Key Take-Aways from the January Statistics
The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board’s January stats report shows a massive injection of new listings accompanied by stability in Benchmark Prices, which suggests a similar increase in demand is meeting the increased supply. It may be a bit early to tell but this certainly increases confidence in a healthy Spring market.
Highlights from the January statistics include:
- Detached homes continue to outperform other home types, with Benchmark Prices that increased for the first time in over a year.
- The Benchmark Price of condos also increased slightly (+0.1%) over last month, which is a meaningful shift from last month’s 0.9% decrease.
- Average days-on-market increased for all home types, which is typical in January as listings carry over from an always-slow December.
- Sale price as a percentage of original list price increased 0.8% for townhomes when condos and detached homes held more constant.
- New Listings increased 160-190%, resulting in a drop in sales to active listing ratio for all home types. Townhomes and condos fell into a balanced market range, and detached homes decreased to 9%, which is typically considered buyer’s market territory.
How the Fraser Valley land market is reacting
Similar to the housing market, we are seeing both an increase in sellers (many not by choice) and an increase in purchasers for residential development land in the Fraser Valley.
The increase in sellers is coming from a combination of:
- Property owners seeing healthy demand for land again and putting an end to waiting to sell
- Property owners wanting to take some pressure off their financial situation.
- Developers looking to liquidate current sites to cash-up for other opportunities, and
- Lenders calling because they have or are going to have conduct of sale soon
On the demand side, another interest rate cut and a pickup in home sales activity has increased confidence in the future of the Fraser Valley housing market, so we are seeing an increase in inbound requests for serviceable land, especially single-family and townhouse land as those segments tend to rebound first – as evidenced by the FVREB stats.
The market is spotty, and the threat of a trade war with the United States still hangs over everyone’s heads, so purchasers are being selective and cautious. The purchasers are certainly there though, for accurately priced land.
A snapshot of key metrics
January 2025
Detached homes
The single family detached home market is consistently the first segment to move, either up or down, when the market is shifting. As a result, we look to this segment as an indicator for market directionality and velocity.Home sales in the Fraser Valley
The following charts summarize the month’s total home sales throughout the Fraser Valley.Days on Market
Days on Market is the average length of time listings of that home type stayed on market before selling firm. This metric is an indicator of competition among buyers and the month-over-month change can tell us whether the market is accelerating or decelerating.New and active listings in the Fraser Valley
New listings is the cumulative quantity of listings posted for the month. Active listings is the quantity of active listings on the last day of the month.Listings over time
Listing metrics tend to be seasonally cyclical making month-over-month reports misleading as indicators of market shifts. The below chart shows each month's active and new listings over the past decade. The current month is highlighted on each line to illustrate how today's data compares to the past 10 years of data for the same month.
HPI benchmark prices
HPI Index establishes "Benchmark Prices" for a typical home in each major housing category. Benchmark Prices, as a relative metric, tend to be a more accurate indicator of market direction and velocity as they are not subject to the composition of home types being sold, like average home prices.For more information on the residential development land market in the Fraser Valley or to sign up for my monthly newsletter, please contact:
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Read other Fraser Valley development land news
Data sourced from Fraser Valley Real Estate Board