Vancouver Real Estate Market Update for January 2020!

This is your Vancouver real estate market update for January 2020. Hey, everyone. I’m Craig Veroni with RE/MAX Masters Realty. I’m your local real estate agent here in Vancouver, BC. This is the first market update for 2020. 

I hope you enjoyed the holiday season and have had a great start to the new year. As usual, in today’s video, I’m going to cover what’s happened in the Vancouver real estate market in the month of December, what’s coming that could affect the market, and a piece of technology I’m utilizing to make your home selling and buying experience a smoother one. 

I shoot a ton of videos about what it’s like to live, love, and own here in Vancouver so, if you haven’t yet, please subscribe to my channel, hit that thumbs up button and don’t forget to click on that bell so you can be notified immediately when I have a new video out. I really want you to be able to stay up to date on all the latest tips and insights into the Vancouver real estate market so you can become an expert too. 

So, let’s get into it! Before I get into what happened through December and recapping 2019, let’s talk about the assessments which just came out last week. I’ve had a few people call or email me about them. Listen, the bottom line is that the assessed values are based on a fixed point in time which is already 6 months out of date and it does not indicate what the market value of your home is. So, if you don’t have to sell anytime soon or have no intention at all of selling in the immediate future, forget about your assessed value. Enjoy the lower property taxes you’ll be paying this year and move on to more important things in your life. And, if you do plan on selling in the near future, work with a great agent like myself, who can assist in designing the right plan and strategy for your home. Let’s look at December quickly. There was an 88.1 per cent increase from the sales recorded in December 2018 and a 19.3 per cent decrease from the homes sold in November 2019. Looking at the broader view, last month’s sales were 9.5 per cent above the 10-year December sales average. Overall, we did not see typical seasonal patterns in 2019. The normally busy spring season was much quieter and homebuyer demand picked up in the second half of the year. Prices dipped between 2-4% across the region depending on property type. What does this mean for those people looking to transact right now? Well if you’re moving here from another part of the Province, or relocating here, you’re going to be able to purchase with great confidence. If you’re purchasing a detached home, you’re most likely going to have more inventory to choose from, more time to make your decision, and, less completion while doing so. If it’s a condo or townhouse you’re looking for you may not have as much time as you think to make that decision. If you’re looking to upsize from a condo or townhouse to a detached home, it is a great time to do it. I’ve had many clients do this over the past year because that gap between attached and detached products is so small right now. This is why agents like myself are here to assist in helping you obtain as much information as possible in order to make the most informed decision for your

So, what’s coming. Well, in her recent article, Joanna Connelly of the Vancouver Courier states many of the pundits are unanimous in their prediction that BC’s housing market will increase and strengthen in 2020 but most of that recovery will be in the Lower Mainland where the market was previously hardest hit. There has been momentum in the market from the summer till now and there still is a lot of pent up buyer demand. We do have a lot of new construction units coming online this year as well (roughly 45,000 units) so, will there be enough buyer demand to keep pace with that? We’ll have to see. Over the past 3 months, I’ve been working with a lot of buyers relocating here from various parts of the world. Scheduling times to chat via phone or Zoom call can be challenging and involve a lot of back and forth emails. Even with the clients, I’m dealing with locally this can be challenging. So, a piece of technology I’m now
utilizing to make your home selling and buying experience a smoother one is a program called Calendly. Calendly allows you to schedule a meeting with me without any of the back and forth emails. You pick the date and time that’s
convenient for you and your partner and its added to my calendar. If you select a Zoom conference call, the meeting details and links are automatically sent to you. It’s a small thing, I know but it has already had a big impact on the transaction process for my clients and myself. If you’re interested in using Calendly for your business I’ll put a link in the description below. 

Week one of January is behind us and I’ve already had a ton of calls from both buyers and sellers looking to make a move soon. If you’re moving or planning on moving to the Metro Vancouver area soon and want to know more about specific neighbourhoods, I’ve shot a ton of videos of neighbourhood videos around Metro Vancouver and will be shooting many more areas in the coming months so, be sure to subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss a thing. The neighbourhood videos I’ve shot were hugely popular. I’m thrilled you guys like them and I’m happy to
keep shooting more. That’s a wrap! I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s market update. If so, please hit that thumbs up button and give it a like and make sure to leave a comment down below.

Thanks for watching. I’ll see you next month. And remember, this is where you
Live. Love. Own Vancouver!