Quick answer: Greater Vancouver REALTORS lowered its 2026 sales forecast to 23,050 transactions, down from an earlier target of 24,900. Condos are absorbing most of the weakness while attached and detached homes are holding closer to flat. Inventory has started to pull back, which could support prices even without a jump in buyer demand.

If you'd rather watch than read, hit play below.

The recovery that didn't show up

At the start of the year, GVR forecast sales across Greater Vancouver would climb 4.6 percent, landing at 24,900 by year end. That forecast has now been revised down to 23,050, a 3.2 percent drop from last year.

Sales are sitting 6.2 percent below GVR's own target on a year to date basis. July came in 18.6 percent below the 10 year seasonal average for that month.

This isn't a market falling apart. It's a market that keeps trying to recover and can't build momentum. June showed signs of improvement. July pulled back again.

Why buyer demand hasn't returned

Inventory is elevated, so buyers have choice. Prices have already corrected, so affordability has improved. Borrowing costs have held steady at 2.25 percent since October of last year, according to the Bank of Canada.

On paper, conditions favour buyers more than they have in years. Sales remain weak anyway.

GVR points to a few explanations, including a slowdown in immigration, fewer investors participating, and ongoing trade uncertainty with the US. One data point from the Bank of Canada's Survey of Consumer Expectations stands out: buyers in British Columbia report more hesitancy to participate than buyers elsewhere in Canada, while sellers report more eagerness to list than sellers elsewhere in the country.

Vancouver doesn't have a shortage of homes for sale right now. It has a shortage of buyers ready to decide.

Condos are absorbing most of the weakness

GVR's 2026 sales forecast by property type:

• Apartments: down 8.6 percent

• Attached homes: up 2.2 percent

• Detached: up 1.1 percent

Two property types are close to flat. One is doing almost all the pulling back.

I have a client right now who owns a half duplex and a condo, both in Vancouver East. The duplex will sell for less than they'd hoped, but they purchased back in 2012, so there's real appreciation built in. They'll come out ahead there. The condo tells a different story. They'll still come out ahead, but the subarea data shows softer performance in that segment than in the duplex's right now. Same owner, same part of the city, two segments reacting differently.

When someone tells you the Vancouver market is down, the real question is which Vancouver market. A Downtown one bedroom and an East Van detached home are not behaving the same way this year.

The number worth watching closer than the sales figure

New listings have started to decline. Active inventory is coming down from recent highs, and GVR expects that trend to continue.

A market doesn't need more buyers to tighten. It can also tighten with fewer sellers.

Picture a hundred listings and ten buyers. Now picture seventy five listings and the same ten buyers. Demand hasn't moved. The balance has.

Prices could hold without the market recovering

GVR's price forecast for year end:

• Apartments: $750,000, down 0.7 percent

• Attached: $1,215,000, down 1.2 percent

• Detached: $2,030,000, down 1.4 percent

• Market total: $1,230,000, up 0.2 percent

Every individual category is forecast to decline. The overall market average is forecast to rise. That's a mix effect. If detached homes make up a larger share of sales relative to condos this year, the average shifts up even while every segment on its own is softening.

The category you're buying or selling in tells you more than the market total ever will.

What this means if you're selling

Buyers have options right now and aren't feeling urgency. Overpricing gets punished fast, especially in the condo segment where inventory is heaviest.

The comparable sale from three weeks ago carries more weight than what your neighbour listed for and hasn't sold. Testing a price five percent above the evidence tends to produce the same result: days on market climb, interest moves to the next listing, and a price reduction follows from a weaker position than the first number would have held.

What this means if you're buying

Selection, time, and room to negotiate all favour buyers right now.

If inventory really has started to peak, the strongest negotiating window may come before the market's recovery is obvious to everyone else. Leverage tends to be strongest right before it gets noticed, and weakest right after.

What actually changed

Demand is weak, and condos are absorbing most of it. At the same time, new listings are starting to pull back.

The next phase of this market may not come from a flood of buyers returning. It could come from fewer properties available to compete over. That shift in inventory is the number worth watching closer than the sales forecast.

FAQ

Is the Vancouver real estate market down in 2026? Sales are behind GVR's original forecast for the year, and the association has revised its 2026 target down to 23,050 transactions. Performance varies significantly by property type and neighbourhood.

Why are condo sales weaker than detached and attached homes? GVR's 2026 forecast shows apartments down 8.6 percent while attached and detached homes are close to flat. Reduced investor participation, affordability sensitivity among entry-level buyers, and heavier condo inventory are likely contributing factors.

Will Vancouver home prices go up or down in 2026? GVR forecasts a slight decline in every individual property category, apartments, attached, and detached, but a slight increase in the overall market average. That's a mix effect caused by the proportion of higher priced sales shifting, not a rise in individual property values.

Is now a good time to buy in Vancouver? Buyers currently have more selection and negotiating room than they've had in a few years. Inventory has started to decline, which could reduce that leverage before broader market conditions shift.

Is now a good time to sell in Vancouver? Pricing accurately matters more than usual right now. Buyers have options and are comparing listings closely, so overpriced homes tend to sit and require reductions.

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Quick answer: Not every part of the market has softened equally. Westside detached prices have pulled back roughly 13% from their 2024 peak and are close to where they stood in 2020, while Downtown condo prices, what most upsizers are actually selling, are down only about 5% from their 2022 peak. That gap between the two is smaller than it's been in years, which is worth knowing before you decide whether to wait or move.

If you'd rather watch than read, hit play below.

Is now a good time to upsize?

That's the question I keep getting asked, and my answer usually starts the same way. It depends on what you're actually upsizing into.

Right now, there isn't one Vancouver market. Condos, detached homes, and duplexes are telling three different stories. If you're reading the headlines and trying to make a decision off the aggregate number, you're reading the wrong number.

