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February 2019 real estate: momentum & variable dynamics

House prices down across Greater Victoria year to year (January 2018 to 2019) except in Sooke

Victoria Real Estate Board, Total Active Listings, Feb 2019
Total Active MLS Listings (at month end), from February 2017 to February 2019. In this period, inventory reached a low at December 2017, peaked in July to September 2018, but fell by 2018-year-end.
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Tuesday, March 5, 2019 ~ GREATER VICTORIA.

by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News

The Greater Victoria Real Estate Board released their February 2019 statistics today.

The volume of all property sales (single family homes, townhomes, condos, manufactured homes, lots and commercial) dropped by almost one-quarter from February 2018 to February this year, though sales volume was up 28% in February 2019 compared to this January.

In February there were 204 single family home sales, 129 townhome sales, 46 condos sold, 14 manufactured homes sold, eight sales of lots, and two commercial property sales.

victoria real estate board, February 2019
Total residential sales over total active residential listings at month-end for 25 months (Feb 2017 through Feb 2019). Below 14% indicates downward pressure on prices (buyers’ market). Above 20% shows upward pressure on prices (sellers’ market). Balanced market with little pressure either way is seen between 14% and 20%. [Victoria Real Estate Board, at March 1, 2019]
Condo sales volume across Greater Victoria was down 25% in February from one year previous, but up from January of this year by 16.2%.

The number of active property listings rose 3.6% from January to February; the listing tally at February month-end was 37.9% higher than a year ago.

The raw average sale price of a single family home in Greater Victoria was $885,042 in February 2019. In the west shore Langford saw an average sale price under the $700,000 mark at $695,619, with Colwood higher than usual at $914,042 and Sooke at $548,548 showing no sign of dropping below half a million.

According to VREB data analysis, the Greater Victoria Real Estate market continued to be a sellers’ market during the last two years. Between February 2017 and February 2019 the ratio of total residential sales to total active residential listings at month-end was well above the 20% threshold for seeing a buyer’s market. However, the sellers’ market status peaked in March 2017 (see chart above) and has essentially gently but steadily diminished since then.


A shorter version of this article was first published on page 4 in the March 1, 2019 print-PDF weekend digest of West Shore Voice NewsÂ