Date: February 9, 2026 Category: Market Statistics, Real Estate News

As we turn the page on the first month of 2026, the Canadian real estate landscape is showing distinct signs of a "new normal." From the quiet streets of Vancouver to the shifting dynamics in Calgary and Toronto, January has set a tempered tone for the year. For those of us here on Vancouver Island, the story is one of nuance—where single-family homes take a breather while condos and townhomes see a surprising burst of energy.

Here is your comprehensive breakdown of the January 2026 real estate statistics and what they mean for your spring strategy.

🌲 Vancouver Island (VIREB): A Tale of Two Markets

The Headline: Single-family sales cool, but condos and townhomes heat up.

The year kicked off with a mixed bag for the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board (VIREB). While the overall market felt a slight chill, specific segments outperformed expectations.

• Total Sales: 388 units sold board-wide, a 10% decrease from January 2025.

• Inventory: Active listings climbed to 3,157, a 6% increase year-over-year, giving buyers more breathing room.

• Benchmark Prices:

  • Single-Family: $768,900 (Up 1% year-over-year).

  • Condo Apartments: $402,700 (Up 3% year-over-year).

  • Townhouses: $528,800 (Down 2% year-over-year).

Roman’s Take: The "slow start" for detached homes was balanced by a surge in condo and townhouse activity (up 15% and 28% respectively). If you are looking to downsize or enter the market, the multi-family sector is currently the most dynamic spot on the Island.


CAMPBELL RIVER
Unit Sales: January 2026: 17 units, -26.09% YOY Average Sale Price: $680,521, -13.85%

🏙️ Greater Vancouver (GVR): The "New Normal"

The Headline: Sales remain tepid as inventory builds.

Across the water, Greater Vancouver continues to navigate a slower pace. The "seller's market" frenzy of years past feels like a distant memory as inventory accumulates and sales dip significantly below historical averages.

• Sales: 1,107 homes sold, a sharp 28.7% drop from last January and nearly 31% below the 10-year seasonal average.

• Active Listings: Inventory swelled to 12,628 homes, a 9.9% increase compared to last year.

• Benchmark Price: The composite benchmark price dipped to $1,101,900, down 5.7% year-over-year.

Analyst Insight: Andrew Lis from GVR notes that while these figures look alarming, they signal a market slowly evolving toward a stable, albeit quieter, norm.

The benchmark price for a detached home is $1,850,800. This represents a 7.3 per cent decrease from January 2025 and a 1.5 per cent decrease compared to December 2025.
The benchmark price of an apartment home is $704,600. This represents a 5.9 per cent decrease from January 2025 and a 0.8 per cent decrease compared to December 2025.
The benchmark price of a townhouse is $1,043,400. This represents a 5.4 per cent decrease from January 2025 and a 1.2 per cent decrease compared to December 2025.

🤠 City of Calgary (CREB): Shifting Toward Balance

The Headline: Slow start for high-density homes.

Calgary remains a bit of an outlier compared to its coastal cousins. While sales activity has cooled from record highs, prices are still showing resilience, driven by a year of strong migration.

• City of Calgary Sales: 1,234 units, down 14.8% year-over-year.

• Inventory: Supply with active listings up 20.6%.

• Prices: The Total Residential Benchmark Price sits at $554,400, a healthy 4.7% decrease over January 2025.

The Trend: We are seeing a shift from extreme seller advantage to more balanced conditions, with months of supply rising to 3.56.

🗼 Toronto (TRREB): Buyers Gain Leverage

The Headline: A cooling trend brings relief to buyers.

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) saw a pull-back in both sales and listings, suggesting that many participants decided to "wait and see" as the year began. This hesitation has put downward pressure on pricing.

• Sales: 3,082 sales reported, down 19.3% year-over-year.

• Average Price: The average selling price slipped to $973,289, a 6.5% decrease from Jan 2025.

• Benchmark Price: The MLS® HPI Composite fell by 8%.

Market Watch: With new listings also down significantly (-13.3%), the market isn't being flooded, but the existing inventory is sitting longer, giving buyers ample time to negotiate.

🚀 The Road Ahead: Spring 2026 Strategy

For Sellers: The data is clear: pricing is paramount. In Vancouver and Toronto, buyers are price-sensitive and willing to wait. On Vancouver Island, the heat is in the strata market (condos/townhomes). If you are selling a single-family home, ensure your home is "show-ready" to compete with the rising inventory.

For Buyers: Opportunity is knocking. With inventory up in Vancouver and the Island, and prices softening in Toronto, you have more choice than you've had in years. The "frenzy" is gone, replaced by a window of negotiation power.

Ready to navigate the Spring 2026 market? Whether you're looking for that perfect Campbell River patio home or selling a property in the Comox Valley, let's chat about how these stats apply to your specific goals.

📞 Contact me today at 604-787-4594 📧 contact@romansellshomes.ca

Sources: VIREB Statistics Package Jan 2026, GVR Stats Package Jan 2026, CREB Monthly Statistics Jan 2026, TRREB Market Watch Jan 2026.

Winter months don't typically see much action across the country. During the pandemic we saw a huge spike in transactions during the winter months and very quickly we adapted to seeing this type of volume. Late last year we saw big interest rate hikes and that has definetely put a damper on the market. Buyer's purchasing power was slashed significantly seemingly overnight. As you will see in the direct quotes from different Real Estate Boards across the country, everyone seems to feel the lower amount of listings but lets remember that we are comparing to last year's numbers which were still distorted after the pandemic. 