A few months back, I put out a video called Don't Buy a Duplex in Vancouver Until You Watch This. Not long after, someone reached out. They'd just had an offer accepted on a Westside duplex, and after watching the video, they had more questions than answers. They already had their own realtor on the deal, they just wanted a second opinion before removing subjects.

I won't tell you who this is, and I won't point at an address. But the numbers behind their situation are real, they're public record, and they say something worth understanding if you're weighing the same decision.

What the board data actually shows

Greater Vancouver Realtors put the benchmark price for a Vancouver Westside detached home at just over $3 million in July, down 7.5% from a year earlier. Active listings are down close to 14% year over year, and sales are actually up 8% over the same period, fewer homes coming to market, slightly more of them selling.

The sales to active ratio sits at roughly 9%. SnapStats classifies anything under 12% as buyer's market territory, so this segment is sitting comfortably inside that range.

It's not one flat story even within Westside detached. SnapStats has Kitsilano at a 37% sales ratio right now, a seller's market by any definition. Shaughnessy, same city, same segment, is sitting at 3%.

Looking at the SnapStats annual numbers for Westside detached going back to 2020: the median sale price that year was just over $3,043,000. It climbed from there, peaking in 2024 at $3,521,000. Year to date this year, it's sitting at $3,073,000, roughly 13% off the 2024 peak, and almost exactly where it stood six years ago. Not a small dip. A round trip.

The other side of the equation

Most people upsizing out of a condo aren't selling into this same softness. According to SnapStats, the median price for a Downtown Vancouver condo or townhome peaked in 2022 at just under $807,000. Year to date this year, it's sitting at $766,400, down about 5% off the peak.

Compare that to Westside detached, down roughly 13% off its own peak. Two completely different speeds. When the thing you're selling barely moves while the thing you're buying drops hard, the gap between them changes. That's what I call the spread, and right now, in this specific segment, it's compressed in a way we haven't seen in years.

A real example

The duplex the person above was buying into sat on a lot that used to be one property. A developer bought the lot, tore down what was there, and under the city's current zoning built two units side by side, each sold separately but tied to the same land, the same original cost, and often the same construction timeline.

Both units came to market within weeks of each other last spring, both listed at just over $2.5 million. The first unit sold this spring, after several listing attempts and close to a year on the market, closing at just under $1.9 million, roughly $700,000 off where it started.

The second unit is the one this buyer had the accepted offer on. That sale hasn't closed yet. It's accepted at just under $1.8 million, even lower than what its twin next door had already sold for. Same development, same builder, same product, and the second time around it took even longer and landed even lower. That's real price discovery, playing out twice in a row on the same block.

To be clear: this doesn't mean every Westside duplex is losing money, or that the whole market has gone soft. One deal is one deal. But it happened inside a broader pattern, and that pattern is backed by real board numbers, not a feeling.

Where this leaves you

Every move-up decision comes down to a gap, the gap between what your current place is worth and what the next one costs you. That gap isn't fixed. It moves.

Say your condo is worth roughly what it was two years ago, give or take a normal single-digit move. Say the detached or duplex product you want has pulled back double digits, in some cases closer to 30% off its peak. The gap between you just got smaller, not because your condo lost value, but because the other side came down to meet you.

None of this erases the size of the decision. Selling a place you've lived in for years, and betting on a bigger commitment, isn't small. But knowing where the numbers actually sit beats making that decision blind.

I don't predict bottoms, nobody credible does. But there's a pattern worth knowing: historically in Vancouver, the detached market has tended to correct before the rest of the market catches up, usually because it's the highest priced, most rate-sensitive corner of the market. Will it happen exactly that way again? I don't know. History doesn't repeat itself so much as it rhymes, and right now, this rhyme is hard to ignore.

This isn't about timing the bottom. It's about reading your position inside it.

If you've been sitting on the fence for a year or two, waiting for some signal that never quite arrives, this is worth treating as that signal. Not a guarantee. A reason to actually run your numbers instead of continuing to wait.

If you're considering a duplex purchase specifically, I put together a checklist covering exactly what to check before you remove subjects, from the neighbour conversation nobody wants to have to who's responsible for the roof if only one side leaks.

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Quick answer

A low strata fee in an older building is rarely a sign of good management. It is more often a sign that repairs and replacements are being delayed instead of funded. The cost does not disappear. It shows up later as a special levy, and it lands on whoever owns the unit at the time.

Everyone tells you low strata fees are a good sign. Buyers see a number lower than the building next door and read it as savings.

In an older building, that number usually means something else.

A low fee does not mean the building costs less to run. It means someone decided not to pay for something yet. Roofs, piping, elevators, parkades, and building envelope work still need funding whether the strata is saving for them or not. If the fee looks low compared to what those items actually cost, the difference has not disappeared. It has been deferred to the next owner.

I break down the full review process, including the documents themselves, in this video. If you'd rather watch than read, hit play below

What I found inside one Metro Vancouver building

I recently reviewed a building for a client where the fees had stayed flat for years. On paper it looked efficient. Inside the documents, a different story was buried in the numbers.

The council had paid themselves out of the contingency reserve fund without an owner vote. Once that surfaced, two of three council members resigned. One person was left running the building. Basic maintenance stopped. Broken mailboxes went unrepaired for months, and the management firm handling the books was reconsidering the contract.

About half the owners do not live in the building full time. The rest cycle through as investment tenants. Nobody in that mix had a reason to push for higher fees. The people who might have cared were not there to raise it.

This is not a rare pattern. It is the pattern that shows up whenever fees sit lower than they should for a building's age.

Reading the depreciation report and the Form K count

Two documents tell you more than the fee ever will.

The first is the depreciation report. This is where a strata is required to project upcoming repairs, their cost, and how the building plans to fund them. The number to watch for is not the total. It is the pattern of major items pushed to "next report" across multiple cycles. A roof that has been three years away for the last three reports is not three years away. It is being avoided.

