Metro Vancouver housing market sees steady summer activity

Home buyer and seller activity in Metro Vancouver exceeded historical levels in July.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential home sales in the region totalled 3,128 in July 2020, a 22.3 per cent increase from the 2,557 sales recorded in July 2019, and a 28 per cent increase from the 2,443 homes sold in June 2020.

Last month’s sales were 9.4 per cent above the 10-year July sales average.

“We're seeing the results today of pent up activity, from both home buyers and sellers, that had been accumulating in our market throughout the year,” Colette Gerber, REBGV Chair said. “Low interest rates and limited overall supply are also increasing competition across our market.”

There were 5,948 detached, attached and apartment properties newly listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in Metro Vancouver in July 2020. This represents a 28.9 per cent increase compared to the 4,613 homes listed in July 2019 and a 2.8 per cent increase compared to June 2020 when 5,787 homes were listed.

The total number of homes currently listed for sale on the MLS® system in Metro Vancouver is 12,083, a 15.1 per cent decrease compared to July 2019 (14,240) and a 5.8 per cent increase compared to June 2020 (11,424).

“Safety remains the top priority for our REALTOR® community,” Gerber said. “We continue to limit in-person interactions with clients and employ different technology solutions to ensure home buyers and sellers can get as much information as possible in a virtual setting.”

For all property types, the sales-to-active listings ratio for July 2020 is 25.9 per cent. By property type, the ratio is 25.1 per cent for detached homes, 31.1 per cent for townhomes, and 24.7 per cent for apartments.

Generally, analysts say that downward pressure on home prices occurs when the ratio dips below 12 per cent for a sustained period, while home prices often experience upward pressure when it surpasses 20 per cent over several months.

The MLS® Home Price Index composite benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver is currently $1,031,400. This represents a 4.5 per cent increase over July 2019 and a 0.6 per cent increase compared to June 2020.

Sales of detached homes in July 2020 reached 1,121, a 33.3 per cent increase from the 841 detached sales recorded in July 2019. The benchmark price for a detached home is $1,477,800. This represents a five per cent increase from July 2019 and a 0.9 per cent increase compared to June 2020.

Sales of apartment homes reached 1,400 in July 2020, a 12.6 per cent increase compared to the 1,243 sales in July 2019. The benchmark price of an apartment property is $682,500. This represents a 4.2 per cent increase from July 2019 and a 0.3 per cent increase compared to June 2020.

Attached home sales in July 2020 totalled 607, a 28.3 per cent increase compared to the 473 sales in July 2019. The benchmark price of an attached home is $797,700. This represents a 3.7 per cent increase from July 2019 and a 0.9 per cent increase compared to June 2020.

Click here to download the July 2020 stats package.

Innovation Series: How best to market the REALTOR® brand

Our new Innovation Series of videos is aimed at helping REALTORS® discover new practices, tools, and knowledge.

The latest video in our Innovation Series features Victoria Gray of Wasserman & Partners Advertising Inc. We’ve partnered with Wasserman in recent years to develop and execute our Realtor advertising campaign.  

In this video, Victoria discusses research on how the public views the profession and offers her thoughts on how to elevate the Realtor brand in today’s changing advertising landscape and how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting consumer trends. Watch the video below: 

Missed our other Innovation Series videos?

We developed this video series to help Realtors discover new practices, tools, and knowledge. Our subject matter experts include the Ethics Guy® Kim Spencer, BCREA Economist Brendon Ogmundson, and Mortgage Broker Angela Calla.

Click here to watch our Innovation Series videos.

ICYMI: How to create a successful virtual listing presentation, showing, and open house

The provincial government is emphasizing REALTORS® must keep in-person contact to no more than 65 per cent of pre-COVID-19 interactions. And with fewer clients interested in meeting in-person but who still want to sell their homes, it’s more important than ever to create and deliver an effective listing presentation and market homes without conducting physical open houses or showings.

All this means you'll want to take every opportunity to use technology to reduce in-person contact, and you can still provide your clients with real estate services and market their home using an array of tools. Virtual listing presentations, showings, and open houses are effective for protecting you and your clients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We know you may be worried about how your business will weather this storm. You may wonder, for example, about:

• cultivating relationships with clients when you can't engage with them face-to-face;
• tailoring presentations when you haven’t visited the property in person; or
• relying on technology when not everyone has the same tools or experience navigating online platforms.

