Money circulating through Vancouver’s housing market has vanished in the past year, causing a steep drop in sales, now followed by a decline in prices.
The average resale price in Greater Vancouver was $878,242 in January, down 18.9% from a year earlier, when it stood at $1.038 million, according to numbers from the Canadian Real Estate Association.
Fingers are pointed at B.C.’s foreign homebuyer tax which came into effect in August 2016 and an infographic complied by realtor Farris Kapani shows that benchmark house prices have dipped between 5.5% and 13.5% in some Metro Vancouver markets.
The data, gathered from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, compares home price index (HPI) benchmarks from August 2016 to last month.
Kapani looked at how the benchmarks for detached homes changed from data released in August – when the 15 per cent tax took effect – to the numbers released six months later. The infographic compares data from five regions of Metro Vancouver including Vancouver West, which includes Kitsilano.
Vancouver West had the lowest decrease of the five markets included in the infographic at 5.5%. The benchmark had increased by 8.7% during the same period the previous year.
According to Kapani, Point Grey, Fairview, and Kitsilano also had the highest house vacancy rate at 7.4%.
Last modified: February 17, 2017
