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bronsonjob.com
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Monthly
Market Report ·
June 2026
June
2026
· Greater Vancouver & Fraser Valley
June 2026: the numbers, and a closer look at
Ottawa's condo intervention.
Issue 02 · July 2026
·
10
min read
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June was the first month in a while that gave the
market something to talk about. For the first time
in years, home sales rose across every type at
once, and they rose most in Greater Vancouver.
Prices kept easing, gently, on both sides of the
river. The most interesting part was the split in
mood: the two boards read the very same data and
landed in different places, with Greater Vancouver
calling it an early sign of a shift and the Fraser
Valley saying buyers are still holding back. The
month's numbers are just below, and my read
on the bigger story is further down.
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The number this
month
2,390
Greater Vancouver home sales in June, up 9.6% from
a year ago, with gains across every home type.
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The market is showing its first broad signs of
life in years, and the federal government has
decided not to wait for it to turn on its own.
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Where prices sit versus the 2022 peak
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Fraser Valley
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$884,800
· −26%
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Greater Vancouver
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$1,099,100
· −12%
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A full bar would be the spring-2022 peak. Both
boards sit well short of it, the Fraser Valley
furthest of all, and prices kept easing through
the past year.
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June 2026
by the numbers
Fraser Valley sales
1,147
▼
4% vs a year ago
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Greater Vancouver benchmark
$1,099,100
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6.0% year-over-year
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Fraser Valley benchmark
$884,800
▼
7.1% year-over-year
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Greater Vancouver sales-to-active
14.6%
balanced territory
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The numbers
Greater Vancouver
The story in Greater Vancouver was breadth.
Sales rose across every home type at once:
detached up 13.7% year-over-year, apartments up
6.1%, and attached homes up 11.4%. Total sales
of 2,390 were up 9.6% from June 2025, though
still below the 10-year seasonal average. Chief
economist Andrew Lis called it "a rare
occurrence in recent years" and "an
early sign of a shift," with demand
"returning to the market more
broadly."
Fraser Valley
The Fraser Valley was more subdued. Sales of
1,147 were up 2% on the month but 4% below last
June, and at an 11% sales-to-active ratio the
board remains firmly a buyer's market. CEO
Baldev Gill stayed cautious: "Buyers are
still holding back despite some improving
conditions." Board chair Ishaq Ismail was
sharper, saying the spring "has
underperformed expectations despite improving
affordability," and asking whether
qualified buyers "recognize the value
available today."
Two readings of the same month
The most telling thing about June is that the
two boards read it differently. Greater
Vancouver, where sales rose across every home
type, leaned optimistic and framed the month as
a possible turning point. The Fraser Valley,
where sales slipped year-over-year, stayed
cautious. Metro Vancouver's larger and more
liquid market tends to move first, and the
Fraser Valley usually follows a little later.
The July and August data will show whether June
was the start of a durable shift or one strong
month against an easy comparison.
More detail, including inventory, days on market,
and the regional breakdown, is in the
full report.
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What this means
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01
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For buyers
June's sales uptick does not change
the core buyer's-market math. There
is ample inventory, prices are down 6% to
7% year-over-year, and there is still time
to shop. What it may change is the
psychology. If demand is in fact
returning, the window of maximum choice
and minimum competition could be narrower
than it appeared in the spring. The main
constraint remains financing. The OSFI
B-20 stress test still qualifies you at
your contract rate plus two percentage
points, or 5.25%, whichever is higher, and
that qualifying rate does not fall simply
because benchmarks have. If June's
prices bring a property within your
stress-tested range, the case for acting
before competition builds is stronger than
it was a month ago.
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02
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For sellers
June was the first month in a while when
the sales side offered sellers something
to work with, as buyers returned across
every home type in Metro Vancouver. That
does not mean it is time to price to 2022
levels. Benchmarks are still down 6% to 7%
year-over-year, and the Fraser Valley
remains a buyer's market at an 11%
sales-to-active ratio. The realistic
approach is to price to current
benchmarks, present the home well, and
budget roughly five weeks on the market
for an average property. What improved in
June was the number of buyers, not yet the
price they are willing to pay.
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What I'm watching
A few things on my mind right now.
A condo glut not seen since the mid-1990s
One number from CMHC's May data stopped me
cold. Metro Vancouver finished May with 4,376
completed but unsold condos, up 76% from a year
earlier. That is the highest level the region has
seen
since the mid-1990s. Very few people working in this market today
have traded through anything like it.
