spring landscape: a new normal for Metro Vancouver’s housing market?

The rennie podcast is about the real estate market and the people connected by it. Tune in for monthly discussions making sense of the latest market data.

EPISODE #87:  SPRING LANDSCAPE: A NEW NORMAL FOR METRO VANCOUVER HOUSING MARKET?

The Spring 2026 rennie Landscape is here, and it paints a picture of a housing market adjusting to an ever-evolving set of macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions. Ryan Berlin (Vice President of Intelligence and Chief Economist) and Ryan Wyse (Market Intelligence Manager and Lead Analyst) walk through what's shaping the market right now, from a weak labour market backdrop, to population decline, to rising housing inventory. They also look at what record rental vacancy and continued price softness mean for renters, owners, and the market ahead.

Featured guests:
Ryan Berlin, Chief Economist and Vice President of Intelligence
Ryan Wyse, Lead Analyst and Market Intelligence Manager
⁠
⁠2026 Spring Landscape

We’d love to answer your real estate questions. Email us at intel@rennie.com or leave a voicemail, and we’ll try to respond in future episodes. 

Transcript

It's not our war, but there is a war in the Middle East.
We've got lower interest rates than we've had.
And oil prices have spiked, and gas prices have spiked.
We are seeing bond yields start to rise.
Pretty weak economy, pretty weak labor market. 
But we, we had population decline in Canada for the first time ever. [upbeat music]

Ryan Berlin: Welcome to the rennie Podcast. I'm Ryan Berlin, Vice President of Intelligence The rennie podcast is about the real estate market and the people connected by it. Tune in for monthly discussions making sense of the latest market data.and, uh, the Chief Economist here at rennie.

Ryan Wyse: And I'm Ryan Wyse, Market Intelligence Manager and Lead Analyst here at rennie.

Ryan Berlin: So a semi-annual special edition of the podcast here to discuss the latest edition of the rennie Landscape.

Ryan Wyse: Yes.

Ryan Berlin: I know we do this every single time, and if we have devoted listeners and watchers, then we just apologize in advance that we say this little spiel every six months. If you don't know the podcast or you don't know the report, uh, Ry, what is it?

Ryan Wyse: So like you said, semi-annual, so twice a year, spring and fall. We produce what I think we consider to be our signature report, the rennie Landscape. So much of what we do normally looks at the traditional real estate metrics of sales and listings and prices, things like that. But the landscape takes a bigger look at all of the things either directly or indirectly affecting our local housing market. So the economy, interest rates, credit and debt markets, demographics, all the things that impact real estate, impact the economy, the sort of macro pressures, uh, that we face in our market to try to understand why things are happening. So not just what's happening, but why, why is the market behaving the way that it is.

Ryan Berlin: Yeah. And so reading this edition of the landscape, you're probably gonna feel like you're getting some whiplash, right? Because we've got inflation that's under control, essentially. I mean, it has been for the last couple of years here in Canada. We now have... It's not our war, but there is a war-

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm

Ryan Berlin:... in the Middle East. We've got lower interest rates than we've had. They have come down over the past year plus, but we, we now have higher bond yields. And [laughs] I know what the process is like writing this report. It's a lot to begin with. On a scale of one to 10, given all the competing factors that are impacting the market and trying to make sense of it, how much of a headache was it this time around?

Ryan Wyse: It was probably a nine. So this is two years in a row now-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah

Ryan Wyse: ... that the spring landscape, we started down one path, pulled all the data, ran the charts, started writing it, and then had to completely pivot. This year when I [laughs]... The first draft said, "Inflation is under control. You don't have to worry about it anymore." And then a war broke out. And now-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah. [laughs]

Ryan Wyse: ... we don't even have our first CPI reading yet, uh, since the war has broken out, and oil prices have spiked and gas prices have spiked, but it will be higher.

Ryan Berlin: Yeah, it will be higher, and that, that won't be the only reading where we see it higher, right?