The second is the Form K count. A Form K is filed when an owner rents out their unit. A building with a high number of them is a building with a heavy concentration of investor owners, and investor owners are often motivated to keep fees frozen to protect their cash flow, regardless of what the building actually needs. A high Form K count does not mean a building is poorly run. It means you should look harder at who is voting on the budget and why.

BC's reserve fund rules, and why the legal minimum isn't enough

Since late 2023, BC law has required stratas to contribute at least 10 percent of their operating budget to the contingency reserve fund each year, and to maintain a minimum reserve equal to 25 percent of that budget.

That sounds like protection. It is a floor, not a target.

The 25 percent figure is calculated against the operating budget, which covers day to day costs like insurance, cleaning, and utilities. It has nothing to do with what a roof, an elevator, or a parkade membrane actually costs to replace. A building can meet the legal minimum and still be nowhere close to funded for the work its depreciation report says is coming.

The deferral loophole that closed in 2024

Until July 1, 2024, a strata could vote at its AGM to defer its depreciation report for up to 18 months at a time. Some buildings used that provision repeatedly and pushed a real report off for close to a decade.

That loophole is closed now. A catch up deadline landed in July 2026 across Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, and the Capital Regional District, and buildings that deferred for years are now producing real numbers for the first time. Industry estimates put the true annual cost of condo repairs and levies at over $2,000 per unit for an average BC condo, and closer to $3,000 for older buildings. For a lot of owners, this is the first time that number has been in writing.

Insurance: the piece most buyers never check

Over 60 percent of BC stratas now carry water deductibles above $50,000. In older buildings, or buildings with a claims history, that number climbs to $250,000 or $500,000.

A single water event in a building like that is not a minor claim. It is a bill the strata absorbs directly, and that bill gets covered one of two ways: a fee increase or a special levy. Buildings with deferred maintenance and thin records often struggle to secure reasonable insurance at all, which pushes the cost onto owners either way.

This is not a line item most buyers think to ask about. It should be.

Why this shows up on resale, not on purchase

None of this is visible from the unit. New paint and a renovated kitchen tell you what the home looks like today. They tell you nothing about what ownership costs next.

The building I described above is not only a buyer's problem. If you already own there, the same governance gap and the same underfunded reserve are sitting on your equity right now. A special assessment affects roughly 1 in 6 Canadian condo buildings over any given five year stretch. When it lands, buyers do not just see a bill. They see a governance problem, and that narrows your buyer pool fast.

The checklist I run before recommending a purchase

Before I recommend a client move forward on a strata purchase, I check:

• The contingency reserve fund balance against the 25 percent legal minimum, and against what the depreciation report says the building actually needs

• Whether the building is self-managed, and how active the current council is

• The Form K count, as a signal for investor concentration

• Whether the depreciation report was authored by a licensed professional and dated after July 2025

• All three required funding models in the report, not just the executive summary

• The most recent insurance renewal and the current deductible

A renovated unit tells you how the home looks today. The documents tell you what ownership might actually cost next.

Final thought

A low fee is not a discount. It is a delay. The question is not whether the cost is coming. It is who happens to own the unit when it arrives.

If you are looking at a building right now and want a second set of eyes on the strata documents before you write an offer, I review the full package, free, before you commit to anything.

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Frequently asked questions

Are low strata fees always a bad sign? Not always. In a newer building with a well-funded reserve, a lower fee can genuinely reflect efficient management. In an older building, a fee that has stayed flat for years while major building components age is far more often a sign of deferred maintenance than savings.

What is a depreciation report? A depreciation report is a document that projects a building's major repairs and replacements over a set time horizon, along with their estimated cost and how the strata plans to fund them. It is the clearest picture available of what a building actually needs financially, separate from what the current fee suggests.

What does a high Form K count mean? A Form K is filed whenever an owner rents out their unit. A high count signals a building with a large share of investor owners, who are often motivated to keep fees low to protect their rental cash flow. It is worth checking, not because investor ownership is automatically bad, but because it changes who is voting on the budget and why.

What is the legal minimum for a strata's contingency reserve fund in BC? Since late 2023, BC law requires stratas to contribute at least 10 percent of the operating budget annually to the contingency reserve fund and maintain a minimum reserve of 25 percent of that budget. This is a legal floor, not a guarantee that the building is funded for its actual major repairs.

Why did depreciation reports change in 2024 and 2026? Until July 1, 2024, stratas could vote to defer their depreciation report every 18 months, and some deferred for close to a decade. That loophole closed in 2024. A catch up deadline landed in July 2026 for Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, and the Capital Regional District, forcing many buildings to produce a real report for the first time in years.

Sources: BC Strata Property Act, Greater Vancouver REALTORS®

Based on July 2026 Market Data

The Greater Vancouver REALTORS release leads with home sales losing momentum. Residential sales across Metro Vancouver totalled 2,061 in July, down 9.8 per cent from July 2025 and 18.6 per cent below the ten year seasonal average.

That reads as a demand problem.

But new listings in July came in at 4,991, down 11.5 per cent year over year, with apartment listings down nearly 17 per cent. New listings essentially matched the ten year seasonal average of 4,992, while sales ran far below it.

Demand stepped back. Supply stepped back harder. That distinction changes what the rest of the data means.

Metro Vancouver Overview

Total active listings sit at 16,476, down 4 per cent from July 2025 and still 26.8 per cent above the ten year average.

The overall sales to active listings ratio is 13 per cent, breaking down to 10.5 per cent for detached, 15.8 per cent for attached and 14 per cent for apartments.

GVR's own guidance is that downward price pressure tends to appear when the ratio sits below 12 per cent for a sustained period, and upward pressure above 20 per cent. Detached is inside the softening zone. Condos and townhomes sit just above it.

The composite benchmark price is $1,088,800, down 6.2 per cent year over year and 0.9 per cent from June. Apartment sales totalled 952, down 17.8 per cent year over year, with a benchmark of $688,000.

Vancouver Westside

Westside condos and townhomes came in at a 14 per cent sales ratio, down from 17 per cent in June.

