Royal LePage's third-quarter data showed Metro Vancouver home prices moving lower, with prospective purchasers holding back amid unease over the broader economy and uncertainty surrounding future interest rates.

Data released on Oct. 15 through the brokerage's House Price Survey and Market Forecast showed Metro Vancouver's aggregate home price — a composite measure spanning multiple property types — sitting 4 per cent below its year-ago level and 1.4 per cent below the figure posted in the preceding quarter, based on third-quarter 2026 results.

Royal LePage projects a further 4.5 per cent year-over-year drop in the region's aggregate home price by the fourth quarter. Randy Ryalls, managing broker at Royal LePage Sterling Realty, noted in a statement that Metro Vancouver transaction volumes have been running 25 to 30 per cent below the 10-year average, with activity tapering through summer and into early fall, and that a modest tightening of inventory has not been enough to arrest downward pressure on prices. During that period, the median price of a single-family detached home in Metro Vancouver moved to nearly $1.62 million, representing a 5.6 per cent year-over-year decrease, while the median condo price settled at $712,100, down 4.1 per cent over the same interval.

Across the country, the typical home traded hands at $810,000 — a drop of 0.8 per cent from the same period a year earlier — while the midpoint condo price of $571,900 represented a 1.5 per cent retreat over that same stretch.

Ongoing trade tensions between Canada and the United States have dampened buyer appetite in the property market, with Royal LePage chief executive Phil Soper observing that a growing number of would-be buyers are stepping back from large purchases.

A Royal LePage survey found that 45 per cent of Vancouver homeowners with a mortgage on their primary residence expect their monthly payments to rise at renewal. Soper pointed to that backdrop — alongside growing inventory and an absence of urgency among buyers — as conditions allowing prospective purchasers to delay decisions until their confidence in the market strengthens, with rate uncertainty adding to the overall hesitation.

Non-mortgage debt climbed to $712.2 billion in the second quarter, a 4.8 per cent increase from the same period a year earlier, adding to the broader financial load on households, according to the report's data. Ryalls described that backdrop as a stop-and-start pattern in which pricing decisions carry outsized weight, with some owners choosing to withdraw their listings when there is no pressing reason to sell, while properties listed at competitive prices continue to draw multiple offers.

Royal LePage projects a one per cent year-over-year rise in Canada's aggregate home price by the fourth quarter of 2026, even as its outlook for Metro Vancouver points toward continued softening over that period.