State of BC Real Estate — July 2026
Published 2026-08-06 · By Bronson Job PREC, REALTOR® · Momentum Realty Inc.
June's broad sales increase did not carry into July. Greater Vancouver recorded 2,061 residential sales, down 9.8% from July 2025, which erased almost exactly the gain June had posted a month earlier. Apartments led the decline, falling 17.8% year-over-year. The Fraser Valley was quieter again, with 1,089 sales, down 5% on the month and 9% below last July. Prices kept easing gently on both sides of the river: the Metro Vancouver composite benchmark settled at $1,088,800 (down 6.2% year-over-year and 0.9% on the month) and the Fraser Valley at $877,600 (down 7% year-over-year and 0.8% on the month). The more interesting change was on the supply side, where new listings fell 11.5% in Greater Vancouver and 18% in the Fraser Valley, and active inventory declined on both boards for a second month. Greater Vancouver's chief economist described the pattern as "one step forward, one step back," and said price pressure "in either direction" has yet to show up in the data.
Market notes
Greater Vancouver
Sales of 2,061 were down 9.8% from July 2025 and 18.6% below the 10-year seasonal average. The weakness was concentrated rather than broad: apartment sales fell 17.8% year-over-year, while detached slipped 3.2% and attached homes were essentially flat at down 1.1%. Chief economist Andrew Lis put it plainly: "July sales were down nearly ten per cent, led by an 18 per cent drop in apartment sales, confirming to market watchers that the June momentum was not sustained." He described the wider pattern as "one step forward, one step back," and said June and July "are a prime example."
Fraser Valley
The Fraser Valley recorded 1,089 sales, down 5% from June and 9% below last July. At an 11% sales-to-active ratio the board stayed in buyer's-market territory, where it has been all year. Board chair Ishaq Ismail described the mood directly: "Buyer urgency has been notably absent from the Fraser Valley market for some time now. With inventory remaining high and competition subdued, buyers know they don't have to rush." Interim chief executive Anthony Boone framed the same conditions from the other side, calling the region "one of the Lower Mainland's brightest spots for improving affordability."
The question June raised, answered
Last month's snapshot ended by noting that June had been the first broad sales increase in years, and that July and August would show whether it was a genuine turn or one strong month against an easy comparison. July answered it: the gain reversed almost exactly, and the breadth that made June notable did not repeat. That is worth recording plainly rather than reframing. One month of rising sales in a market that has been easing for two years is not yet a trend, and the honest reading in June was that it might not be.
Prices by home type
Every benchmark eased again, and apartments continued to fall fastest. In Greater Vancouver, July benchmarks were $1,822,900 for detached homes (down 7% year-over-year), $1,030,400 for townhouses (down 6%), and $688,000 for apartments (down 7.5%). In the Fraser Valley, they were $1,335,200 for detached (down 8.3%), $757,300 for townhouses (down 7.1%), and $469,500 for apartments (down 9.1%). Month-over-month moves were all within 1.5%, which is the pattern that has held since the spring: a slow, steady drift rather than any sharp move. Fraser Valley detached homes have now given back more than 8% in a year, the largest year-over-year decline of any segment on either board.
Inventory and listing behaviour
The clearest change in July was sellers stepping back. New listings in Greater Vancouver fell 11.5% year-over-year to 4,991, landing almost exactly on the 10-year seasonal average, with apartment listings down close to 17%. The Fraser Valley saw new listings drop 18% from last July to 2,836. Active inventory fell on both boards as a result: Greater Vancouver to 16,476 (down 4% year-over-year, though still 26.8% above the seasonal norm) and the Fraser Valley to 10,044 (down 3% on the month, still 32% above its norm). Lis connected the two: "We've been pointing to the slowdown in sellers coming to market for several months, and it's beginning to translate into a gradual decline in the overall inventory level." He added that the shift "remains in early days."
What the ratio is telling us
Greater Vancouver publishes its own guidance on how to read the sales-to-active listings ratio: sustained readings below 12% tend to put downward pressure on prices, and readings above 20% tend to push them up. July came in at 13% board-wide, which is just above that lower line, and the spread by type is wide: 10.5% for detached homes, 14% for apartments, and 15.8% for attached. Detached homes have been sitting below the 12% mark, which is consistent with them carrying the steepest year-over-year declines. The Fraser Valley's 11% sits below the line across the board, and its prices have fallen further.