The area average understates what happened underneath it. Kitsilano condos fell from a 42 per cent sales ratio in June to 20 per cent in July. Fairview fell from 45 per cent to 25 per cent. Those were the two strongest Westside condo pockets sixty days earlier.

False Creek moved the other direction, rising from 12 per cent to 23 per cent.

Westside detached sits at a 10 per cent sales ratio, selling roughly 3 per cent below list. Days on market rose from 19 in June to 29 in July. Point Grey is at 6 per cent with 103 active listings, Shaughnessy at 3 per cent with 80, South Granville at 6 per cent with 77.

Vancouver Eastside

Eastside condos and townhomes ran a 19 per cent sales ratio, up from 18 per cent in June.

The improvement came from the supply side rather than the demand side. Inventory fell 11 per cent from 767 to 684 while sales moved only from 139 to 132.

Meanwhile the sale to list price ratio dropped from 97 per cent to 93 per cent. Homes are selling at roughly 7 per cent below asking.

Eastside detached moved from a 15 per cent ratio in June to 10 per cent in July, but days on market remained at 16 with homes selling within 2 per cent of asking.

Downtown Vancouver

Downtown attached inventory has declined for five consecutive months: 1,033 in May, 975 in June, 917 in July. Sales over the same period ran 120, 143 and 134. The sales ratio held at 15 per cent in both June and July.

Homes are selling at 99 per cent of list price with 30 days on market.

By community, Coal Harbour and Yaletown are both at 18 per cent, the Downtown core at 14 per cent and the West End at 11 per cent.

Across all of Vancouver West, only two condo areas avoided a year over year benchmark decline: Coal Harbour, up 0.4 per cent, and False Creek, up 0.2 per cent. Yaletown condos are down 10.5 per cent and the West End is down 9.7 per cent over the same period.

Downtown three bedroom units are running an 8 per cent sales ratio with 102 listings against 8 sales.

Other Metro Vancouver Areas

North Vancouver condos and townhomes cooled from 20 per cent in June to 16 per cent in July. North Van detached moved from 23 per cent to 17 per cent.

West Vancouver detached is the softest segment in the report at 7 per cent, with homes selling 9 per cent below list price on average.

Richmond attached sits at 12 per cent and detached at 10 per cent. Tsawwassen detached is at 16 per cent and attached at 12 per cent. Ladner detached is at 11 per cent and attached at 15 per cent.

Interest Rates: What Is Actually Moving Fixed Mortgage Costs

The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25 per cent on July 15, 2026, its sixth consecutive hold. The next scheduled announcement is September 2, 2026.

Despite that stability, fixed mortgage rates have been drifting upward. Fixed rates are priced off Government of Canada bond yields rather than the overnight rate. The five year yield has been sitting just above 3 per cent and rose again in early August as tensions around the Strait of Hormuz pushed oil and global yields higher.

The US Federal Reserve held its benchmark rate on July 29, 2026, with three of twelve voting members dissenting in favour of an increase. Elevated US Treasury yields tend to pull Canadian yields with them.

The practical outcome is that the best five year fixed rates have moved back above 4 per cent while the best variable rates sit closer to 3.5 per cent.

This is a variable to watch rather than a forecast. Anyone timing a decision around rates should track the five year Government of Canada bond yield.

What This Means If You Are Buying

Negotiating room exists but is not evenly distributed. The deepest buyer's markets in this report are Westside detached above $3.5 million, West Vancouver, Point Grey, Shaughnessy and South Granville.

Downtown is the exception. Five consecutive months of falling inventory against steady sales means the assumption that more listings will always appear deserves testing.

Securing a rate hold is prudent given the bond market pressure described above.

What This Means If You Are Selling

The first price remains the most consequential decision.

The contrast between Eastside listings selling at 7 per cent below asking and Downtown listings selling at 1 per cent below asking is largely a pricing story rather than a market story.

Owners of Downtown one and two bedroom units are in one of the tighter supply positions in Metro Vancouver. Owners of Downtown three bedrooms, or Westside properties above $3 million, should price for the buyer pool that currently exists.

Where I Land

The July headline says momentum died. The data says sellers withdrew faster than buyers did.

Those are different markets requiring different strategies, and the difference only becomes visible at the neighbourhood level.

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Watch: Vancouver Real Estate Market Update, August 2026: Why Sellers Left Before Buyers Did

The July numbers say the market lost momentum, sales down 9.8 per cent year over year. The number four paragraphs down says something different: new listings dropped even faster, down 11.5 per cent. Sellers pulled back before buyers did.

In this month's update I walk through what actually happened across Metro Vancouver, neighbourhood by neighbourhood: why Downtown condo inventory has now fallen five straight months while sales held steady, why your June comparable in Kitsilano or Fairview is already stale, and what's actually moving fixed mortgage rates while the Bank of Canada sits still.

Not fear. Not drama. Just the patterns I've seen play out more than once.

Data sources: Greater Vancouver REALTORS® for the Metro Vancouver overview, SnapStats for area and neighbourhood breakdowns, and the Bank of Canada for policy-rate context.

JULY 2026 Market Update

What the headline says. What actually moved. And the one question to ask before you react.

Every time a headline like "Vancouver market picks up" drops, I get the same text within a day or two.

"Should I list now?"

Almost nobody asks what's happening underneath the headline. They just react to it.

So let's do the opposite.

The Metro Picture: Everyone Bought, Nobody Paid More

Greater Vancouver just posted its strongest month of sales in over a year.

• 2,390 sales in June, up 9.6% year over year

• Detached up almost 14%. Attached up over 11%. Condos up 6%.

That breadth is the real story. For two years, one property type would move while the others sat still. This time all three moved together, which GVR's chief economist flagged as a rare event and a possible early sign of demand returning.

But here's the part almost nobody reads far enough to find.

Prices barely moved.

The composite benchmark sits at just over $1,099,100, down 6% year over year and down one tenth of one percent from May. Basically flat.

