fact we are getting three or four offers on these properties. Which means if you didn’t buy it, someone else would of bought it and that’s the bottom, when a bunch of people show up. That’s what we are seeing right now.”

However, South Surrey realtor Jesse Kleine warns while listed properties in his area of expertise are garnering a lot of interest, seller’s shouldn’t expect to sell for astronomical prices. Regardless of how many people are looking to write an offer.

“I was in multiple offers Monday night, five offers on the properties. What’s interesting is I wouldn’t really say prices are moving up a lot. The odd property maybe will sell for a bit more than it would of in the fall,” Kleine said in an interview.

Kleine goes on to say most of the offers he’s noticed recently are near asking, with a lot of buyer’s anchoring their prices.

“In Metro Vancouver so far this February, 16 per cent of properties have sold over the asking. To put it in context, last year when the market was going crazy, it was about 80 per cent that we’re going over asking.”

According to Kleine, interest rates are still holding a lot of people back from exploring the market. Although, he believes the market is starting to adapt to the new reality.