The presale market, which funds new condo
construction, has effectively frozen. In the first
quarter of 2026,
just 124 presale units sold across all of
British Columbia. In the same quarter of 2021, the figure was
close to 6,000. Polygon's president called
the 70% presale threshold that lenders require to
finance a tower "unrealistic" in
today's environment. The distress has been
visible inside the industry for over a year.
Through the spring and summer of 2025,
Wesgroup laid off 12% of its staff
and Rennie, the marketing firm that has sold a
generation of Vancouver presales,
cut 25% of its own. When the builders and the marketers are both
contracting, the
Metro Vancouver condo inventory curve going
back to 1990
tells the story in a single chart.
Why I keep coming back to this announcement
On June 18, Mark Carney and David Eby
announced a plan
to buy 2,200 vacant condos from distressed
developers at a discount and convert them into
rent-to-own housing. It has since been formalized
as the Canada-B.C. Partnership on Condo
Conversion, run through Ottawa's new Build
Canada Homes agency and the province's BC
Housing. The headline number is $1.45 billion, but
only about $300 million of that is government
money. Ottawa is covering roughly 10% and British
Columbia is matching it, with the remaining $1.15
billion or so coming from debt financing. The
units will be in the Fraser Valley, on Vancouver
Island, and in the Okanagan.
Vancouver City is excluded, because the economics do not work there. Both
governments have stressed that the program is
still in its early stages, and most of the details
have not been settled.
The program has been framed as affordable-housing
policy, and I keep wondering whether that is the
whole story. Carney was Governor of the Bank of
Canada from 2008 to 2013, ran the Bank of England
from 2013 to 2020, and chaired the Financial
Stability Board from 2011 to 2018. A year before
this announcement, CMHC published
a formal warning
about exactly what is now unfolding. The
country's
federal housing agency
saw the strain in this segment before almost
anyone else did. Fifteen years ago, in
a speech in Vancouver, Carney warned that cheap credit had been
"used to bid up the price of a non-tradable
good, Canadian houses." As Prime Minister, he
is now intervening directly in that asset class.
Asked about the plan on June 25, he said, "No developer asked for this from me directly."
Steve Saretsky has been blunt about who actually
benefits: "I can absolutely guarantee you
it's not going to be some random small
developer that's building townhouses in
Surrey. It's going to be the big developers,
the ones with scale and influence." My own
read is that the deeper purpose here is financial
stability. It looks like a former central banker
telling Canada's lenders, in the calmest
possible way, that the federal government will not
let the condo construction pipeline collapse on
his watch. I might be wrong about that, and I
would like to hear from anyone who sees it
differently.
Why this lands closer to home than Vancouver
The buildings will be in
the Fraser Valley, on Vancouver Island, and in the Okanagan, and
some will come from projects already in
bankruptcy protection. In practice, that likely means specific
buildings some of you drive past on your way to
work. The governments have not released the list
yet, and they say the details are coming in the
fall. Even the Fraser Valley board's CEO,
Baldev Gill, commenting on this month's
numbers,
called the agreement potentially helpful but
its details "still unclear."
Until that list is published, none of us will know
exactly which buildings are involved.
What this might mean for you
A few specific questions are worth answering.
Will it lower rental prices?
Marginally, and only in specific cities. 2,200
units is real supply, but spread across the Fraser
Valley, Vancouver Island, and the Okanagan it is a
small addition to the overall stock. Tenants in
the buildings that get bought will feel it. Most
everyone else will not.
Will it make condo prices stabilize or
rise?
Stabilize, not rise. Pulling 2,200 units off the
pile is meaningful against the roughly 4,400
unsold condos in Metro Vancouver, so it puts a
floor under prices. But it does nothing about why
demand is soft in the first place: rates, the
stress test, and investors sitting out. I expect
the slide to slow, not reverse.
What is it costing taxpayers, and do they get
it back?
Less than the headline suggests. Of the $1.45
billion, only about $300 million is actual
government money, split evenly between Ottawa and
Victoria, with the rest financed. UBC's Tsur
Somerville figures that even at a subsidized
$1,000-a-month rent and modest appreciation, the
program roughly breaks even, with the asset still
there at the end. The real risk is not losing
money. It is earning nothing on capital that could
have built purpose-built rentals for less.
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 $4,599,88824095 53 Ave, Langley
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 $2,976,00021980 100 Ave, Fort Langley
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 $839,000505 Nelson St, Coquitlam
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Browse all current listings →
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Well, that's June. We'll do it again in
early August.
If anything here caught your attention, and
especially if it was the condo piece, hit reply
and tell me. I read every response. I'm
curious what you make of the Carney argument, and
if you think I have it wrong, I would like to hear
why.
Sincerely,
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*Personal Real Estate Corporation
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