How buyers spent their time
In the Fraser Valley, the average time to sell in July was 40 days for a single-family detached home, 40 days for a townhouse, and 46 days for an apartment. That is roughly a week longer than June across every type, and apartments were slowest, consistent with their being the softest segment on both boards. A well-presented, correctly priced home was taking close to six weeks. Greater Vancouver did not publish equivalent days-on-market figures in this release.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure in this snapshot is drawn from the July 2026 statistics releases published by Greater Vancouver REALTORS (August 4, 2026) and the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (August 5, 2026). Benchmark prices are MLS® Home Price Index values, reflecting the series recalculated back to January 2005 in November 2025. Sales and listing counts are quoted as the boards report them; each board groups property types slightly differently, so counts drawn from other sources will not always align exactly with these.
Implications by audience
For buyers
July restored the conditions June briefly interrupted. Inventory is still 27% to 32% above the 10-year seasonal norm on the two boards, competition is subdued, and benchmarks are 6% to 7% lower than a year ago. The constraint remains financing rather than price: the mortgage 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 just because benchmarks have. The one change worth noticing is on the supply side. Fewer new listings arrived in July than in any recent month, and if that continues while sales hold steady, the choice available today is the widest part of this cycle rather than a permanent feature of it.
For sellers
The month took back what June offered. Buyers were fewer, apartments especially so, and the average Fraser Valley home took about a week longer to sell than in June — roughly six weeks for a correctly priced property. The offsetting development is that fewer sellers are competing with you: new listings fell 11.5% in Greater Vancouver and 18% in the Fraser Valley. Pricing to current benchmarks rather than to last year's, presenting the home well, and planning for about six weeks on market is what the July data supports. Apartment owners should plan for the longest timeline of the three property types.
For owners staying put
A 6% to 7% year-over-year decline in the benchmark is a paper change if you are not selling. Where it becomes real is at renewal, since the appraised value can affect whether you need to re-qualify in order to move to a different lender. Anyone renewing in the next twelve months is better off running the numbers now than discovering them at signing. For owners with no move and no renewal ahead, July changed nothing that requires action.
Reading the signal
Two months of opposite-direction sales data is the clearest description of where this market is: not falling sharply, not recovering, moving sideways with a gentle downward drift in price. The steadier signal in July was supply, not demand. New listings fell on both boards for the second consecutive month, and active inventory declined with them. Inventory has been the defining feature of this cycle, so a sustained decline would matter more than any single month of sales. It has happened twice now, which is a pattern rather than a trend, and July's data does not yet say which it will become.
Related
- BC Real Estate Codex — every fact cited above with full provenance
- Cross-fact Codex changelog
- Vancouver Special Index — Lower Mainland affordability
- Monthly board market reports (FVREB, GVR)
- All quarterly reports
Verified sources (2)· re-verified 2026-05-19Click to expand
Every claim on this page is sourced to a primary government, regulator, or industry-association URL. We re-verify quarterly; the verification dates below show when each source was last confirmed against the live government page.
- BC Governmentretrieved 2026-05-19Property Transfer Taxhttps://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/taxes/property-taxes/property-transfer-tax
- BC Governmentretrieved 2026-05-08Property Transfer Tax Act, RSBC 1996, c. 378https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96378_01
bc.ptt.brackets · v1View in Codex →Verified sources (1)· re-verified 2026-05-08Click to expand
Every claim on this page is sourced to a primary government, regulator, or industry-association URL. We re-verify quarterly; the verification dates below show when each source was last confirmed against the live government page.
- OSFIretrieved 2026-05-08Guideline B-20: Residential Mortgage Underwriting Practices and Procedureshttps://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/en/guidance/guidance-library/final-revised-guideline-b-20-residential-mortgage-underwriting-practices-procedures
osfi.b20.stress_test · v2View in Codex →Cite this report: Bronson Job (2026). State of BC Real Estate — 2026 July. https://www.bronsonjob.com/reports/state-of-bc-real-estate-july-2026.
