Greater Vancouver closed September 2026 with 14,958 active listings at a $1,149,000 median and 56 days on market. Fraser Valley: 7,449 listings, $979,000. Inventory turned back up and days on market fell for the first time since March, but 2,631 of the 5,228 listings that came off the market in September are already back on it.
Written by Hamidreza Etebarian on
:format(webp)/www.zealty.ca/api/cms/media/file/bc-housing-market-september-2026.jpg)
Greater Vancouver closed September 2026 with 14,958 active listings, a median asking price of $1,149,000, and homes sitting a median of 56 days. Every one of those numbers moved in the direction a seller wants. Inventory rose 2.5 percent after two months of decline. Days on market came down ten days from August. The share of listings asking less than they originally did fell from 25.1 percent to 23.9 percent, the first drop of 2026.
Then you look at where the new listings came from. September saw 5,228 residential listings expire, terminate, or cancel across Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. By October 1, 2,631 of them were already back on the market as a new listing. That is 50.3 percent. A relisted home arrives with a fresh asking price, a days-on-market counter that starts at zero, and no record of the cut its owner took on the way there.
September did not get faster. Nearly a third of its new listings are homes that were already for sale in August.
Here is the full breakdown of where each property type and region stood at the September close, and which of this month's improvements survive the relist.
Greater Vancouver inventory rose to 14,958 active listings, up about 2.5 percent from the 14,590 we reported at the end of August. That ends two consecutive monthly declines and puts inventory 8.1 percent below the June peak of 16,270. The board-wide median asking price came to $1,149,000 at $826 per square foot, and median days on market shortened from 66 to 56.
The board-wide median fell $10,000 from August, and as in August it is mostly composition rather than price. Condo inventory grew 4.6 percent on the month while detached inventory shrank slightly, which pushes a greater share of listings into the block below the median and pulls the median down with it. The quartiles tell the cleaner story: the 25th percentile sits at $699,000 and the 75th at $1,898,000.
Breaking it down by property type:
Condos: 6,623 active listings across Greater Vancouver. Median price $698,888. Median $888 per square foot. 52 days on market. The condo median has now held within $112 of $699,000 for four consecutive months, which makes it the most stable number on either board this year. Days on market came down ten days, from 62 to 52, and inventory grew 4.6 percent. At this price a first-time buyer pays no BC property transfer tax, because the full exemption covers the first $500,000 of any purchase under $835,000 and is worth up to $8,000. Our first-time buyer guide for BC covers what else that qualifies you for.
Townhouses: 2,805 active listings. Median price $1,225,000. Median $790 per square foot. 42 days on market. The townhouse median rose $26,000 from August, the largest increase of any segment on either board, and inventory grew 6.9 percent. The 42-day reading is the fastest of any Greater Vancouver segment and 14 days shorter than August. Both moves point the same way: the new townhouse supply that arrived in September is priced above the stock already sitting, and it is fresh enough that it has not had time to age.
Sign up free to unlock real sold prices and sold dates across Greater Vancouver, Fraser Valley, and Chilliwack.
See Sold PricesFree account required · sold data is hidden until you sign in.
Detached houses: 5,530 active listings. Median price $1,999,999. Median $760 per square foot. 70 days on market. Detached is the only Greater Vancouver segment where inventory did not grow, and it stayed almost perfectly still on price for a second month. The median moved $999. The 25th percentile held at $1,499,000 and the 75th at $2,998,000, identical to the dollar against August. The average asking price went from $2,747,160 to $2,751,988, a rise of $4,828, after moving $999 the month before. Two months ago this segment was shedding $42,000 to $50,000 of median asking price every month. Over the last two months the net change is a $99 gain.
The Fraser Valley closed September with 7,449 active listings at a $979,000 median and $535 per square foot across all property types. Inventory came down about 3 percent from August, a third straight monthly decline, and is 11.8 percent below the June peak. Median days on market shortened from 64 to 59.
The board-wide median rose $10,000 while no individual property type median rose at all, which is the August composition effect running in reverse. Fraser Valley condo inventory shrank while detached held, so a slightly richer mix lifted the middle of the distribution.
Fraser Valley condos: 2,077 active listings. Median price $499,000. Median $629 per square foot. 58 days on market. That median has now sat at $499,000 for a fourth straight month. It is still the only major segment on either board where the typical buyer pays no property transfer tax at all. Per square foot it is drifting down, from $641 in July to $638 in August to $629 now, which means the flat median is holding up on smaller units rather than on steady pricing.
Fraser Valley townhouses: 1,805 active listings. Median price $799,000. Median $496 per square foot. 51 days on market. The median slipped $900 below the $799,900 line it held through July and August. At $496 per square foot against $790 in Greater Vancouver, a Fraser Valley townhouse buyer pays about 37 percent less per square foot than a Greater Vancouver one, a gap that has not moved all year.
