As we welcome 2025, we reflect with gratitude on the trust and relationships we’ve built with all of you. From downsizing, buying your first home, finding dream homes to helping families transition to new chapters, it has been a true honour to be a part of your journey.

In our ever-changing market, we always find a way to assist you. Whether buying, selling, or planning your next move, we’re here to provide expert advice and personalized strategies to help you achieve your goals. Your referrals are always welcome.

We hope you enjoy our monthly newsletter. Here’s to a wonderful year ahead.

A 2025 Housing Surge: What’s Fueling Market Optimism

As the calendar turns and we move into another year in real estate, there is great optimism about what lies ahead despite ever-shifting political landscapes domestically and abroad. Although the job market is difficult, affordability is a challenge for many, and times are as uncertain as ever, most predict the best year in real estate since 2021.

No matter the market type, seller’s, buyer’s or balanced market, the spring brings the most robust sales totals of the year. What sets 2025 apart from recent years? We are heading into a spring market in a diminishing interest rate cycle for the first time since the post-COVID interest rate slide in 2020.

Leading up to 2024’s transition to falling rates, there was downward pressure on sales and activity with each rate increase (see graph above). As rates began to drop in the 2nd half of 2024, the market was slow to react. This all changed in October 2024, leading to the strongest Q4 sales totals across the lower mainland since Q4 of 2021. This surge of activity will carry into our 2025 market.

Last Month’s Listings and Sales

News From the Real Estate Board

Home sales registered on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in Metro Vancouver rose over thirty per cent in December, compared to the previous year, signalling strengthening demand-side momentum to close out 2024.

“Looking back on 2024, it could best be described as a pivot year for the market after experiencing such dramatic increases in mortgage rates in the preceding years,” said Andrew Lis, GVR’s director of economics and data analytics. “With borrowing costs now firmly on the decline, buyers have started to show up in numbers after somewhat of a hiatus – and this renewed strength is now clearly visible in the more recent monthly data.

“Disappointingly, sales came in shy of our forecasted target for the year, but the December figures signal an emerging pattern of strength in home sales, building on the momentum seen in previous months,” Lis said. “These more recent sales figures are now trending back towards long-term historical averages, which suggests there may still be quite a bit of potential upside for sales as we head into 2025, should the recent strength continue.

“Although sales activity had a slower start to the year, price trends began 2024 on the rise and closed out the year on a flatter trajectory. Most market segments saw year-over-year increases of a few per cent except for apartment units, which ended 2024 roughly flat. With the data showing renewed strength to finish the year however, it looks as though the 2025 market is positioned to be considerably more active than we’ve seen in recent years.”

The Board reports that for Metro Vancouver the sales-to-active listings ratio for the month of December were:

• 12.1% for detached homes

• 18.7% for apartments

• 23.6% for townhomes

(The sale to active ratio indicates what type of market each sector is in. 0-12% equals a buyer’s market, 12-20% equals a balanced market and 20-100% equals a seller’s market.)

Click here for the full Real Estate Board of Vancouver report for this month

We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you
to our clients for their business and support in 2024.

If 2025 is your year to make a move, let us help you customize a successful plan. Call us to get started.

-Dan Pigott
604-862-4124
dan@pigottproperties.com

Copyright (C) 2025 Dan Pigott - Royal LePage Sussex Pigott Properties. All rights reserved.

Affordability in our real estate market has long been a top of mind issue, exacerbated now by the rise in rates. We have discussed the inventory shortage over the past several months and many have asked, “why not simply build more homes to solve the problem?” 

Not only does the shortage of developeable land and cost to acquire it pose major hurdles, a recent study by the Urban Development Institute in Vancouver shows that taxes and fees to develop can be prohibitive for many smaller developers. The report looked at the costs of an 800 sqft. condo in Vancouver in 2023 and contributing factors to the unit’s staggering average price of $1,120,000. Fees and taxes per unit were 29.25% of the imagined condo’s cost. Keep in mind these do not include the cost to build or for land acquisition. (Click here to see the report)

 While the Vancouver market is already wildly out of price for many, developers will always look at their bottom line, keeping their prices as high as the market will allow. The only way forward in this situation would be to flood the market forcing prices down, and while the expense to build is so high, this scenario seems an unlikely solution.

 Creative home-ownership may be a way forward. 

 Rising values have led to an increasing number of homeowners opting to become co-owners. This can take various forms, whether it be splitting a single family dwelling with friends, building a laneway house, or buying duplexes for extended families to live next door. Census data shows that multi-generational households are now the fastest growing household type in Canada. In cases where home-buyers cannot afford to purchase on their own, they are combining their buying power with their parents, children, siblings or friends. (Click here to read the Royal Lepage article)

 Interested in learning more about The Urban Development Institute report? 

Call us today for more info and market updates!