January 2016 Market Update

2016 has picked up right where 2015 left off. On paper, the numbers won’t knock your socks off…until you look more closely. Anecdotally, we’ve been noticing some extraordinary sales crossing our desk in the last month…particularly for Vancouver West houses and investment-type condos in Downtown Vancouver. We are talking some crazy price jumps from just two months ago.

January is typically one of the slowest months of the year. Some years it feels as though the month is akin to trying to start an old car that sat in a garage for years. It slow and sluggish and doesn’t want to cooperate. This year, it feels a bit like we are prodding a sleeping giant and that that giant may surprise us all with his strength and power.

There are two numbers in particular that jump off the January 2016 statistics at us. The first, is the number of sales in Vancouver at 680. This is highest number of sales in January that we’ve seen in the last twelve years. The other number is the number of active listings. There were just 1963 active listings and this was the lowest number of active listings that we’ve had in January in that same time period.

This indicates that we may have an unprecedented combination of low inventory mixed with high demand to start 2016. That’s a potent combination for the beginning of a year that may indicate that we are going to be in for quite a ride this year.