Greater Victoria property listings top 3,000 for first time since 2019

Buyers have more to choose from now that Greater Victoria real estate listings have topped 3,000 for the first time in five years.

A total of 3,017 properties were for sale as of the end of April, the Victoria Real Estate Board said in its monthly statistical release on Wednesday.

The spring markets of 2021 and 2022 both saw very low levels of inventory, but listing numbers are rebounding — up by 14 per cent in April from March, by a whopping 47.7 per cent from April 2023, when only 2,043 properties for sale.

In May 2019, there were 3,019 available listings.

Record low levels of inventory in the spring of 2022 created a “pressurized environment for buyers and sellers,” board chair Laurie Lidstone said Wednesday.

This year, she said, there is a healthier supply of inventory and a more balanced market and prices are more stable.

The number of properties sold in Greater Victoria in April rose modestly over sales in the same month a year earlier.

A total of 678 properties sold in April through the board — up by 6.4 per cent from the same month in 2023 and by 15.3 per cent from March of this year.

Single-family-home sales rose by 3.7 per cent from April 2023 with 337 sales, while condominium sales moved up by 1.5 per cent from a year ago.

The benchmark price for a single-family home in Victoria’s core was down by 0.9 per cent to $1,284,600 last month, compared to $1,295,800 million in April 2023.

Last month’s benchmark value for a condo in the region’s core inched up by 0.7 per cent to $567,800 from April 2023 at $564,000.

When it comes to singlefamily homes, Saanich East saw the most sales last month at 50, followed by Langford at 49 and Victoria at 42.

Victoria had the highest number of condo sales in April with 72, followed by Langford at 50 and Saanich East with 32.

The total value of all residential sales, including manufactured homes and bare land, came to just under $653 million last month.