I have a feeling that the spring market will return to typical sales volumes with lower price ranges. Prices have been coming down in some places more than others but it's impossible to ignore what the higher interest rates have done to the markets across the country.  

I'm really trying not to get too political in my posts because complaining won't make any difference, especially that most people don't care about politics. Most people watch the news and the superbowl as their entertainment. Unfortunately, both are fiction. 

Here are the January market stats, enjoy: 

Quadra Island saw 2 new listings, one sold, one expired and one withdrawn listing. 

Cortes Island had one transaction, pending (sold). 

NANAIMO, BC – Last month, 165 single-family homes sold in the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board (VIREB) area, a 24 per cent decrease from one year ago and a drop of 18 per cent from December. Sales of condo apartments in January 2023 came in at 42, declining by 52 per cent year over year and increasing by 20 per cent from December

“Our statistics indicate that we’re off to a somewhat slow start, but our January sales numbers don’t reflect the activity REALTORS® are seeing on the street,” says Kelly O’Dywer, 2023 Chair. “Overall, it’s actually a great time to buy a home.”

In Campbell River, the benchmark price of a single-family home was $647,600 in January, down five per cent from the previous year. The Comox Valley’s year-over-year benchmark price dropped by four per cent to $784,700. In the Cowichan Valley, the benchmark price was $745,700, a four per cent drop from January 2022. Nanaimo’s year-over-year benchmark dropped by seven per cent to $755,300, while the Parksville-Qualicum area saw its benchmark price drop by six per cent to $856,100. The cost of a benchmark single-family home in Port Alberni was $518,300, down eight per cent from the previous year. For the North Island, the benchmark price of a single-family home rose by two per cent to $428,500.

Victoria  A total of 278 properties sold in the Victoria Real Estate Board region this January, 41.4 per cent fewer than the 474 properties sold in January 2022 and a 13.1 per cent decrease from December 2022. Sales of condominiums were down 46.3 per cent from January 2022 with 101 units sold. Sales of single family homes decreased 33 per cent from January 2022 with 120 sold.

There were 1,739 active listings for sale on the Victoria Real Estate Board Multiple Listing Service® at the end of January 2023, an increase of 3 per cent compared to the previous month of December and a 133.7 per cent increase from the 744 active listings for sale at the end of January 2022.

The Multiple Listing Service® Home Price Index benchmark value for a single family home in the Victoria Core in January 2022 was $1,296,600. The benchmark value for the same home in January 2023 decreased by 3.5 per cent to $1,251,100, down from December's value of $1,283,600. The MLS® HPI benchmark value for a condominium in the Victoria Core area in January 2022 was $561,300, while the benchmark value for the same condominium in January 2023 increased by 3 per cent to $578,300, up from the December value of $574,300.

VANCOUVER, BC – February 2, 2023 – Inventory remains low in Metro Vancouver* while home sales dipped well below monthly historical averages in January. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential home sales in the region totalled 1,022 in January 2023, a 55.3 per cent decrease from the 2,285 sales recorded in January 2022, and a 21.1 per cent decrease from the 1,295 homes sold in December 2022. Last month’s sales were 42.9 per cent below the 10-year January sales average.

The benchmark price for a detached home is $1,801,300. This represents a 9.1 per cent decrease from January 2022

The benchmark price of an apartment home is $720,700. This represents a 1.1 per cent decrease from January 2022

The benchmark price of an attached home is $1,020,400. This represents a three per cent decrease from January 2022

City of Calgary, Feb. 1, 2023 – The level of new listings in January fell to the lowest levels seen since the late 90s. While new listings fell in nearly every price range, the pace of decline was higher for lower-priced properties.

Although conditions are not as tight as last year, lower supply levels are preventing a significant shift toward balanced conditions and prices did trend up slightly over last month breaking the seven consecutive month slide. As of January, the benchmark price reached $520,900, 5 per cent higher than last January, but still well below the May 2022 high of $546,000.

Detached- Overall, the benchmark price reached $622,800 in January, slightly higher than levels reported in December, but still below the monthly high achieved in May 2022.

Semi detached- In January, most districts reported a monthly benchmark price growth. However, prices did trend down in the higherpriced City Centre district causing Calgary’s semidetached benchmark prices to ease slightly over levels seen in December 2022. Despite the monthly adjustment overall, prices remained nearly six per cent higher than levels reported in January 2022.

Row homes- With a benchmark price of $361,400, levels are still over 12 per cent higher than last January, and only slightly lower than the $363,700 monthly high achieved in June 2022.

Overall, apartment condominium prices in the city reached $277,600, one per cent higher than last month and a year-over-year gain of nearly 10 per cent, narrowing the spread from the record high prices set in 2014.

TORONTO, ONTARIO, February 3, 2023 – As we moved from 2022 into 2023, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) housing market unfolded as expected. The number of January sales and the overall average selling price were similar to December 2022. On a year-over-year basis, both sales and prices were down markedly, continuing to highlight the impact of higher borrowing costs on affordability over the last year.

Average price by home type in area 416:

Detached: $1,486,124
Semi detached: $1,150,506
Townhouse: $981,187
Condo: $711,171