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: I mean, even if the conflict... I mean, we're in the midst of a temporary ceasefire now.

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: I mean, even if it's, even if we get a full, um, laying down of arms and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz so oil is flowing again, it's gonna take some time for global supply to be flowing like it was prior to the conflict. And regardless, like, when it comes to gas prices, it's, you know, as they say, it's like rockets and parachutes, right? You just look at the, the pump prices, and they shot up. Even if crude oil markets settle, we're gonna see prices at the pump, uh, come down more slowly. Diesel's still gonna be expensive, and we're gonna see all that percolate into all of the things that we buy.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah, absolutely. And, and last year it was, uh, tariffs. So we started writing it, you know, pretty normally, and then all of a sudden, tariff threats started coming in and, and getting lobbed at Canada and other countries. And while we were writing, we didn't know if we were going to actually have these tariffs in place or not by the time the report came out. [laughs]

Ryan Berlin: Yeah. Yeah. That's no fun.

Ryan Wyse: And so we keep... Yeah. So we keep doing this dance of, like, waiting, waiting, waiting, rewriting right to the last deadline.

Ryan Berlin: Yeah.

Ryan Wyse: And ultimately, you know, I think it's safe to say where we are now is that oil and gas prices will be higher, like you just said. Inflation will be a little bit higher. But ultimately, I think the Bank of Canada has a lot more to worry about beyond that with, you know, a pretty weak economy, pretty weak labor market, and us not knowing exactly where inflation will be for the next few months.

Ryan Berlin: For sure. So let's, let's get into this and sort of use what you just said as a segue into the first topic. So there's a bunch of things we wanna cover here today. We won't go super deep on any of it because there's quite a breadth of content in this report and a lot of different storylines. Wanna start with the economy. The labor market, as you said, nothing to write home about. That's kind of been the story for the past few years. The unemployment rate peaked at 7.1% last fall. Since then, it's come down nationally to 6.7%. So that looks like a win, right? Like, that, that's directionally, you know, what we wanna be seeing. But the way you've sort of, you know, addressed this in the report, you're, you're sort of characterizing it as a mirage. So, so, so maybe you can elaborate on that.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah. And I think if you take a bit of a step back further, so we looked at the national unemployment rate for this cycle and compared it to past sort of downturns or increases in the unemployment rate. So if you look at when the unemployment rate bottomed out almost four years ago to an all-time low and has increased, and we compare it to past cycles, the duration and sort of magnitude of this increase has been much higher and longer than the past three, call it economic downturns. So COVID was really short, really severe. 2008 for us here in Canada was still relatively... It wasn't as sharp. The unemployment rate stayed elevated for a long time, but it was slow and steady progress-

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm

Ryan Wyse: ... uh, through most of the, the next decade. And then 2001 with the, the sort of dotcom crash actually wasn't that severe at all, again, from a national perspective in Canada. And there's some, you know, some things we should point out, like the start of this cycle was the all-time low unemployment rate. So we've had some demographic changes-

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm

Ryan Wyse: ... over the past few decades of an aging population, a whole lot of boomers retiring. And so d- these demographic pressures have sort of lowered the unemployment rate overall and have been exerting downward pressure on it. So we're not talking about, like, a severely elevated unemployment rate. You mentioned it's most recently at 6.7%. But the fact is we haven't been able to get back to where we were, uh, for-You know, almost four years now and counting, and the early returns of 2026 have been quite poor. So we added, you know, 200,000 plus jobs last year

 Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm

Ryan Wyse: ... and through the first two months of this year, and yes, the jobs data is noisy, but we've shed 100,000, 110,000 of those. So we're sort of undoing some of the progress that we've made, and all this is prior to some of the disruptions from this war. And our labor force participation has been declining. Like, there's, there's a whole lot of metrics pointing to more softness in the labor market-

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm

Ryan Wyse: ... through the first couple of months this year, whereas it seemed to be stabilizing in the second half of last year.

