Is It a Good Time to Buy a House in Vancouver? What the Numbers Say (October 2026)

Greater Vancouver detached houses sold at a sales-to-active ratio of 9.7% in September 2026. That's buyer's-market territory, and it's been below the 12% line in 12 of the last 13 months.

At the same time, a new five-year fixed mortgage costs about 4.49% (Bank of Canada data for July 2026, the latest month published), down from 6.00% at the November 2023 peak. Put the lower prices and the lower rate together and the monthly payment on a benchmark Greater Vancouver house is about 22% lower than it was three years ago.

So is it a good time to buy? For some people, yes, and I'll show you which ones. For others the case is weaker than the headlines make it sound. Below: how much leverage buyers have by property type, how far prices have fallen, what rates and payments look like now, and what sellers on EstateBlock are doing this week.

Sources: Greater Vancouver REALTORS®, September 2026 stats package; Bank of Canada, Banking and Financial Statistics table A4 (rates on new uninsured residential mortgages, chartered banks), via the Valet API, latest month July 2026.

Who has the leverage

The sales-to-active ratio is the cleanest single read on who's in control. It's the month's sales divided by the homes for sale at month end. Greater Vancouver REALTORS® (GVR) says prices tend to come under downward pressure when it sits below 12% for a while, and upward pressure above 20%.

Detached houses have been the weakest of the three all year. They only touched 12% once, in June. Townhouses (GVR calls them attached) sat between 15% and 18% every month from February to August, which is balanced, before dropping to 12.2% in September. Apartments sat around 14% to 16% through the spring and then slid to 11.4% in September.

The other side of that is supply. There were 16,394 homes listed on GVR's MLS® at the end of September, 24.3% more than the ten-year September average of 13,186. Sales were 25.0% below their ten-year September average. Lots of choice, not many buyers competing for it.

My read: if you're buying a detached house, you have real room to negotiate right now. If you're buying a townhouse, expect less. Good ones still move.

How far prices have come down

Sources: REBGV November 2023 stats package; GVR September 2025 and September 2026 stats packages (3- and 10-year changes from the September 2026 HPI table).

A typical Greater Vancouver detached house is benchmarked at $1,784,700. In November 2023 it was $1,982,600. Apartments went from $762,700 to $682,500. Over three years every property type is down, and the ten-year column shows detached is up only 4.5% in a decade.

The drop isn't the same everywhere. Here's the one-year change for detached houses in each GVR area.

New Westminster (−10.4%), Burnaby South (−10.3%) and West Vancouver (−9.9%) took the biggest hits on houses. Vancouver West detached is down 8.7% on the year and 17.0% over ten years. Squamish, Whistler and Tsawwassen barely moved.

One thing these numbers don't tell you: whether prices are done falling. Nobody knows that. The forecasts I trust are the named ones (CMHC, BCREA, CREA and RBC), and I've collected them in my Vancouver housing market predictions for 2027. Most of them expect small price gains in 2027. That's a forecast, not a promise.

Rates: lower, but not falling any more

These are the average rates Canadian banks actually charged on new uninsured mortgages, not posted rates. The five-year-plus fixed rate peaked at 6.00% in November 2023. Variable peaked at 7.37% in August 2023. By July 2026 they were 4.49% and 3.86%. Insured mortgages (under 20% down) averaged 4.05% for five-year-plus fixed.

The trend has flattened. The Bank of Canada has held its policy rate at 2.25% since its last cut on October 29, 2025, and it held again at all six decisions so far in 2026. Fixed rates actually ticked up from 4.17% in April to 4.49% in July.

Fixed mortgage rates tend to follow the Government of Canada five-year bond yield, and that yield rose from 3.27% at the end of July to 3.69% at the end of September (3.54% on October 9). My read: anyone waiting for fixed rates to drop much further is betting against the bond market right now. The next Bank of Canada decision is October 28.

The payment math

This is where the "good time" case is strongest. I took the Greater Vancouver benchmark price for each property type at three points, assumed 20% down and a 25-year amortization, and applied the average new five-year fixed rate from the Bank of Canada data for that month.

Calculation by EstateBlock. Prices: GVR/REBGV MLS® HPI benchmarks for the month shown. Rates: Bank of Canada, Banking and Financial Statistics table A4 (rates on new uninsured residential mortgages, chartered banks), via the Valet API; the September 2026 column uses the July 2026 rate, the latest published. Principal and interest only; excludes property tax, strata fees and insurance.

On a benchmark house the payment is about $2,254 a month lower than in November 2023. On a benchmark apartment it's 23% lower. More of the improvement came from the rate than from the price, and most of it had already happened by September 2025. Since then prices have kept slipping while rates moved sideways, so the gain over the last year is smaller: about $554 a month on a house and $166 on an apartment.

The stress test hasn't changed. Federally regulated lenders have to qualify you at the greater of your contract rate plus 2% or 5.25% (OSFI). At a 4.49% contract rate that's 6.49%, so on the benchmark house you'd need to show you can carry about $9,555 a month, and on the benchmark apartment about $3,654. That, more than the rate itself, is what decides how much most buyers can borrow.

Buying vs renting a condo

CMHC puts the average two-bedroom rent in Vancouver at $2,363 a month for 2025 (Housing Market Outlook, summer 2026 update). The principal-and-interest payment on a benchmark Greater Vancouver apartment with 20% down is about $3,019. That's roughly $656 a month more, before strata fees and property tax, and you also need the $136,500 down payment.

Part of that payment is principal, which you keep. In the first year of a 4.49% mortgage on the benchmark apartment, about 34% of the payments go to principal. So the gap between renting and owning a condo is narrower than it was in 2023, but owning still costs more each month. My read: buying a condo makes sense now if you'll stay five years or more and the down payment doesn't drain your emergency fund. It doesn't make sense as a bet that prices bounce next year.

The benchmark apartment isn't necessarily a two-bedroom, and CMHC's figure is an average across the whole Vancouver area, so treat this as a rough comparison, not a quote. For the unit you're actually looking at, run its real strata fee and property tax.

What sellers are doing right now

The board numbers are two weeks old. This is EstateBlock's own data from October 13, 2026: asking prices on active listings, not sale prices.

Source: EstateBlock.com live listings, snapshot taken October 13, 2026 (active listings, asking prices).

In the City of Vancouver, 333 of 4,742 listings (7.0%) have cut, and the average cut is 9.7%. Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and Delta have the highest share of cuts on this list. North Vancouver has the lowest, and its houses have been listed a median of only 39 days.

The number I'd watch is days listed. A median Vancouver house has been up for 77 days, against 43 for a condo. My read: a house that's been sitting for two or three months and hasn't cut yet often has the most room. An offer written off its days on market and the comparable sales, not its asking price, is how you use a buyer's market.

Who it's a good time for

For the property transfer tax on a purchase, see Dan's BC property transfer tax guide, and for the income side, the income needed to buy a house in Vancouver. Confirm your own numbers with your lender, and for tax questions, an accountant.