On September 30, 2008, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) had a total of 22,605 active listings.  This recent high may have caused some panic because there were only 13,574 listings exactly one year earlier.

Yesterday I did a XPROP search for all REBGV active listings and this is what I found:

As David Clayton-Thomas lyricized,"What goes up must come down"; to 14,258! 

The selection that was available to buyers just 3 1/2 months ago has now diminished considerably (as in a 36.9% drop).

Speaking to some of my Prudential Realtor colleagues who have been through a market downturn or two, there's a general consensus that this sudden drop was mainly as a result of expired and terminated listings of sellers who weren't really selling at all. 

These owners were "feeling out the market" to see if they could get unrealistic prices on the tail of the long sellers market we went through, and it seems that many Realtors accommodated their false hopes by accepting over-priced listings.

Where are we now?  more here [...]

John in Port Moody