Ryan Berlin: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting looking at this pattern of, you know, unemployment rates. They tend to move up quickly, and they, they come down slowly too, and I sort of look at the unemployment rate situation as, like, a relationship. You know the relationship when you got, like, with a couple, you know, it might go sour at certain points because of, you know, there's, there's an argument or somebody's done something to someone else, right? But it's, like, a thing that you can work through. You know if you resolve that, you can get back to, you know, being in a better place, right? And I look at the unemployment rate. Typically, like you said, it's, there is something that precipitates a spike, right?

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: And you go, "Oh, well, you know, it was the dot-com bubble bursting," or, "It was the, the credit crisis '08, '09. It was COVID." Not that those are good things, but you kind of go, "Okay, well, there were some imbalances there, and once we get things rebalanced, we know that the unemployment rate's going to, is gonna come down. The labor market will settle." Yeah, I guess what's concerning about this one is just sort of like, it's like a relationship, like a couple who's just, like, they're just kind of drifting apart. Like, and they're not, they're not... You know, it's not one thing. It's a lot of things-

Ryan Wyse: Yeah

Ryan Berlin: ... right, which makes it more problematic, and it's all been happening in front of us very slowly. Like, this is the frog boiling in the pot. I think people are noticing it now, but it's persisted for a long time.

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: Like, we haven't really seen anything like this in the past few decades.

Ryan Wyse: And, and this could continue to be a bit of a mirage. So, you know, we'll get to some major demographic changes later. But we, we had population decline in Canada for the first time ever last year. We expect likely we'll have population decline again this year.

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Wyse: And so our labor force will, can and will likely shrink a little bit this year. So we could see the unemployment rate fall without an actual material improvement in the labor market-

Ryan Berlin: Yep

Ryan Wyse: ... just from simply reducing the number of workers in this country.

Ryan Berlin: Which is, yeah, interesting. I mean, it's not necessarily relevant to a lot of our, our listeners or watchers, but we're seeing the same thing in the US, right?

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: Where the unemployment rate there is actually quite low. A little bit of a different way of measuring it than here, but it is still relatively low. They're not adding jobs either, but the labor market's remaining tight because immigration, by some estimates, has gone... Legal immigration has gone negative, right?

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: Yeah, there's obviously a lot more than just the unemployment rate to sort of dissect when trying to diagnose-

Ryan Wyse: Yeah

Ryan Berlin: ... what's going on in the economy. Obviously, there was a lot of noise 12 months ago around tariffs and the impact on Canadian exports and, by extension, the economy. What does that mean? We had, you know, three-quarters of our exports, of our merchandise exports go to the States. Now, um, I just looked at the data. Over the past 12 months through February, our merchandise exports to the US are down 16%, which is quite a bit.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: This is nationally. Overall, they're down 3%, but overall they're up 2% versus two years ago. So it's kind of a mixed bag. There's some things to be concerned about there, but at the same time, I think in your view, maybe not as much to worry about because of our agreement with, our trade agreement with the US and, and the, and the proportion of goods that that covers.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah, so 88% of our exports to the US last year still entered tariff free, much lower than it was two years ago. Certainly, it's, you know... It would be nicer if it was higher both for-

Ryan Berlin: Mm

Ryan Wyse: ... for Canadian businesses, [laughs] for US consumers for that matter. But, you know, there are some sectoral tariffs that are quite penalizing, obviously steel and aluminum, you know, softwood lumber, and, you know, the forestry industry here in BC. But overall, our, our free trade agreement protected us really well last year and our businesses, and this agreement is up on July 1st. It either has to be-

Ryan Berlin: Mm

Ryan Wyse: ... renewed, renegotiated, or our country can choose to exit. It looks like renegotiation is the most likely path, and so this is really important. It's really important for Canada, the US, and Mexico to get this sorted. I think we will get a deal. I hope we get a deal.

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Wyse: And ultimately, you know, what the terms of that remain to be seen. But especially before this, this war started and some of the other major global events have kicked up, this to me was a really big priority f- for Canada, for our economy this year. I think if we can continue to have really, really high rates of goods entering the US tariff free, ultimately, that's really important for the health of our economy.

