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.
No pressure. Just strategy before the noise.
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