April 2023 – Fraser Valley Real Estate Market Snapshot

April 2023, Balance

April clearly represents balance or equilibrium that is slowly starting to weigh more toward the seller’s side. Clear signs of stabilization and confidence can be seen in the Fraser Valley real estate market. The Bank of Canada has continued to hold rates, helping to substantiate this new consumer confidence in our local markets across the Fraser Valley.

Certain neighborhoods are still performing better than others based on the amount of supply of any particular product type in any particular neighborhood. Neighborhoods with less supply are seeing quicker price increases than those with more supply, following the basic economic theory of supply and demand.

Sales absorptions have held relatively steady in all product types when compared to last month, and prices across all product types have increased from 3% to as much as 5% compared to last month. What is interesting is that the supply or inventory of each product type seems to be going down when compared to the same period last year. This could be an early indicator of further price escalation to come, possibly getting back to pre-market correction values seen in late 2021 and early 2022 over the next few months, if not by the end of 2023.

While the media reports the market bottom coming this June, the numbers we are seeing in the Fraser Valley specifically show the bottom has already come and gone, with prices back on the rise since February this year, as shown by the steady month-to-month average value increases over the last two reports.

It has been another great month of sales with prices on the rise, seemingly due to dwindling inventory slowly starting to push the scale back in the seller’s favor. Hopefully, local municipalities now have plans in place to expedite approvals to allow more supply on the market sooner and help keep prices in line with the market by allowing the supply required to meet the home-buying demand of the Fraser Valley.

Over the next month, we expect to see further market improvements across the Fraser Valley in terms of continued absorptions and value increases as demand rises and continues to outpace new supply being brought to market.