Ryan Berlin: Yeah. And, and for the US too. So for all the, you know, all of the bluster on that front, um, ultimately, it's in the interests of both the United States and Canada to get a deal done that, that works for both countries, which means, which looks similar to the agreement that we, we currently have in place-

Ryan Wyse: Yeah

Ryan Berlin: ... right?

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: Or that we, that we did-

Ryan Wyse: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. I mean-

Ryan Berlin: ... uh, prior to 12 months ago.

Ryan Wyse: CUSMA looked a lot like NAFTA before it.

Ryan Berlin: Obviously, some challenging decision-making around the trade agreement, uh, renegotiation. Also, some challenging decision-making for the Bank of Canada-

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm

Ryan Berlin: ... right now. The policy rate, the overnight rate, the trend-setting rate here in Canada, 2.25%, has come down quite a bit over the past few years. It's at the lower end of what the bank calls its neutral range, where monetary policy is neither restrictive nor expansionary. That is a favorable rate, um, for, you know, broadly speaking, for the economy. We can work with that. We may not see it move materially over the course of the year, and that had been our, our outlook. Inflation has been behaving for the last couple of years, but now we do have this conflict in the Middle East. We've got globally higher oil prices. They've come down [laughs] in the, in the immediate wake of the announcement of the ceasefire. They're still higher than before the war.

Ryan Wyse: 30% higher?

Ryan Berlin: Yeah.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah. [laughs]

Ryan Berlin: I mean, so they came down a lot. They're still up a lot.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: And right now this, uh, the, the ceasefire is quite tenuous. I mean w- we'll see if it holds.

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: We'll see if oil starts to flow through the strait, um, that remains to be seen. So the calculus around the rate decision, yeah, is more challenging right now because, you know, as we, as we opened with, it's sort of like w- you know, what does this mean for inflation? Like, how invasive is the current oil price environment-

Ryan Wyse: Mm

Ryan Berlin:... for prices of everything here in Canada? So, you know, as you look ahead, how do you view the, the Bank of Canada's perspective, I guess, on this, right?

Ryan Wyse: Yeah. And like you said, at the start of the year, we expected they would sort of just hold maybe through-

Ryan Berlin: Mm

Ryan Wyse:... the entire year. As inflation was under control, as they were... They, they finished last year where they wanted to be at the lower end of their target range. We have two months of data on, uh, the labor market, on inflation. So again, we don't have the March inflation data yet. And the first two months of the year, actually, like we already said, the, the jobs data was quite poor, and inflation actually came in a little bit cooler than some had expected, than the bank had expected. Uh, so headline coming down to 1.8%.

Ryan Berlin: Okay.

Ryan Wyse: A little below their target.

Ryan Berlin: Mm.

Ryan Wyse: Core measures coming down to 2.3, the lowest they've been in quite some time. And had it not been for the war and for rising energy prices, I think the conversation would've shifted to should they actually cut more or not. But of course, we didn't get this data until the war had already started, so there's like a weird timing thing where we found out actually we were in a, a different position than we thought we were, and then of course everything has changed.

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Wyse: If it wasn't for high energy prices, which again, a, a central bank can't control the price of a globally traded commodity, I think the conversation would've been should they cut a little bit more? Now they have to deal with prices of all goods having higher transportation costs and, and some of that moving through. And so I think probably what they're gonna do for the time being is wait. They're going to watch. Again, we don't have a CPI reading yet. We don't know if this ceasefire will hold. We don't... There's a lot of things that no one knows. So the next announcement, I believe, is April 29th. I think they'll probably hold there, and-

Ryan Berlin: I'd be shocked if they moved in either direction.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah. And so I think ultimately what we're gonna see is a, a very cautious approach from the Bank of Canada. The language in their last release, I would describe it as a hedge. Um, they acknowledged a lot of downside risk at home, uh, upside risk from high energy prices, and, uh, a need to just see where this goes. No one knows how long-

Ryan Berlin: Mm

Ryan Wyse: ... this situation will last for. And so I think ultimately we're just gonna see the bank be super cautious for the next few months.

