Greater Vancouver looks set for lowest year of housing sales this century

The Greater Vancouver area appears set for its lowest year of home sales in a quarter-century.

Monthly data provided by Greater Vancouver Realtors showed 1,846 residential properties were sold in November, continuing a three-year period of relatively stable month-over-month sales figures. 

It leaves the region with 22,263 homes sold in 2025, on pace to eclipse the lowest total this century, which happened in 2018 when 24,619 properties changed hands.

“It’s largely a reflection of what we're seeing on the affordability front, the lack of certainty in the economy, and mortgage rates — while lower than they were the last couple years — still quite elevated relative to what we would have seen a few years ago,” said Bryan Yu, chief economist with Central 1 Credit Union. 

The monthly data continued to show a relatively static market when it came to sale prices, with the average price of a detached home at $2.02 million and a condo at just under $800,000. 

But home prices continued to fall in the Fraser Valley, with the average selling price for a home at $1.45 million, down 19 per cent from March 2022, and condos at $507,606, down 15 per cent over the same time period. 

“As the year draws to a close, the data continues telling a story of a market with many buyers patiently waiting and sellers adjusting to market conditions not seen in years,” said Greater Vancouver Realtors chief economist Andrew Lis. 

The data on home sales came on the same day that Statistics Canada put out rental data that confirmed many anecdotal reports over the past year: asking prices are coming down. 

In the third quarter of 2025, the average asking rent for apartments continued to fall in Metro Vancouver: apartments with one bedroom were being offered for $2,390 a month, down from $2,510 in the same quarter last year, while two-bedroom units were down $200 a month, from $3,390 to $3,190.

Overall, the asking price for a one-bedroom apartment in Metro Vancouver was down 9.5 per cent from the same time in 2023.

“There has been a notable change in the rental market in recent years and one of the most rapid or significant declines has been in Vancouver, relative to other cities,” said Josh Gordon, a senior analyst with Statistics Canada. 

Gordon cautioned that it was too early to say what was causing the decrease in rents, but noted the continued uncertainty around new rental projects that are underway being finished to completion. 

“There's still construction, but the decisions that led to that construction happened a couple of years ago, or potentially even longer,” he said. 

“How the new condo market evolves and whether projects are able to get off the ground and the extent to which developers are able to complete projects, that's something to keep an eye on.”