What happens when there are too many buyers fighting over too few real estate listings?
Prices go up and people get left out as multiple offers pile up.
That’s what is happening in Burnaby and beyond, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
Local buyers are fighting for fewer and fewer listings in October, according to the latest numbers. which show a 27% drop in the number of homes for sale from the same period in 2020.
And prices continue to creep up. They went up 1% in the Burnaby North sector to and a composite price of $1,122,900 – that’s nearly 12% higher than October 2020.
The (REBGV) reports that residential home sales in the region totalled 3,494 in October 2021, a 5.2 per cent decrease from the 3,687 sales recorded in October 2020, and an 11 per cent increase from the 3,149 homes sold in September 2021.
Last month’s sales were 22.4 per cent above the 10-year October sales average.
“Home sale activity continues to outpace what’s typical for this time of year and the pool of homes available for sale is in decline. This dynamic between supply and demand is causing home prices to continue to edge up across the region,” Keith Stewart, REBGV economist said.
There were 4,049 detached, attached and apartment properties newly listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in Metro Vancouver in October 2021. This represents a 27.3 per cent decrease compared to the 5,571 homes listed in October 2020 and a 21.7 per cent decrease compared to September 2021 when 5,171 homes were listed.
The total number of homes currently listed for sale on the MLS system in Metro Vancouver is 8,034, a 35.3 per cent decrease compared to October 2020 (12,416) and a 13 per cent decrease compared to September 2021 (9,236).
“Rising fixed mortgage rates should eventually help ease demand, but for now sales remain strong and buyers with rate holds will remain motivated to find a property for the rest of the year,” Stewart said.
For all property types, the sales-to-active listings ratio for October 2021 is 43.5 per cent. By property type, the ratio is 33.6 per cent for detached homes, 64.4 per cent for townhomes, and 46.7 per cent for apartments.