Ryan Berlin: Yeah, I mean, to the extent that it is a transitory effect, like, and by that I mean a, a multi-month, three to six month kind of, um, impact on the economy. The bank is not going to want to jump in and adjust monetary policy to reflect that, right? Because again, we have this, like, underlying slow growth-

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm

Ryan Berlin: ... in our economy. We are seeing bond yields, uh, start to rise. That is going to spill over, you know, if that, if... On the expectation-

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm

Ryan Berlin: ... of higher inflation, and that will spi- spill over into, uh, higher mortgage rates.

Ryan Wyse: Yep.

Ryan Berlin: On that topic, mortgages and debt, you have a really good chart in the report showing the death of the five-year fixed mortgage. Or like-

Ryan Wyse: Yeah

Ryan Berlin: ... if not the death, the waning prominence of it.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: So yeah. So a- as borrowers renew right now, like usually the five-year fixed rate is like the go-to, right? Um, what are borrowers doing now?

Ryan Wyse: Yeah. So increasingly they're not choosing the five-year fixed rate. So we back up, w- you and I have been talking a lot on this podcast and other areas about the mortgage renewal wave that's been coming, and a lot of people have been saying, you know, it's this cliff. It's going to completely change things. Watch out.

Ryan Berlin: Mm.

Ryan Wyse: Because in, in late 2025 and then, and then through 2026, we have all these renewers renewing off these ultra low rates they got from COVID when they took a five-year fixed rate at sub 2%.

Ryan Berlin: I was one of those.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: And it sucked.

Ryan Wyse: [laughs] Well, for five years it was great. [laughs]

Ryan Berlin: For five years it was really good.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah. And, um, and one of the things we've been saying is that thanks to the stress test, the much maligned stress test, our expectation was that people could afford these renewals. Rates were only a little bit higher at renewal than where they were stress tested to. Yes, costs have gone up, but so have incomes. And so we thought, I've thought, and I think, I won't speak for you, but I think you did as well, that overall Canadian borrowers as a group would be able to handle-

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm

Ryan Wyse: ... these renewals, even if it's painful, like your renewal-

Ryan Berlin: There's a difference between not being able to afford a rate increase and not liking a rate increase. [laughs]

Ryan Wyse: Yeah, exactly.

 Ryan Berlin: So most people are in the latter bucket.

Ryan Wyse: And those in the latter bucket have taken another step, which is a, going from a five-year fixed increasingly to a three-year fixed. Some have chosen-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah

Ryan Wyse: ... variable. And so the share of o- a- all outstanding mortgages that are on five-year fixed rates has come down to a low. The data set goes back about 10 years, so it's not, not super long term, but the lowest we've seen. And the share of three... It says three to five years, so three and four year fixed. Mostly three years, uh, has really, really grown. Um, yeah, so in, in 2021, share of outstanding mortgages that were five-year fixed was about half, so 50%, and it's come down to 23%, so it's been cut-

Ryan Berlin: That's huge

Ryan Wyse: ... in half. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, three-year fixed rates have been materially lower than five-year fixed. So you're trading that extra two years of security for a lower rate, and that I think is a calculus that a lot of renewers and probably some buyers as well-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah

Ryan Wyse: ... are choosing. I think it makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. We don't know, [laughs] we don't know, you know, where bond yields are gonna go over the next few weeks with so much, you know, uncertainty globally, but we certainly don't know the difference between where bond yields will be in three years versus five years. So I think that upfront savings are mitigating that rate increase a little bit. Makes a lot of sense for people.

Ryan Berlin: Indeed. Speaking of people-

Ryan Wyse: [laughs]

Ryan Berlin: Um, in the category of terrible segues.

Ryan Wyse: [laughs] That was good.