Why? Because inventory is still sitting roughly 30% above the ten-year seasonal average. There are enough homes on the market to absorb the extra buyers without anyone having to pay up.

More people bought. Nobody paid more to do it.

That's a market waking up, not a market on fire.

One thing worth watching: new listings in June were actually down 6% from last year. Demand ticking up while fresh supply slows down is the first combination in a while that could genuinely start shrinking inventory. Too early to call. But it's on the watch list.

The Rate Question: What You're Actually Waiting On

The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25% on July 15th, its sixth hold in a row.

The reason matters. Oil prices spiked earlier this year on the Middle East conflict. That's a supply shock, which pushes inflation up even while it slows growth down, and that boxes the Bank in. It can't cut into rising inflation without risking making inflation worse.

The good news buried in that: oil has come off its spring peak, and June inflation eased to 2.8% from 3.2%. The pressure is releasing, slowly.

So if you're waiting for rates to drop before you buy, understand what you're waiting on. Not Vancouver. A barrel of oil half a world away. A real variable, but not one I'd build a purchase timeline around.

The Condo Buyback Program, and Why It Skips Your Market

You've likely heard about the government plan to buy unsold new condos. Here's the honest version.

It's a joint federal and provincial program, announced in June, to acquire more than 2,200 completed but unsold units and convert them to affordable housing. The backdrop is real: CMHC reported nearly 4,400 finished, unsold condo units across Metro Vancouver as of May, up 76% in a single year.

But the Premier said plainly the program won't work in the City of Vancouver, because prices here are too high for it to pencil out. The target is the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan, and Vancouver Island.

If you own or buy a condo in Vancouver proper, Downtown, the Westside, the Eastside, this program is not aimed at your market. Developers have pushed back publicly, the financing is still being worked out, and it could still shift. When it firms up, I'll do a full breakdown. For now, for your market, it's noise.

Westside: One Label, Opposite Planets

"Westside condos" hides more than it tells you.

• Fairview 45%. Kitsilano 42%. Genuine seller's markets, on real volume.

• Cambie 7%. Oakridge 5%. South Cambie 4%. South Granville 5%. Buyer's markets, a few minutes away.

Same label. Opposite planets. If you own in Kitsilano, you're in a strong spot. If you own in South Cambie, the data says something very different.

And Westside detached is a buyer's market in its own right: benchmark just over $3 million, down more than 9% year over year, sales ratio at 11%. The high end, Shaughnessy and South Granville, is where the softness concentrates. If your budget reaches there, it's one of the more negotiable environments in years.

Eastside: Where the Average Lies

Eastside looks calm on the surface, 18% attached and 15% detached. Balanced.

Underneath: Main 30%. Knight 27%. Hastings and Mount Pleasant around 24%. Grandview Woodland 21%.

The average tells you the Eastside is fine. The neighbourhood number tells you where it's actually working.

Downtown: The 13% That Isn't What You Think

Here's the number making the rounds. Downtown attached median sale price went from $787,500 in May to $890,000 in June. That's a 13% jump.

It isn't appreciation.

Days on market didn't fall. It rose, from 22 to 28 days, a 27% increase. In a market that's genuinely heating up, homes sell faster, not slower.

What actually happened: the mix of what sold shifted toward larger two-bedroom units, and more sales came out of Yaletown (a 20% sales ratio, the strongest read in the core) versus the Downtown-proper submarket at just 10%. Bigger units in a pricier pocket pull the average up, even when no individual condo is worth a dollar more than it was a month ago.

The price of what sold went up. The value of what you own did not.

That's not appreciation. That's arithmetic.

The Market Nobody's Watching

While everyone stares at Downtown, the real heat is in North Vancouver.

Detached sales ratio 23%. Days on market fell from 15 to 10. Median price up 5% in a single month to just over $2 million. Lynn Valley at 29%, Deep Cove at 24%. Quietly the tightest market in the whole package.

Everywhere else held roughly steady. West Vancouver is still a buyer's market (8% detached, 32 days). Richmond is balanced. Ladner and Tsawwassen are choppy month to month on small samples, so read the trend, not the swing.

The Move-Up Window Quietly Opening

For anyone thinking about trading up: on the Westside, condo prices are down about 5.5% year over year while detached is down more than 9%. When the pricier tier falls faster, the gap between them compresses, and moving up gets mathematically easier, even though the calendar didn't change.

We don't call the bottom. We watch the spread. Right now, on the Westside, it's compressing.

The Playbook

If you're buying: Cambie, Oakridge, South Cambie, South Granville, and softer Westside detached pockets have real room to negotiate. And don't let "Downtown condos are up 13%" talk you out of a fair offer.

If you're selling: North Vancouver detached and the strong Westside condo pockets (Fairview, Kitsilano) reward discipline fastest right now. Everywhere else, the metro uptick is real but not yet strong enough to rescue a bad price.

The One Thing to Take Away

The metro headline is good news, and it's real. But it's demand returning to a market that still has the inventory to absorb it, not a market where you can suddenly ask for more.

And any eye-catching number deserves one question before you react to it: what actually moved, the price or the mix? This month, it was the mix.

Don't let the loudest number in the room set your expectations. Ask what's underneath it first.

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Data sources: Greater Vancouver REALTORS (GVR) for the Metro overview. SnapStats for neighbourhood-level reads. Bank of Canada for the July 15 rate decision. CMHC for unsold-inventory figures.

Every time a headline like "Vancouver market picks up" appears, I hear the same question within a day or two: should I list now? Almost nobody asks what is happening underneath the headline. They react to the headline itself.

June 2026 is a perfect example of why that is a mistake. Greater Vancouver just posted its strongest sales month in over a year, and at the same time a single Downtown number started circulating that looks like something it is not. Let's work through both, starting with the whole picture and finishing with the Downtown number that deserves the most careful reading.

