Price of detached houses falls in parts of Metro Vancouver: CMHC

MARTIN MACMAHON (NEWS 1130) – The price of a detached home is falling in parts of Metro Vancouver, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). This follows a regional slowdown in real estate sales we’ve been seeing over the past few months.

We have heard anecdotally from some realtors that prices have been going down in some areas due to this slow market we’ve seen. Now, new numbers from the CMHC show house prices in West Vancouver and Vancouver’s west side have dropped year over year by between five and seven per cent.

“Between June of this year and June of last year, we saw price declines in the high end single detached market of seven percent on Vancouver’s west side,” says Eric Bond, CMHC’s principal analyst for Metro Vancouver. “So benchmark prices there are now $3.4-million.”

North Vancouver and Richmond are seeing more modest price declines — with drops of as much as four per cent.

But this trend is not universal across the region. Prices are still up year over year by six to 15 per cent in many communities, including Surrey, Langley, and Maple Ridge.

“The main story in Vancouver is that we do continue to detect overvaluation,” says Bond. “We have price levels that are far higher than the upper predicted values from our price models based on demand and supply fundamentals.”

Meanwhile, the price of an apartment in Metro Vancouver continues to rise. In places like Surrey and Langley, they have gone up between 26 and 35 per cent year over year.
​
Across Vancouver and North Vancouver, apartment prices have risen by 16 to 20 per cent.