Fraser Valley Residential Real Estate: January 2022 Infographic

The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board’s (FVREB) statistics are out for the month of January and I’m running out of ways to call this market extraordinary. The phrase that came to mind while I was reviewing the stats was “holy s#*t. Really?”. On the heals of the busiest year in the 100-year history of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, we saw continued acceleration. It’s mind-blowing. Days on market continued to drop, new listings fell even farther behind the 10-year monthly average and benchmark prices grew by even more in January than they did in December.

Average days on market fell in January, which is not surprising given typical market seasonality, but it is concerning that they’re sitting at levels usually reserved for the peak of the spring market and it’s only January. Over the past decade, January days on market figures have been nearly double this year’s. It’s a similar story for sale price as a percent of list price which soared above anything experienced in the last decade, even the peak of 2016. Townhomes reached 111%!

So, when you review the month-over-month decline in total sales (23-30% depending on home type) it’s obvious it’s not a lack of demand but rather a function of extremely low supply. This is made even more apparent with this month’s staggering increases in Benchmark Prices:

• Detached Home: 4.6%
• Townhome: 4.0%
• Condo: 4.6%

What does this mean for the development land market in the Fraser Valley?

The residential land market is on fire. Prices are jumping every month and that brings speculators looking to tie up sites to flip them, often trying to pull it off before subject removal. For sellers of development land, it’s never been more important to pay attention to who the potential purchaser is.

Anecdotally, we’ve experienced an increase in the frequency of conversations around potentially having reached the peak of the market, as some believe the tip of the frothiness may be pruned off by increases in interest rates anticipated for the second half of this year. This, combined with the prospect of selling at today’s outrageous land prices, has some developer clients considering disposing of a site earlier than anticipated (ie. securing a purchaser for a zoned or serviced site well in advance of the application approval).

Check out our curated summary of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board’s January stats in our infographic below.

View the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board’s entire stats package for January 2022 here.

This representation is based in whole or in part on data generated by the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board which assumes no responsibility for its accuracy.