The Metro Picture: More Buyers, Flat Prices

Greater Vancouver REALTORS reported 2,390 residential sales in June 2026, up 9.6 percent from the same month last year. What makes it notable is the breadth. Detached sales rose almost 14 percent, attached sales rose more than 11 percent, and even condos, the slow lane all year, rose 6 percent. For roughly two years the market has traded sideways, with one property type moving while the others sat still. In June, all three moved together, which GVR's chief economist described as a rare occurrence and a possible early sign that demand is returning more broadly.

Here is the part that most headlines skip. Prices barely moved. The composite MLS Home Price Index benchmark for all residential property sits at about $1,099,100, down 6 percent year over year and down one tenth of one percent from May. Effectively flat.

The reason is supply. Active listings remain roughly 30 percent above the ten-year seasonal average, which means there is enough inventory on the market to absorb the extra buyers without anyone having to pay up. More people bought, and nobody paid more to do it. That is a market waking up, not a market on fire.

One trend worth watching: new listings in June were down 6 percent from a year earlier. Rising demand paired with slowing new supply is the first combination in a while that could actually begin to shrink the inventory overhang that has been capping prices. It is too early to call, but it is the signal I am watching most closely heading into the fall.

The Rate Question: What You Are Actually Waiting On

The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25 percent on July 15, 2026, its sixth consecutive hold. The reason is worth understanding. Oil prices spiked earlier in the year on the conflict in the Middle East, and an oil-driven price shock pushes inflation up even while it slows economic growth down. That combination boxes the Bank in, because cutting rates into rising inflation risks making inflation worse.

The encouraging part is that oil has come off its spring peak, and June inflation eased to 2.8 percent from 3.2 percent. The pressure keeping rates elevated is releasing, slowly. So if you are waiting for lower rates before buying, recognize what you are actually waiting on. Not Vancouver. A barrel of oil half a world away. It is a genuine variable, but not one to build a purchase timeline around.

The Condo Buyback Program, and Why It Skips the City of Vancouver

There has been a lot of discussion about a government plan to purchase unsold new condos. The accurate version is that it is a joint federal and provincial program, announced in June 2026, to acquire more than 2,200 completed but unsold units and convert them to affordable housing. The backdrop is real: CMHC reported nearly 4,400 completed and unsold condo units across Metro Vancouver as of May 2026, a 76 percent increase in a single year.

Crucially, the Premier stated the program would not work in the City of Vancouver, where prices are too high for it to pencil out. The target regions are the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan, and Vancouver Island. So for anyone buying or selling a condo in Vancouver proper, whether Downtown, the Westside, or the Eastside, this program is not aimed at your market. Developers have pushed back publicly, the financing mechanism is still being finalized, and the details could still change.

Vancouver Westside: One Label, Very Different Markets

"Westside condos" is a label that hides more than it reveals. In June, Fairview posted a 45 percent sales ratio and Kitsilano a 42 percent ratio, both on healthy sales volume. Those are genuine seller's markets. A few minutes away, Cambie sat at 7 percent, Oakridge at 5 percent, South Cambie at 4 percent, and South Granville at 5 percent. Those are buyer's markets. Same label, opposite conditions.

Westside detached is its own buyer's market, with a benchmark just above $3 million, down more than 9 percent year over year, and a sales ratio of 11 percent. The softness concentrates at the high end, in areas like Shaughnessy and South Granville. For buyers whose budgets reach into those pockets, it is one of the more negotiable environments the Westside has offered in years.

Vancouver Eastside: The Borough Number Hides the Story

The Eastside looks calm on the surface, at 18 percent for attached and 15 percent for detached. Underneath, several neighbourhoods are considerably more active: Main at 30 percent, Knight at 27 percent, Hastings and Mount Pleasant around 24 percent, and Grandview Woodland at 21 percent. The borough number tells you the Eastside is fine. The neighbourhood number tells you where it is actually working.

Downtown Vancouver: The 13 Percent That Is Not Appreciation

Here is the number circulating this month. The Downtown attached median sale price rose from $787,500 in May to $890,000 in June, a jump of about 13 percent. Read on its own, it looks like Downtown suddenly went red hot. It did not.

The clearest evidence is days on market, which did not fall but rose, from 22 days to 28, a 27 percent increase. In a market that is genuinely heating up, homes sell faster, not slower.

What actually happened is a change in the mix of what sold. More two-bedroom units cleared relative to one-bedrooms, and a larger share of June's sales came out of Yaletown, which posted a 20 percent sales ratio, the strongest read in the core, compared with the Downtown-proper submarket at just 10 percent. Two-bedrooms cost more than one-bedrooms, and Yaletown units on average cost more than Downtown-core units. When the units that happen to sell in a given month skew larger and pricier, the average sale price rises, even if no individual condo is worth more than it was thirty days earlier. The price of what sold went up. The value of what you own did not. That is arithmetic, not appreciation.

The Market Nobody Is Watching: North Vancouver

While attention sits on Downtown, the tightest market in the region is North Vancouver detached, at a 23 percent sales ratio. Days on market fell from 15 to 10, and the median price rose 5 percent in a single month to just over $2 million, with Lynn Valley at 29 percent and Deep Cove at 24 percent. North Vancouver condos are firm as well, with Lower Lonsdale and Central Lonsdale both in the low twenties.

Elsewhere held roughly steady. West Vancouver remains a buyer's market at 8 percent for detached, with 32 days on market and a benchmark down almost 8 percent year over year. Richmond is balanced across the board. Ladner and Tsawwassen remain choppy month to month, largely because small sample sizes make one or two extra sales swing the ratio, so it is better to read the trend than any single month.

The Move-Up Window

For anyone considering a move up, there is a quiet opportunity in these numbers. On the Westside, condo prices are down about 5.5 percent year over year while detached is down more than 9 percent. When the more expensive tier falls faster than the cheaper one, the gap between them compresses, and moving up becomes mathematically easier even though nothing about the timing changed. The strategy is not to call the bottom, which no one can do reliably, but to watch the spread. Right now, on the Westside, that spread is compressing.