Ryan Berlin: Let's talk about demographics.

Ryan Wyse: Yes. Let's.  

Ryan Berlin: Okay. So this is like, yeah, this is juicy stuff. So over the past year, and I will say we predicted it we did I mean, it wasn't like a crazy wild prediction.

Ryan Wyse: Mm.

 Ryan Berlin: It was predicated on the government adhering to its own policy. But, you know, it was definitely a forecast at the start of 2025 that was outside of the main. And what am I talking about? I'm talking about the population decline in 2025 nationally that we had expected. It came to fruition. Canada lost 102,000 people-

Ryan Wyse: Yeah

Ryan Berlin: ... uh, over the course of last year. The first time that we've seen a net loss in, in people-

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm

Ryan Berlin: ... uh, in this country since Confederation. So that's a biggie. And then in BC here, this province shrunk by 41,000 people. So that's a lot, right? Like, we just don't see that kind of magnitude in that direction. Again, largely it, I mean, almost entirely reflects the impact of, of the government pushing out non-permanent residents, not approving as many permits. Um, so we saw a big decline in international migration. Uh, permanent residents were still elevated, still in line with-

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm

Ryan Berlin: ... recent historical, uh, counts and in line with the targets. So here in BC, for only the second time in this province's history, so this is going back to 1874. I didn't have to look at my notes. I knew. 1874.

Ryan Wyse: So we've been a province since 1871.

Ryan Berlin: Ah.

Ryan Wyse: And in 1874, we had a very small population loss, and then-

Ryan Berlin: Indeed

Ryan Wyse: ... population growth ever since. I looked it up to see if it was, like, the end of a-

Ryan Berlin: You didn't just know that?

Ryan Wyse: No. Uh-

Ryan Berlin: I knew that.

Ryan Wyse: Did you? It wasn't the end of a gold rush. That was gonna be my guess. So there wasn't-

Ryan Berlin: Mm

Ryan Wyse: ... and there wasn't a, a, like, a pandemic or any major factor influencing why we experienced population loss in 1874.

Ryan Berlin: Okay. Well, we don't know the why, but we know the what. So it's been a long time.

Ryan Wyse: Yes. [laughs]

Ryan Berlin: And, and BC lost 41,000 people on a net basis last year.

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: So what happened? Where'd everyone go?

Ryan Wyse: Yeah. So a whole lot of non-permanent residents left, so international students, temporary foreign workers, the International Mobility Program. Uh, as per the federal government's new policy, a lot of permits expired and people left. So we lost more than 80,000 NPRs from BC last year.

Ryan Berlin: Oof.

Ryan Wyse: And we still added 35,000 PRs-

Ryan Berlin: That's a lot

Ryan Wyse: ... so immigrants. But, you know, the, the much larger NPR share, uh, sort of washes everything else out. We had a very small natural increase, so we had a few more births than deaths-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah

Ryan Wyse: ... province-wide last year. And we, what flipped back to positive interprovincial migration by a small amount. So we had, we'd had about 18 months of negative in- interprovincial-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah

Ryan Wyse: ... migration, more people leaving BC, primarily for Alberta, than people moving to BC from all other provinces. And so that's p- back to positive again. We're, we're still getting a lot of people from Ontario, but again, those are much smaller numbers. It's the, the 80,000 that really matters here.

Ryan Berlin: That being the specific source of the decline, again, speaks to the impact of the policy.

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: But given that it is confined to, those losses are confined to the, the policy space, and we know the government is pushing to sort of put a bow on this-

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm

Ryan Berlin:... particular part of the immigration levels plan by the end of 2027, which is to say, you know, at that point they, they will have hopefully hit a target of NPRs being 5% of the population, which means we don't need to be on this aggressive trend of not bringing in as many people and pushing people out.

Ryan Wyse: Mm.

Ryan Berlin: And so from there, that should stabilize growth.