Despite these issues, you can create a virtual listing presentation that'll win over your clients.

To help you, we’ve developed several pre-recorded webinars to answer your questions about how to do virtual listing presentations, showings, and open houses. These short, easy-to-follow segments cover all the basics you’ll need to get started.

Virtual listing process videos 

Click here to access our virtual listing process videos.

Virtual listing process PowerPoint presentation in PDF format

• Strategies to create a successful virtual presentation introduction steps 1 and 2
• Steps 3 - 5
• Steps 6 - 7
• Step 8 - parts 1 and 2
• Additional tips

Additional resources

• https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-live-guide
• https://help.instagram.com/292478487812558
• Basic Instagram Live https://youtu.be/SCoAA6D97Os
• Zoom Basic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8uL4umH2ck
• You'll find lots of tutorials on YouTube and Google, from the basics to advanced ways of delivering virtual presentations, showings, and open houses.

Times change and so do marketing strategies. Transitioning into virtual technology will give you a better chance at success in today’s real estate market. Check out our resources today.

Doesn’t CREA have more important things to do?

It’s not personal, believe me. The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has to protect its trademarks. The implementation is sometimes seen by some members as being overly nitpicky. 

What are CREA’s trademarks? They’re words we use every day, namely, REALTOR®, REALTORS®, Multiple Listing Service®, and MLS®. A lot of money—your money, to be more exact—has been invested in these words over the years.  

Remember when the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Olympics (VANOC) got all upset about that poor guy who owned a pizzeria and used the Olympic ring symbol with its restaurant name? By way of contract with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), VANOC was obligated to protect the IOC’s trademarks. Since there isn’t an Olympic pizza-making event with gold, silver, and  bronze medals going to the top three pizzerias, using any trademarked Olympics-related name or image in the restaurant name was a no-no.  

Nobody from VANOC cared that the restaurant owner had been in business for years—with the same name and logo—without causing the IOC or anyone else to have a stroke. But with the Olympics coming to town and all that money at stake, off went the cease-and-desist letters from VANOC to the owner. 

“Stop using our trademarks or we will make your life miserable” is what the letter probably said. At the time, many of us thought this action to be totally unfair, and in the end, supported by a huge public campaign, the little restaurant won, but not before years of intimidation from the big guys. 

The same thing happened to the Haida Gwaii coffee shop that had the temerity to use a logo and name similar to a very large chain of coffee shops. Another David and Goliath story, except in this case, the little guy lost. And remember those 1970s Volkswagen Super Beetles with Rolls-Royce grille kits on the front? A young woman I was once absolutely smitten with had a pink one. The Rolls-Royce Parthenon grille at its front brought a smile to everyone who saw it. Except for Rolls-Royce’s lawyers. Nineteen years old, my friend got a letter from the law firm’s local representatives saying, “Remove that grille or else.” She complied. 

Why on earth do large established brands go to these lengths against ordinary folk, you may wonder? It’s easy to understand them going after a large business entity that’s using their logo or a similar-sounding name, but really, a 19-year old attending her first year of university? Or average folks making coffee or pizza?  

The reason is that if they don’t protect their trademark and it gets into common usage, they risk a judge saying to them, “You haven’t been protecting your marks, so why should the court do it for you?” Or, “Your mark is now so ubiquitous with everyone using it, the horse has now left the barn,” like using, for example, “Kleenex” for “tissue” and “Realtor” for “real estate agent.” And that can cost a company, profession, or organization a lot of money and risk their credibility. 

I could go on until Labour Day about this issue. There are lawyers who spend their entire careers specializing in trademark law. (Aren’t you glad you’re a Realtor?) It’s a big deal. CREA doesn’t want “Realtor” to become synonymous for “real estate agent.” If that were to happen, we’d have no way of indicating, via trademark protection, that we’re not just real estate agents, we’re licensed real estate agents who belong to a real estate board, and, as such, we’re obliged to follow the REALTOR® Code which is, in some respects, a higher standard than the Real Estate Services Act’s minimum statutory requirements. In Canada, maybe this is a distinction without a difference since nine out of 10 real estate licensees belong to a real estate board. But for our cousins south of the line, the situation is different. A goodly percentage of them don’t belong to real estate boards. I don’t know whether it’s because American MLS® Service providers are not real estate boards (they’re for-profit entities) or because American real estate agents don’t see the need to belong to a real estate board as much as we do. Whatever. 