Fraser Valley detached houses: 3,567 active listings. Median price $1,539,000. Median $530 per square foot. 66 days on market. Detached is the slowest Fraser Valley segment and the only one where inventory fell by more than 5 percent on the month.
This is the number that reframes the rest of the month.
New listings arriving on Greater Vancouver jumped to 5,759 in September from 4,063 in August, a rise of 41.7 percent. The Fraser Valley went from 2,090 to 2,444, up 16.9 percent. After two months of sellers staying home, 8,203 new residential listings arrived across the two boards in a single month.
At the same time, 5,228 residential listings across the two boards expired, were terminated, or were cancelled in September. That is up 17.5 percent from August's 4,451, and the highest exit count since July. By October 1, 2,631 of those 5,228 were already back on the market as a new September listing on the same property. Half of September's exits came straight back in through the front door.
That matters for three of this month's headline numbers.
It explains the days-on-market drop. A relisted home reports zero days, not the 140 it actually spent unsold. Greater Vancouver's median fell from 66 days to 56 in a month, which is a bigger one-month move than the series has produced in either direction all year. A genuine ten-day improvement in absorption would need sales to rise sharply, and the board-reported sales count did not rise.
It explains most of the price-cut decline. Across the 22,389 residential listings active on the two boards, 5,357 are asking less than their original list price. That is 23.9 percent, down from 25.1 percent in August and 25.0 percent in July, and the first decline of the year. A relist resets the original list price, so a seller who cut twice and then relisted shows up in our data as a seller who has never cut. Our price cut tracker is measuring the cut against the current listing, not against what the owner first asked eighteen months ago.
It does not explain the asking prices. A relist can reset a clock and a reference price, but the number in the window is still a number. Every property type median on both boards held flat or moved less than $1,000, apart from Greater Vancouver townhouses at plus $26,000 and Fraser Valley townhouses at minus $900. That is the second straight month of frozen asks.
For the listings that have cut, the cut is still real and still large. The average reduction is 6.2 percent, or about $103,000 off the original ask. Detached sellers cut hardest, averaging 7.3 percent and $183,000. And the timing signal has not changed: listings that have cut their price have been on the market a median of 107 days, against 43 days for listings that have not. A price cut in this market is still a 90-day signal, not a closing tactic. What expired listings tell you about the BC market goes further into reading a listing's history rather than its current day count.
Two separate sets of numbers describe September, and mixing them produces nonsense. Everything above comes from Zealty's own MLS listings data and describes what is for sale: active inventory, asking prices, and how long unsold listings have been sitting. The real estate boards publish a different thing, which is what actually sold. The board-reported figures for Metro Vancouver in September:
Three things to read carefully there. The two days-on-market numbers are not comparable. The board's 29 days measures how long the homes that sold took to sell. Our 56 days measures how long the homes that have not sold have been waiting. Both are correct and they answer different questions. Our days on market guide explains which one to use when.
The two inventory counts are not comparable either. The board counts its own full listing universe for its own definition of Metro Vancouver. Our 14,958 is a residential-only cut of the Greater Vancouver board: condos, townhouses including half duplexes, and detached houses. Neither number is wrong and neither is a correction of the other.
The median sale price rose $34,900 while the median asking price fell $10,000. That is not a contradiction. The sold median describes the homes that cleared, and the asking median describes the homes still on the shelf. When 2,289 sales out of 20,573 listings go disproportionately to the mid-market, the sold median rises without any individual home getting more expensive. Sales took 11.1 percent of inventory in September, down from 12.1 percent in August, in the same month our days-on-market reading improved by ten days. The reset explains the gap.
Zealty holds the full sale history of properties on the Greater Vancouver, Fraser Valley, and Chilliwack boards, which makes it possible to compare what a home is asking today against what its owner actually paid. Of the 12,836 active listings across the two boards we can match to a previous sale, 20.3 percent are asking less than that last sale price, with an average gap of 9.6 percent. In August the figure was 18.5 percent. Purchase date decides almost everything:
Inside that recent cohort, condos crossed a line this month. Of the condos bought in 2021 or later and listed today, 55.4 percent are asking less than their purchase price, up from 52.3 percent in August and 50.7 percent in July. Townhouses are at 49.6 percent, up from 44.7 percent. Detached houses are at 36.0 percent, up from 33.6 percent.
This is the one measure September's relist wave pushed the wrong way rather than the flattering way, and that is what makes it the most useful number in the report. A relist resets the list price and the day counter. It cannot reset what the owner paid in 2021. Homes selling below their last sold price tracks this group continuously.
