What’s Happening with Houses in East Van?
The detached house market in East Van has experienced the most change, which isn’t a surprise given that it’s expensive and not as accessible for a typical Buyer.
The detached market has always been an interesting market. Even though the amount of inventory right now is quite high (close to the highest it’s been in years) most of it is junk… too expensive, basically a tear down or both. Tear downs are a tough sell for buyers since not only do you need the financing to buy the house, but you also need strong financing to pay for the reno and cover the carrying costs if you can’t live in the house for months. This cost could easily be $250k to $600k, and more if you’re planning a full re-build. New development projects come with a premium that make them that much more expensive.
The sales to active ratio for houses in East Van is about 13% for re-sales and 20% for new builds, which has been fairly consistent since July of last year. The sales to active ratio has been slightly down since May of last year, and down significantly from it’s high’s in 2015 and 2016.
The HPI Price is $1,544,100, which is higher than the highest HPI price was saw during 2015 and 2016, but ever so slightly lower than the highest HPI Price we’ve seen recently, which was $1,573,500 in November 2017. The median price of re-sale units is $1,635,000 and the average price is $1,671,510. The median price of new developments is $2,382,000 and the average price is $2,362,000.
The total inventory is at 834 houses – 804 re-sales and 30 new developments – and this amount of inventory is close to the highest we saw last year (864 in July). A good percentage of these listings are new to market which shows that the market isn’t as stale as it seems. Though the detached market has slowed down, good listings do still sell quite quickly, since it can be tough to find a good house, in good repair. We had one particularly interesting house listing this past month: it was a 2 unit tenanted house priced at $1,399,000 that received 8 offers. It was priced low, though this shows that anything priced well (which I would consider to be under $1.6-million) still still have a lot of interest. Don’t forget that a mortgage helper can easily make up for a few hundred thousand dollars worth of a price: if you had a choice between a $1.3-million townhouse or a $1.6-million house… go for the house.
Give me a call if you want to chat about the market, or have any questions about buying or selling: 778-387-7371 or [email protected].