The Playbook

For buyers, the softer pockets of the Westside, including Cambie, Oakridge, South Cambie, and South Granville, along with softer Westside detached, still have real room to negotiate. And the Downtown 13 percent figure should not talk you out of a fair offer, because it is not measuring what it appears to measure.

For sellers, North Vancouver detached and the strong Westside condo pockets of Fairview and Kitsilano reward correct pricing the fastest right now. Everywhere else, the metro uptick is real but not yet strong enough to rescue a listing that is priced too high.

The Takeaway

The metro headline is good news, and it is genuine. More buyers came off the sidelines across every category for the first time in a long while. But it is demand returning to a market that still has enough inventory to absorb it, not a market where sellers can suddenly ask for more.

And any single eye-catching number deserves one question before you react to it: what actually moved, the price or the mix? This month, in Downtown, it was the mix. Do not let the loudest number in the room set your expectations. Ask what is underneath it first.

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Data sources: Greater Vancouver REALTORS (GVR) for the Metro Vancouver overview, SnapStats for neighbourhood-level data, the Bank of Canada for the July 15, 2026 rate decision, and CMHC for unsold-inventory figures.

If you're weighing a Vancouver presale condo against a resale unit right now, the math behind that decision has changed — and not in a small way. For about a decade, buying presale was a genuine strategy. Today, for most buyers, it isn't the obvious win it used to be. I know because I made the call myself, and I paid for the lesson.

Here's what actually changed, and how I'd think it through if I were deciding today.

The presale pitch worked — for a decade

The pitch was simple, and for years it was true. You buy early. You lock today's price. The building takes three, four, five years to finish. While you wait, the market climbs — and you walk into a unit worth more than you paid.

Between 2015 and 2021, in a market rising 10, 15, even 20 percent a year, that worked. Locking in a price and waiting was a real strategy that made real money for real people.

But the whole thing rested on one condition: prices keep going up while you wait. That was never guaranteed. It just felt like it was.

The part most buyers never separated out

Here's what gets missed. In a presale, the appreciation wasn't a bonus. It was your payment — the compensation you received in exchange for taking on four real risks most buyers never fully price.

When you buy a presale, you're not just buying a condo. You're buying four risks stacked on top of it:

• Construction risk — the building can come in late, or different from the renderings. Materials get swapped. Views get blocked by towers that didn't exist when you signed.

• Financing risk — you qualify today, but you close in three or four years, under conditions nobody can predict.

• Timeline risk — your life stays on hold while a building finishes on someone else's schedule.

• Market risk — if prices fall between signing and completion, you reach the end of a multi-year wait holding a unit worth less than you paid.

For years, appreciation covered all four. That was the deal.

The number the sales centre won't give you

Market risk deserves a closer look, because it's designed to be hard to see.

You pass a sales centre. A few weeks later a sign goes up: "60% sold." Something in you relaxes. The building's moving. You're right on time.

But that number leaves out the two things that actually matter. It doesn't tell you over what period. And it doesn't tell you 60 percent of what — the whole building, or just the units released in one early phase priced to step up later.

The number that would actually measure your risk is how close the project is to the pre-sales it needs to secure construction financing. Lenders generally want to see a significant share of units pre-sold — often in the range of 60 to 70 percent — before releasing that financing. That live figure sits with the developer's management, not the front desk. I work in this industry, and even I can't walk in and get a straight answer without knowing someone on the inside.

That's not a conspiracy. It's marketing doing exactly what it's built to do. But it means the number you can see is the reassuring one, and the number that would tell you your real risk is the one nobody's handing out.

What happened to me

When I bought my presale in 2022, the developer gave me roughly a hundred thousand dollars in decorator allowances and incentives. It felt like a tremendous deal — like I'd won before I'd even moved in. From the outside, you'd assume I was protected. A hundred grand in credits, how do you lose?

I sold it in 2025. I still lost money.

Not because the incentives weren't real — they were. It's that the market underneath the deal moved, and when that happens, a hundred thousand in allowances doesn't save you. It just changes the number you lose by.

That's the part I want you to sit with. The incentives weren't the deal. They were the distraction from the deal. They had me looking at the credit instead of the one question that actually decided the outcome: was the market going to pay me to take this risk, or charge me for it?

I'm not sharing this to complain. I made the call and I own it. I'm sharing it because I paid for a lesson a lot of buyers are learning right now.

Watch the full breakdown

Watch the full video on YouTube

The exit ramp that closed

It's not just my situation. The benchmark apartment price in Metro Vancouver is down close to 8 percent from a year ago (April 2026 data). For buyers who signed at peak in 2021 and 2022, the compensation didn't just shrink — it went negative.

And the escape hatch they were counting on is gone. There used to be an active assignment market: if your plans changed, you could sell your contract before completion, usually to an investor planning to flip. That market existed because investors believed prices would keep rising. The investors left. When nobody's buying to flip, there's nobody to assign to — not at a profit, sometimes not at all.

Peak-price buyers, completing into a lower market, with the exit they were counting on closed. That's not a price dip. That's a trap.

The real question isn't presale or resale

Here's the whole thing in one idea. The question was never "presale or resale?"

The real question is: am I being paid to take this risk, or am I paying extra for it?

For a decade, presale paid you. You took on the risk, and appreciation was your reward. In 2026, for most buyers, that's flipped. You carry the same four risks — but instead of being paid, you're often paying a premium for them, while a finished resale unit sits a few blocks away, cheaper, that you can walk through today.

Early used to mean ahead. Right now, for most buyers, early means exposed.

The supporting data is unusually clear. Metro Vancouver had zero concrete condo launches in Q1 2026, down from 152 the year before — the new-supply pipeline at the top end has effectively shut down. At the same time, CMHC data shows 4,376 completed and unsold condo units across Metro Vancouver as of May 2026, up sharply year over year — units that are finished, standing, and unsold. And on the resale side, in many buildings a used unit now costs less than the brand-new one being sold next door. The premium presale used to command didn't just narrow. It flipped.

