Victoria’s May real-estate market picked up where April left off to post a jump in sales month-to-month, and steady prices compared to last year, according to the latest data from the Victoria Real Estate Board.

 

758 properties sold in May via the Multiple Listings Service, just five sales below May of 2024’s activity. April’s activity totalled 642 sales, with 612 in March.

 

Single-family homes accounted for 401 transactions, two above last May’s 399. Average prices reached $1,304,200 with a median of $1,199,000, a drop of 1.4% and a jump of 1.8%, respectively. In April, single-family prices surged to a $1.39 million average with an identical median to that of May’s, suggesting multiple high-value properties changed hands in April.

 

The townhome segment had its strongest showing in terms of average and median prices since the start of 2025, averaging $841,587 per purchases and the first median to crack $800,000 all year, at $807,750. Last May saw an average of $836,439 and a $789,547 median. Sales reached 90 units, the second highest total since June of 2023 when 90 sales were also recorded.

 

Victoria-based real-estate agent Ryan Cook (see website), with brokerage Remax Camosun, says demand for houses and townhomes continues to drive Victoria’s housing market at a time when condominiums are still struggling to find their groove.

 

“Detached homes remain highly sought after on the south Island, and buyers are pulling out all the stops to try to make a single-family-home purchase work,” Cook says. “Otherwise, townhomes are an immediate second choice particularly if location is more important to a buyer than price point alone.”

 

Down but not out, condominiums still fared relatively well throughout the Capital with 221 sales, according to the VREB. This data does not include non-MLS sales such as pre-sales or units sold off-MLS. Last May, 235 condominiums sold. This May’s average was $603,493, a touch below last year’s $613,936. The median also slipped to $535,000 this year compared to $547,450 a year ago.

 

“Until demand returns to the city centre’s condominium offerings, we are likely to see suppressed sales for this segment, although overall, prices are maintaining their value when compared to 2024’s MLS activity,” Cook said, adding that downtown Victoria’s condominium market specifically, which is the dominant condo node in the city, “is getting to a point where sellers are becoming more and more motivated to sell and bullish offers by motivated buyers are being considered.” Cook recently spoke to the downtown core’s condominium market in detail, and the opportunities he believes are available, in a segment published by Citified here.

 

Cross-market active listings, meanwhile, reached 3,716 units in May, the highest tally for the month since 2015, representing just about five months of inventory. This is close to the zone where buyers can exert more pressure on sellers, particularly for condominium listings. New units in May reached 1,834, the highest since May of 2008.

 

“Residential real-estate on the south Island is full of wildcards and surprises this year, but the resiliency of houses and strong demand for townhomes are still pillars of the local market. Like elsewhere in Canada, condominiums are not faring as well as they have in the past, partly due to urban issues that many cities in the nation are grappling with, and partly due to incoming new supply competing with older supply,” Cook said. “However, Victoria is more insulated on the new-supply front than markets like Toronto or some parts of Metro Vancouver, as our condominium market has remained quite modest in terms of new construction. Much of what we’re seeing locally are purpose-built rentals, and this is a silver lining buoying our condo market much more than in other parts of the country.”

 

This Wednesday, Canada’s central bank will announce its latest overnight lending rate policy that is expected to deliver either a hold of the current 2.75% interest rate or a modest drop. The central bank is expected to lower rates up to two times in 2025, although the timing remains a point of debate among analysts and real-estate professionals.

 

“Canada’s housing markets could use an infusion of favourable lending rates as we head into the fall. A June drop of 0.25% or 0.50% by the Bank of Canada followed by a drop in bond rates this month or in the summer would be a welcome boost for homebuyers already motivated to enter the market or who are considering moving up the housing ladder.” C

 

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