Look how far Metro Vancouver’s prime real estate has fallen. In this quarter’s ranking of luxury real estate price growth across 43 world cities – a chart that Vancouver topped for six consecutive quarters in 2015-16 – the metropolitan region placed dead last.
Knight Frank’s Global Prime Cities Index tracks the top five per cent most expensive real estate in each market. It found that Metro Vancouver’s prime real estate prices have fallen by 11.2 per cent in 2018’s third quarter, compared with the same quarter in 2017. That’s the steepest annual decline of all 43 cities.
In contrast, prime real estate in Singapore topped the chart with a 13.1 per cent annual change, followed by newly hot Edinburgh in Scotland, where a 10.6 per cent annual price growth placed it in second.
Toronto was still in the global top 10 for prime real estate price growth, ranking seventh with an 8.5 per cent increase year over year.
Knight Frank blamed Metro Vancouver’s decline on government taxation measures. The global real estate brokerage reported, “The index’s headline figure of 2.7 per cent growth conceals significant variations both within continents and even within countries. In Canada for example, Toronto (8.5 per cent) continues to see prime prices rise in its exclusive areas of Rosedale and Yorkville. Vancouver (-11.2 per cent), however, sits at the bottom of our rankings as upmarket areas such as West Vancouver have seen a marked slowdown in sales and prices as a result of the raft of measures introduced in February’s Budget.”
Check out the full Q3 2018 ranking, below.
