The housing market in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows is showing signs of heating up as summer arrives, with both prices and sales on the increase.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver has released its monthly report for May. It shows sales of all property types were up in May 2023 compared with the same month in 2022 in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. There were 122 houses sold in May 2023 between the two cities compared with 92 in May 2022. Listings jumped from 159 houses in April, to 225 in May – an increase of 42 per cent.
Sharon Gordon, a realtor with Royal LePage, said buyers and sellers have time to make decisions they are comfortable with.
“It’s a more comfortable market for both buyers and sellers,” she said. “It’s a more relaxed market.”
Gordon doesn’t see prices dropping dramatically, and there are not a lot of new listings as inventory. The stats bear that out.
According to the board, the 122 houses that sold in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows went for a median price of $1.3 million.
Gordon is listing larger Maple Ridge properties in the $2 million range, and said she is seeing interest from buyers from North Vancouver and West Vancouver.
“People are moving out here,” she said. “People want more space, and they want peace.”
The REBGV reports that residential home sales across the region totalled 3,411 in May 2023, which is a 15.7 per cent increase from the 2,947 sales the year prior.
“Back in January, few people would have predicted prices to be up as much as they are – ourselves included,” said Andrew Lis, REBGV’s director of economics and data analytics.
“Our forecast projected prices to be up modestly in 2023 by about two per cent at year-end. Instead, Metro Vancouver home prices are already up about six per cent or more across all home types at the midway point of the year.”
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The total number of homes currently listed for sale on the MLS system in Metro Vancouver is 9,293, a 10.5 per cent decrease compared to May 2022 (10,382), and 20.6 per cent below the 10-year seasonal average (11,705).
“You don’t have to squint to see the reason prices continue to increase. The fundamental issue remains that there are more buyers relative to the number of willing sellers in the market. This is keeping the amount of resale homes available in short supply,” Lis said.
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