This week, I did a market analysis for real estate sales and listing activity for the beginning of this year and September last year.
Now we are starting a new year and are past the holiday hangover, I thought it would be a good time to look at another slice of data.
I pulled numbers for residential sales from the third week of February for the B.C. Interior and this is how it looks.
First, as a reminder, typically when someone makes an offer on a property and starts the buying process, there is about a two-week delay from the offer to when the sale is recorded as firm in the numbers. It usually takes two-weeks for the sale to become legally binding with subjects removed etc. That means the analysis lags behind by a couple weeks, with actual deals written and new listings not quite meshing.
That being said, the B.C. housing market has delivered another telling week of numbers, revealing shifts in both inventory and sales activity across price ranges.
Let’s take a closer look at the latest seven-day snapshot.
B.C.’s housing market continues to shift in favour of buyers, according to the latest seven-day data. With 7,095 active listings in the B.C. Interior and only 143 sales completed in the past week, the market is moving at a noticeably slower pace than at the end of the summer of 2025.
Current market snapshot (last seven days):
Total active listings stand at 7,095, while new listings added just 432 properties.
Sales totalled 143, creating an overall new-listings-to-sales ratio of 3.02:1.
Price range breakdown (last seven days)
If you are selling and the ratio is high, that’s not great. The mid-market segment ($500,000-$1 million) remains the busiest, accounting for more than half of both new listings and sales. However, luxury properties (over $2 million) show extreme imbalance — 20 new listings and just one sale.
As for the inventory-to-sales ratio, across all price ranges, there are currently 49.6 weeks of inventory (active listings ÷ weekly sales). Anything above 20-24 weeks is generally considered a buyer’s market. At nearly 50 weeks, B.C. is firmly in buyer territory.
As a comparison with early September 2025, seven months ago the picture was very different. Active listings sat at 10,028, new listings totalled 630 and sales reached 137 in a similar seven-day period. The new-listings-to-sales ratio was 4.60:1 and inventory levels equaled roughly 73 weeks of supply.
Market speed and outlook
The drop in both total inventory (from 10,028 to 7,095) and the new-to-sales ratio (4.60 to 3.02) shows the market has become more balanced than it was last fall. However, the still-high inventory-to-sales ratio of 49.6 weeks tells me supply continues to outpace demand in most segments.
Lower- and mid-priced homes ($500,000 and under) are moving relatively faster, while anything above $1 million remains sluggish. For sellers, that means realistic pricing and strong presentation are essential.
For buyers, the current environment offers more choice and longer negotiation windows than we saw just seven months ago. The market doesn’t lie — the right price always sells. The hard part is accepting what that price actually is. That goes both ways, whether you are a buyer or a seller.
With spring approaching, many are watching whether increased buyer activity will finally tighten these ratios or if uncertainty will keep the market in its current buyer-friendly state.
Keep in mind, many sellers took a break over the holidays and are now re-listing so inventories may climb. We are still selling fewer than are being adding to the inventory at a rate of about three to one. I checked the same data for a month and the ratio is pretty much the same.
With nearly 50 weeks of inventory, sellers are learning that the right price will sell, it’s just rarely the price they had in mind.
***
I want to thank everyone who emailed about my last column, about manufactured home living in B.C.
I tried to respond to everyone. I may revisit the topic as many people had questions about the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act.
If you have suggestions for other real estate-related articles, please email me Anthony Shephard at [email protected]
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