Ryan Wyse: There's actually been a change within last year. So the first six months of last year, there wasn't a lot of progress made on-

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm

Ryan Wyse: ... this new target, and most of the decline happened in the second half of the year. And part of that's probably the university calendar-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah

Ryan Wyse:... um, with s- with fewer students coming in August, September, and more leaving in the summer. But we're actually further ahead than expected, uh, on progress nationally. So if we continue at this pace that we saw in the last six months of last year, we'd actually hit the target by the end of this year. So either they can slow down or finish sooner and then resume some level of pre-pandemic population growth. Um, but you mentioned whiplash at the start of the episode. Like, this, all of these policy changes, these immigration policy, these non-permanent resident policy changes are-

Ryan Berlin: Mm

Ryan Wyse: ... are giving us whiplash as well. We went from stable growth to, uh-

Ryan Berlin: Explosive growth

Ryan Wyse: ... explosive growth to, you know, population decline. You know, at some point we will get through this, and hopefully we can have, uh, more stability when it comes to, to our immigration policies, to our population growth.

Ryan Berlin: Right. We were taking, um, population Ex-Lax, uh, and now we're on population Metamucil. Okay, let's bring it to, um, the more local region and market. So we do have a shrinking population. We don't have the full year Metro Vancouver numbers in yet, but safe to say given what we saw nationally and provincially, that would've played out here. Um, you know, our, our expectation was that there would be somewhere between, I think, 15 and 20,000 people, uh, net loss for Metro Vancouver this past year. So-

Ryan Wyse: NPR is non-permanent residents, disproportionately live in Metro Vancouver-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah

Ryan Wyse: ... within the province. So if anything, uh, we could have underestimated that.

Ryan Berlin: We could have. I mean, given it was 40, 41,000 provincially for sure. So we have a shrinking population. We have a housing market that's characterized by, um, uh, conditions favorable to buyers. We started the year with 11 months of inventory.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: It's come down a little bit, but I don't think we need to... If, if we sort of think about the impact of this on prices, we don't need to twist ourselves into a pretzel, right, to, to understand or to guess what's happening there with, with home values.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah. I mean, we... So we did a, it's almost like a thought experiment. So we ran some numbers and we said, "What would it take to get to the bottom of a balanced territory or into sellers market territory?" So if you start the year as a buyer's market, pretty elevated-

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm

Ryan Wyse: ... and we know where inventory is and, and we factor in the seasonality of inventory, how many sales do we need to achieve to draw inventory down and to get that dynamic-

Ryan Berlin: Mm

Ryan Wyse: ... to five months of inventory, which is the, the-Line between sellers and balanced territory. And the answer is, for the Vancouver region, 55,000 sales, given where, again, where we started the year from an MOI perspective and from an inventories perspective. And the likelihood of achieving that level of sales this year is no. So we can safely say that we wouldn't get to that place where you could expect pretty substantial price gain. Again, when you get into sellers market territory, that can be significant price gain. When you're in balanced, you can get small amounts.

Ryan Berlin: You still get some.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: Yeah.

Ryan Wyse: And you, you think about it as, like, balanced territory might get you something like inflation for, for your price increases, and so sellers would be beyond that. But that is some [laughs] so many more sales than we're expecting-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah

Ryan Wyse: ... um, this year that, that, that we're projecting some more price declines, especially in the condo space for this year. So-

Ryan Berlin: To what extent?

Ryan Wyse: 4%.

Ryan Berlin: Right.

Ryan Wyse: So not massive, but another 4% decline-

Ryan Berlin: Yeah

Ryan Wyse: ... on a couple years of declines, I think, is significant. So we expect to finish the year 86% of the previous peak values. So-

Ryan Berlin: Which was spring of 2022.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: So that's, like, a four-year... Like, by the end of this year, if that's where we end up, that's, we're coming up on five years-

Ryan Wyse: Yeah

Ryan Berlin: ... off peak. So we know within housing too, it's not just the ownership side of the market-

Ryan Wyse: Yeah

Ryan Berlin: ... that's feeling the heat. It's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it's more challenging conditions for, um, the supply side of the market.

