I hope you had a great month and that you’ve been enjoying the beautiful spring weather!
The increased activity reported in my last newsletter did end up converting to more sales, with both Squamish and Whistler rebounding to more normalized sales volumes in April.
Squamish saw 45 sales in April, which is more aligned with the 5-year April sales average of 49 sales. Of these, 8 went above the asking price, 5 went for asking, and 32 sold for under the asking price.
In Whistler, there were 61 sales in April, which is above the 5-year April sales average of 51. Of these sales, 46 went for under the asking price, 7 went for asking, and 8 sold for above asking.
The increased activity has brought more sellers into the fold, particularly in Whistler, which saw the highest number of new listings in any month since June 2020 (see New Listings graph below). Even with the higher sales numbers in April, new listings surpassed the number of sales and inventory continues to grow in both markets (see graph, Active Inventory).
The story of prices in Whistler is a mixed picture. The nightly rental condo/townhouse market remains the most resilient, however inventory is growing and this can be a leading indicator for downward pressure on prices. The single-family detached segment continues to soften the most substantially (see graph Sale Price, Median), however options under $3M are very limited and anything decent gets snatched up fairly quicky.
Prices in Squamish were much faster to adjust after the war started in Feb 2022 and the interest rate raising campaign started; there were fairly significant decreases, especially in the single family market. For the past year, prices have stabilized and are now generally trending upwards. Currently, prices are near or at where they were in March 2022 (“the peak”). There have been quite a few cases of single family houses going into multiple offers over the past 4 weeks, which can have a substantial effect on price growth.
Picking up on the topic of the Province’s density bill (Bill 44) discussed last month, Whistler has released further information and acknowledged that Whistler will need to update zoning bylaws in alignment with the Bill. The RMOW has created a helpful webpage that provides details of how Whistler’s zoning will be changing to accommodate this Bill, found here . In most cases, lots are being up-zoned to accommodate four stratified dwelling units (note that this does not mean subdivision). There are no lots that will accommodate up to six dwelling units because local public transit doesn’t meet the provincial threshold for this requirement.
Overall, our local real estate markets are in healthy territory with fairly balanced market conditions. Buyers and sellers are more active than they’ve been since early 2022. The variety of product offerings, especially in Whistler, hasn’t been better in quite some time. Nothing needs to be particularly rushed, and there’s a good amount of confidence that if you want to sell a property, it will go if priced right.
The Bank of Canada is continuing to say that they’re going to be slow on downward adjustments to interest rates – they say the data is showing them that people are adjusting to this interest rate environment. I think people are, although in many cases it is not pretty and requires taking a hard look at spending habits, but overall, people seem to be adjusting. The BoC will be hard pressed to risk reigniting inflation if households aren’t in real pain, especially considering inflation has started to accelerate in the US again.
Get in touch anytime, always happy to chat and I’m thankful for your trust in me.
~
Lindsay