The Real Estate Board of Greater 
Vancouver has released the February market numbers which confirms what a majority of real estate agents already knew; February was a lot busier than January.
Residential housing sales in Greater Vancouver rose 94 per cent in February compared to the month before, with 1,480 sales registered in February compared to 762 sales in January, which was the slowest month for housing sales in 25 years. Over the past 10 years, February sales have typically surpassed January by an average increase of 53 per cent. January’s low numbers can be attributed to a slowing economy and the fact many areas of the lower mainland were still dealing with snow! Surprise, surprise – I’m going to go way out on a limb and predict January 2010 activity will show a significant increase in sales!
New MLS® listings for residential properties continued to decrease for the fourth month in a row. New listings decreased 25.6 per cent in February compared to the previous year; 20 per cent in January; 8.6 per cent in December; and 10 per cent in November.
Year-over-year property sales in Greater Vancouver declined 44.7 per cent in February 2009 from the 2,676 sales recorded in February 2008. Year-over-year, those are the lowest sales figures for February since the mid-1980s.
With buyers in control, homes are sitting on the market longer with the average taking 67 days to sell in February. This is a 7 day improvement over January but twice as long as February of 2008 when homes stood just 33 days.
February sales of detached properties declined 41 per cent to 587 from the 995 units sold during the same period in 2008. The benchmark price, as calculated by the MLSLink Housing Price Index®, declined 14.2 per cent from February 2008 to $653,452.
Sales of apartment properties declined 45.6 per cent last month to 650, compared to the 1,197 sales in February 2008. The benchmark price of an apartment declined 13.9 per cent from February 2008 to $333,143.
Attached property sales in February 2009 decreased 49.8 per cent to 243, compared with the 484 sales during the same month in 2008. The benchmark price of an attached unit declined 9.7 per cent between Februarys 2008 and 2009 to $426,268.
New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties declined 25.6 per cent to 3,916 in February 2009 compared to February 2008, when 5,260 new units were listed.
With spring weather, comes spring cleaning and the reappearance of “For Sale” signs to add colour to the boulevards across the neighbourhood.
