This Vancouver home sold for more than $1-million below asking price earlier this year.DARRYL DYCK/The Globe and Mail
The summer concluded with much slower activity levels in Vancouver's real estate market, but the decline in sales has not yet had a major impact on prices, the local real estate board says.
Sales in August were down 21.4 per cent from July, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said Wednesday.
It was the second-lowest level of sales for the month of August since 1998, and the biggest drop came from detached homes.
There were 1,649 residential property sales in August, compared to 2,378 a year earlier.
New listings were down 15.8 per cent from July and 13.7 per cent from a year ago.
"Home sales this summer have been lower than we've seen for most of the past 10 years, yet we continue to see relative stability when it comes to prices," Eugen Klein, the board's president, said in a release.
The MLSLink Housing Price Index composite benchmark price for all residential properties in the Vancouver area came in at $609,500, down 1.1 per cent from July and down 0.5 per cent from a year ago.
The benchmark price for detached properties is now $942,100. That's still up 0.2 per cent from a year ago, even though sales of detached properties have dropped 38.8 per cent to 624 units for August.
The benchmark price for apartment properties or condos has fallen nearly 1 per cent over the past year, to $370,100, while sales have dropped 24.1 per cent to 725 units.
The price of attached units has fallen nearly 2 per cent, to $462,300, while sales have dropped 25.6 per cent to 300 units.