One more variable worth watching: the Bank of Canada's policy rate is 2.25 percent as of June 2026. If you sign a presale today, you qualify at completion, not at today's rate. I won't predict where rates go — but if you're running presale numbers, run them across a few different scenarios. That's the variable that can move the picture most.

So should you ever buy presale?

Yes — sometimes. Anyone who tells you it's always one answer is selling you something.

There's a real presale buyer, even now: long time horizon, strong cash position, genuinely wants new construction, looking in a pocket where resale inventory is thin, buying from a developer with a real delivery record — and, most importantly, able to absorb a worst case without it breaking them. If that's you, some of the incentives developers are offering right now can be genuine value.

But that's not most people. Most buyers I talk to can find a solid resale unit in a well-run building, available now, for less money and less risk — and get on with their life instead of waiting three years to find out whether the floor plan they picked on paper actually works for how they live.

Four things I'd check before deciding

These are the four things I wish I'd done more carefully in 2022:

1. Run the side-by-side honestly. Same neighbourhood, same bedroom count, similar size. What does resale cost today? What do you actually know about it? How soon can you move in? That comparison alone settles most of these decisions.

2. Get a real read on the project's financing position — from somewhere other than the sales centre, because that's not where that answer lives. The further a project sits from the threshold it needs to get built, the more delay and cancellation risk you're carrying. That's what your own representation is for.

3. Treat any discount as a risk premium, not a win. A big incentive tells you the developer needs buyers. It doesn't tell you what the market will be worth when you close. Price the risk, not the discount.

4. Know your exit before you need one. If the plan was to assign the contract if things changed, that ramp is closed right now. Go in clear-eyed about what happens if your situation shifts.

The bottom line

Don't ask which one is better in the abstract. Ask whether you're being paid to take this risk, or paying for it. Right now, for most buyers, the answer points toward resale.

If you're working through this for a specific situation — a presale you're considering, or figuring out what's actually available in resale in the same neighbourhood — that's exactly the kind of conversation I have with people. No pitch. Just a straight look at your options.

Book a call — happy to give you an honest read on which side of that risk question you're on.

Chris Car Personal Real Estate Corporation | TRG The Residential Group Realty | Vancouver condo and strata specialist

In May, West Side detached home sales in Vancouver jumped 53% year over year. At the same time, the benchmark price is still down 8.5% from a year ago.

Those two numbers shouldn't both be true at once. The reason they are tells you almost everything about where this market actually stands right now — Vancouver doesn't have one housing market this month. It has several, and they're moving in completely different directions.

What the Data Is Actually Telling Us

Each month, two data sets get pulled together to build a full picture of the city: GVR REALTOR® Reports for year-over-year benchmarks, and SnapStats Metro Vancouver for neighbourhood-level speed and volume. This month, those two pictures diverge depending on which slice of the market you're looking at.

The honest answer to "is the market recovering?" is: it depends entirely on which market you're asking about. Spring also brings more listings onto the market every year — some of that is simply the calendar, not a signal on its own.

Sales Are Up. Prices Are Still Down.

Detached home sales are surging year over year — Vancouver West up 52.9%, Vancouver East up 28.2%. That's real buyer activity, not a blip.

But benchmark prices are still down 8–10% from a year ago:

• Vancouver West Detached: $3,025,000 (-8.5%)

• Vancouver East Detached: $1,654,900 (-9.7%)

Buyers are back. They're just not bidding up.

Condos tell a different story. Vancouver West condo sales are down 5.9% year over year — despite active listings dropping nearly 22%. There's less supply, and sales are still falling.

Two Markets, Two Different Stages

Here's what's actually happening: detached and condo buyers have reached completely different stages of price acceptance.

Detached buyers have done the math. At an 8–9% discount from last year, enough of them are pulling the trigger that sales volume is climbing. The floor feels close.

Condo buyers haven't gotten there yet. East Side condo days on market are up 41% year over year — 34 days to sell now versus 24 a year ago. Buyers are watching and qualifying, not acting.

Neighbourhood by Neighbourhood

Citywide averages hide real variation — and that's where your decision actually lives.

Downtown sits at a 13% sales ratio overall (balanced), but it varies block by block:

• Yaletown: 16%

• Coal Harbour: 13%

• West End: 12%

• Downtown core: 12%

• $600K–$700K band: 23% — a seller's market inside a balanced one

• $1.75M–$2.5M band: the softest segment downtown, real room to negotiate

East Side condos are running hotter than downtown or the West Side — 18% sales ratio overall. Mount Pleasant: 23%. Grandview-Woodland: 22%.

West Side condos are split. Fairview and Kitsilano are both at 25% — genuine seller's market territory. Marpole, Oakridge, and Point Grey are all sitting at 6% — real negotiating room for buyers.

One number worth flagging on its own: North Vancouver's median attached price jumped to $1,018,000 in April, up 18% from March. One month isn't a trend, but it's worth watching.

What This Means for You

• Buying detached? You're stepping into a segment with real momentum, and prices are still down from last year. That's leverage that may not last if this trend continues — that's a pattern I'm watching, not a prediction.

• Buying a condo? It depends where. Tight in Fairview, Kitsilano, and the $600K–$700K downtown band. More room in Marpole, Oakridge, Point Grey, and the $1.75M–$2.5M downtown range.

• Selling a condo? Buyers exist, but they're patient. Price sharp from day one — an overpriced condo doesn't slowly correct anymore, it just expires.

• Selling detached on the West Side? This may be your best window in 18 months. Sales are up 53%, but buyers are disciplined — meeting the market still matters.

Vancouver doesn't have one housing market right now. It has several — and your strategy depends entirely on which one you're actually in.

For the full neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood breakdown and the data behind it, watch the full video here. And if you want to talk through what these numbers mean for your specific situation, book a quick call — happy to go through the actual numbers with you.