One caveat worth stating plainly. An asking price below a previous sale price is not a realized loss. Some of these homes will sell above today's ask, and the comparison ignores what the owner spent on the property. What it measures is how many sellers have already accepted that 2021 pricing is not available to them.
City of Vancouver: 4,493 active listings. Median $1,389,000. Median $1,025 per square foot. 51 days on market. Vancouver is the only market on this list above $1,000 per square foot, and at 51 days it is now faster than Surrey, Richmond, and the Greater Vancouver board as a whole.
Surrey: 3,986 active listings. Median $998,400. Median $552 per square foot. 65 days on market. Surrey inventory came down about 3 percent again, a third straight monthly decline, and the median edged back up $9,400 toward the $1,000,000 line it has been circling since June. Days on market improved by two. At $552 per square foot against the board's $826, Surrey still sets the entry point for most Metro Vancouver buyers.
Richmond: 1,876 active listings. Median $999,900. Median $766 per square foot. 66 days on market. Richmond has now held its median within $100 of $1,000,000 for three consecutive months. Days on market came in nine days from August's 75. At 66 days Richmond is still the slowest market on this list, one day behind Surrey.
Burnaby: 1,868 active listings. Median $849,950. Median $805 per square foot. 57 days on market. Burnaby produced the largest price move of any city this month, down $38,050 from $888,000. In August it was the only city on this list where the median rose. Inventory was flat, up 11 listings, so this is a pricing move rather than a mix shift, and it hands back the $10,000 August gain four times over.
North Vancouver: 985 active listings. Median $1,278,000. Median $871 per square foot. 30 days on market. North Vancouver is the clearest single illustration of the September reset. Inventory grew 13.7 percent, the fastest of any city we track, and median days on market fell from 55 to 30. A 25-day drop in one month is not an absorption story. It is a supply story, and the North Shore got a lot of new paper in September.
September is the month the headline numbers improved and the underlying ones did not. Supply came back, the clock appeared to reset, and sellers appeared to stop cutting. Two of those three are accounting.
If you are buying, the useful filter this month is history rather than days on market. Two listings can both report 30 days and mean completely different things, if one of them spent the summer unsold under a different MLS number. Check what a home has done before, not just what its current listing says. Sorting by price change still finds the 5,357 listings that have come down from their original ask, and the price-versus-previous-sold filter still finds the sellers who are asking less than they paid, which is now 46.6 percent of everyone who bought since 2021.
If you are selling, the relist data is the warning. Half of September's exits came back, which means half of September's exits had already concluded that their price was not working, and the market they are coming back into has 8,203 new listings in it. Relisting buys a clean day count. It does not buy a buyer.
For first-time buyers the arithmetic has not moved in four months. Greater Vancouver condos at $698,888 and Fraser Valley condos at $499,000 both sit inside the BC property transfer tax exemption window, worth up to $8,000, and more than half of the Greater Vancouver condo stock bought since 2021 is now listed below its purchase price.
The thing to watch in October is whether the 8,203 new listings sell or age. A third of the active inventory across the two boards is already past 90 days and one listing in ten is past 180. If October's new supply follows the same path, the days-on-market improvement will unwind by the end of the month, and the exit count will tell us first.
Every number in this post comes from live Zealty MLS data, refreshed throughout the day, measured as of the morning of October 1, 2026. September closed with inventory up for the first time since June, asking prices flat for a second month, and half of the month's departed listings already back on the market. If you want to know the moment a property matching your criteria comes on, set up a saved search by neighbourhood, price range, and property type and Zealty will email you the matches as they list.
Search BC listings on Zealty and filter by region, property type, and price to find the homes that match your plan for October.
:format(webp)/www.zealty.ca/api/cms/media/file/bc-housing-market-august-2026.jpg)
Greater Vancouver closed August 2026 with 14,590 active listings at a $1,159,000 median and 66 days on market. Fraser Valley: 7,678 listings, $969,000. Every property type median held flat for the month, but listings kept aging and more than a third have now sat past 90 days.
:format(webp)/www.zealty.ca/api/cms/media/file/bc-housing-market-july-2026.png)
Greater Vancouver closed July 2026 with 15,262 active listings at a $1,178,000 median and 59 days on market. Fraser Valley: 7,913 listings, $979,000. Detached fell below $2 million for the first time this year, and one listing in four has already cut its price.
:format(webp)/www.zealty.ca/api/cms/media/file/days-on-market-bc.jpg)
Metro Vancouver median Days on Market is 48. A BC listing at 80+ DOM is signaling price, defect, or seller motivation. Here is how to read DOM and use it for negotiation leverage.