The inventory stayed consistently between 2.3 and 2.5 months from March through October 2019, then dropped in November and December. That’s a typical seasonal pattern for the market — last month Mike Lamb, a broker at Windermere Stellar in Vancouver, wrote that the declines during the holiday season would likely be offset by a jump in listing activity in early 2020.
“Listing activity typically spools up in the first quarter,” he wrote.
Prices jump
The jump in market activity included a jump in home prices, with average and median sale prices both climbing slightly from the December numbers.
The January average sale price was reported at $414,300, a very slight bump from the $414,000 average reported in December. The median sale price saw a bigger jump, from $375,000 in December to $382,000 in January.
For comparison, the average sale price for all of 2019 was $406,400, and the median was $355,000. The January average sale price for the Portland metro area was reported at $463,000, with the median at $406,000.
Another report from the Vancouver office of John L. Scott Real Estate offered a breakdown of Vancouver sales by price range based on its own sales data, which highlighted a more severe inventory shortage among lower-priced homes.