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: For renters, tenants, conditions are certainly more favorable than I can remember them being, you know, over the past two, three, four decades. In fact, the overall vacancy rate as of the end of last year in purpose-built space was up to 3.7%.

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: So the highest we've seen since 1988, up from 1.6% the year prior. What's driving that?

Ryan Wyse: So we just talked about demographics. Non-permanent residents. So we just saw 80,000 non-permanent residents leave the province. They're overwhelmingly renters. So there's a reduction in rental demand from all those non-permanent residents leaving the-

Ryan Berlin: Mm

Ryan Wyse: ... leaving the province last year. At the same time, we delivered a record level of new purpose-built rental supply. There was over 11,000 new purpose-built rental homes delivered last year across the region. So, you know, we've chatted about this, I think, last month even. There's, like, a mismatch in terms of we're delivering all this new supply at the same time that a lot of people are leaving.

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Wyse: Uh, and so that's-

Ryan Berlin: Mm

Ryan Wyse: ... part of the reason that the vacancy rate, uh, has increased from, you know, for so long in this region, it was too tight and it was really challenging for people to secure housing, for, you know, turnover rates were suppressed. And so I think that, you know, there's some, some... It's healthy that, that we're adding so much new supply, but it's also made things a little bit challenging as we're delivering it because the vacancy rate isn't distributed evenly across the region, of course. And where we see it the most elevated is at the t- top end of the market. So we segmented in the landscape vacancy rates by rent quartile. So the top quartile has, has the highest vacancy rate. To make sense, the most expensive homes are often more challenging to lease out. There's not as many people who can afford those leading edge rents.

Ryan Berlin: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Wyse: And so that matters a lot for the new purpose-built rental market, for del- developers who are bringing new supply in order to get their buildings leased up and stabilized. It can be a little bit more challenging in a market like this where that leading edge rent has a higher vacancy rate, and there's more competition amongst those buildings.

Ryan Berlin: Definitely. And that's, you know, that's likely to, you know, more or less characterize the market in our view, you know, over the next year, year and a half.

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: And at that point, we do expect to see some changes because we expect, uh, new rental supply to wane. We expect population growth to return. And so that, that does speak to, you look longer term, the demand for housing is still there.

Ryan Wyse: Yeah.

Ryan Berlin: Like, whether it's rental or it's ownership. We just conducted a survey across Metro Vancouver, Victoria, and, um, the Central Okanagan. And as part of that, uh, we found out that, you know, more than a third of the people that we surveyed said they intended to buy a home-

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm

Ryan Berlin: ... in the next three years. So not, obviously not all of them. You expand that into the, the, the population of these regions, it's not gonna translate to a transaction for each one of them. But the desire is still there. The conditions maybe aren't supportive of it right now. So there's a, a lot to sift through, to synthesize. A very, very challenging market to participate in, but then to understand, right?

Ryan Wyse: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berlin: For all of us. Like, whether we're in the industry or we're not. If you're just someone looking to buy a home or rent a home, it's just, there's a lot of noise out there. So thank you for, uh, helping us sift through that noise and, and find the signal in there by writing the Rennie Landscape. Uh, for everyone who's listening or watching, uh, if you'd like to dig into some of the data and the charts and the commentary that informed our conversation today, you can go to rennie.com/intelligence, and you can access the, uh, Rennie Landscape Spring Edition 2026 there. Ry, thanks for, for doing this again.

Ryan Wyse: Thank you.

Ryan Berlin: It was a good conversation.

Ryan Wyse: We'll see you in the fall.

Ryan Berlin: Really? Oh.

Ryan Wyse: Oh, cool.

Ryan Berlin: We'll see you this afternoon.

Ryan Wyse: Sounds good. [upbeat music]

Thank you for joining us on the Rennie Podcast. If you'd like to learn more or to subscribe to Intelligence updates, go to rennie.com/intelligence. [upbeat music]