Since CREA has the words Realtor and Realtors co-trademarked with the National Association of Realtors in the United States, it is, to some extent, obligated to do its bit on our side of the line to vigorously protect those marks for members’ collective benefit on both sides of the border.  

So if you’re one of those thinking, “Who cares? Sheesh, doesn’t CREA have better things to do?” ask yourself how would you feel if every Tom, Dick, or Harry with a website could start passing themselves off by using our marks? Imagine what your world would look like if we lost the MLS® trademark? Anyone could start a website called, for example, MLS North Van, or MLS Tsawwassen, for example. Pretty soon, you’d be paying the board and an expensive collection of MLS-branded websites without any data standards to post your information. That can’t happen when the marks are protected: the boards and CREA own the MLS® marks. Mess with them at your peril. 

Sometimes a member will send us a list of other members’ trademark infractions—wrongly using “Realtor” or “MLS®” in domain names, for example. That’s where CREA comes in. Their lawyers may send the member a letter, requiring them to deactivate the domain in short order. They have to cede their ownership rights to that domain name to CREA. This is done for our collective good. We’ve worked so hard and spent so much money creating these marks it would be such a pity to lose control of them. 

Go to rebgv.ca to check out REALTOR® Code Article 27. It’s the one obligating you to protect CREA’s marks. You could also go to CREA’s website to take a look at its Trademark Tool Kit (opens a 108-page document). 

And a note: You’ll see this column displays “REALTOR®” correctly the first time it’s used above. Under CREA’s rules, subsequent uses of the word in the same document or slide deck can be “Realtor” without the registration mark and with just the first letter capped. And, newspapers, including our own Realtor News are exempted from these requirements for stylistic/journalistic reasons—in case you’ve ever wondered. 

Restart post COVID-19, affordable market housing, secondary suites in multi-family units

Government safe restart agreement includes sick leave  

Three levels of government have agreed to a $19 billion Safe Restart Agreement following the first wave of COVID-19, which includes 10 days of sick leave. Here’s how it could affect you.  

Read more.  

Affordable market housing coming to Coquitlam    

An affordable 128-unit project on Coquitlam’s Dansey Avenue will be coming onto the market thanks to a unique partnership between BC Housing, the City of Coquitlam, and the developer.  

Read more. 

Secondary suites now allowed in ground-oriented, multi-family buildings  

New updates to the BC Building Code allow secondary suites in duplexes, townhouses, and detached row houses throughout the province.   

Read more. 

REBGV mourns the loss of Noreen Davis

It is with deep sadness that we share news of the passing of our friend and colleague, Noreen Davis. Noreen died July 29 after a brief and brave battle against cancer. We are heartbroken. 

Noreen worked at REBGV for more than 22 years. Over this time, numerous people came to know her well and appreciate her quick smile, good humour and willingness to take on challenges. She was a dedicated team member who stepped up to hard work. 

As a former REALTOR® and long-time Manager of Member Services, Noreen was well-known and liked by REBGV staff and members alike. She was a staunch supporter of her team in Programs and Events, Member Services and MLS®.  

Years ago, REBGV’s managers participated in an Insights teambuilding exercise. The observations that surfaced through that exercise described Noreen perfectly:

“Noreen is warm and gracious and believes in a philosophy of 'live and let live'… As she is highly articulate with a quick sense of humour she is often the life and soul of the party… Noreen radiates goodwill and enthusiasm. She is optimistic about life in general and human potential in particular. She is seen by most others as a friendly, practical, realistic and down-to-earth person. She tends to live for today with a 'you only go around once' philosophy.”

She lived her life to the fullest. 

We will always remember Noreen. Please join us in extending our heartfelt condolences to Noreen’s husband Tony and the countless friends and family she touched in her life.

We’ll be sharing a tribute to Noreen in our next newsletter.