Spring real estate season is well underway in Vancouver

The official start of spring is officially a week away, but that hasn’t stopped the number of potential home buyers from blossoming.

“Between the Thursday sneak peak and yesterday’s open (house) we’ve had about 45 groups through,” said Karley Rice, a selling agent with Macdonald Realty Ltd.

Despite a strong surge in open house signs popping up across Metro Vancouver, the increase in supply is still strongly outweighed by the current demand. That means even with more inventory on the market, the competition among buyers remains fierce.

“It’s just really competitive,” said Megan Harrison, a buyer outside an open house. “Everything is probably going to go quite a bit over asking.”

Housing numbers from the month of February indicate the spring real estate season may have started even earlier this year.

The number of home sales in Greater Vancouver jumped 36.3 per cent in February over last year, while the number of listings dropped 38.7 per cent.

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“They’re getting snapped up so fast that at any given time the number of total homes available on the market is way down year over year because they supply simply cannot keep up,” said Joannah Connolly, Editor of Real Estate Weekly.

She says any extra inventory that comes with the spring months is being negated by buyers also thinking this is the time to get into the market.

“What buyers need to do is be very realistic in terms of their expectation,” said Connolly. “See a bunch of properties that are little lower than what is perceived to be their top end of their budget because they may have to go a little higher.”

Realtors say expect an already strong, early start of the season to get even hotter once families come back from spring break.