Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows sees an uptick in property listings

A slow move to more houses going on the market has been observed through the month of February; a welcome change in a long time for the housing market.

The total number of homes listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service system in Metro Vancouver is 6,742, which is a 19.1 per cent increase compared to January 2022’s 5,663 listings.

Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows too, have seen more listings pop-up on the market in the last three days, said Dianne Enns, a realtor expert with Royal LePage Brookside Realty.

“We have seen a lot more activity in the last three days and this is with residential property, single homes, town homes and all of that. In just the past three days, we have seen 88 listings go up, which is really good,” she said.

Enns is hopeful that this will slowdown the bidding war over the houses.

“Biggest issue continues to be supply and demand. And right now, since the market is a little skewed against landlords, a lot of property owners with tenanted properties are realizing that they need to cash out as they are not making enough to meet their mortgages,” she said.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) is their monthly report said that home sales in the region totalled 3,424 in February 2022, which was an 8.1 per cent decrease from the 3,727 sales recorded in February 2021, and a 49.8 per cent increase from the 2,285 homes sold in January 2022.

In Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, there were 126 house sales, which is up from 72 per cent from 62 sales the month prior. There have been 291 house sales in the past three months in Maple ridge and Pitt Meadows, which is down a whopping 25 per cent from 390 in the same date range a year ago.

Prices have continued to steadily rise, even though slightly. A house in Maple Ridge ($1.36 million) or Pitt Meadows ($1.49 million) were however more affordable than the Greater Vancouver benchmark price for a single family detached home at $2.04 million.

The comparisons last month for townhouses were: Greater Vancouver $1.09 million, Maple Ridge $844,000 and Pitt Meadows $834,000.

The comparisons last month for apartments were: Greater Vancouver $807,000, Maple Ridge $520,000 and Pitt Meadows $654,000.

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Enns noted that while a few more houses are on the market than before, it wasn’t enough to call it an upwards trend yet, even though she is hopeful more houses get added.

“Until the supply and demand problem isn’t resolved, things aren’t going to change and we are not foreseeing a drop in prices either as the market is still hot,” she said.

Last month’s sales were 26.9 per cent above the 10-year February sales average.

Taylor Biggar, REBGV chair noted that the Metro Vancouver housing market is seeing more historically typical home sale activity and a modest uptick in home listing activity compared to last year. He however also pointed to the increasing house prices each month.

“Despite having a higher volume of people listing their homes for sale in February, the region’s housing market remains significantly under-supplied, which has been pushing home prices to new highs month after month,” he said.

Enns explained that while she was seeing a lot more people sell of their homes from other bigger cities, especially downtown Vancouver, and move to a place like Maple Ridge, she wasn’t seeing foreign investors.

“There is a very small portion of foreign investment but this misconception that it is driving up prices is incorrect. In the last two years, people have just realized that their places in the city are just too small to be stuck at and so they have been moving from places like Vancouver, selling their condos and at the same price getting a big house or a rancher in places like Maple Ridge or Pitt Meadows. It is not foreign investment-driven,” she said.

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