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Typically, this implies a rise in prices as buyers face greater competition for scarce homes, said Batch.
However, he says price acceleration was not detected in the third quarter. Home prices increased 10 per cent after adjusting for inflation, a level not seen since 2017, though it was was not enough to breach the threshold for price acceleration.
In the single-detached markets, the largest price gains were in Delta, White Rock, and Port Moody.
Between April and the end of June, Batch said buyers and sellers “sort of just put it on pause” in Metro Vancouver markets, primarily because of the pandemic lockdown rather than sudden unemployment.
CMHC’s considers four factors in assessing housing markets — the degree a market might be overheating, rising prices, how much properties are overvalued compared with fundamentals and whether developers are overbuilding new housing.
The CMHC calculated Metro Vancouver showed low, or little, evidence that markets were overheating, based on sales-to-available-listings ratios ranging from a low of nine per cent on detached homes to a high of 27 per cent in Port Moody.
-With a file from Derrick Penner
