Comprehensive Analysis of August 2026 Fraser Valley Real Estate Market Data

August 2026 Fraser Valley Market Analysis: More Sales Than Last August, and Every One of Them Cheaper

By Katie Van Nes, SearchFraserValley.ca  |  August 2026 market data  |  Published: 3 September 2026

August produced the first genuinely odd number of the Fraser Valley's long slowdown. Sales came in at 941, which is 1.1 per cent above August 2025. The board noted that this was only the second year-over-year gain since the beginning of 2025. At the same time the composite benchmark fell another 0.9 per cent to $869,900, leaving it 7.2 per cent below a year earlier. So the region sold ten more homes than it did the previous August, and sold them into a market priced seven per cent lower. Those two facts are the month, and reading them together is the whole exercise.

Market Overview

The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board recorded 941 sales in August 2026. Against July that is a decline of 13.6 per cent, a fall of 148 transactions, which is an ordinary late-summer pattern. Against August 2025 it is a gain of 1.1 per cent, ten transactions, and that is not ordinary at all. The board's own release described it as only the second annual gain since the beginning of 2025, and called it a modest bright spot in a market where overall demand remains subdued and prices continue to ease. Both halves of that sentence are doing work.

Prices did continue to ease. The composite benchmark for a typical Fraser Valley home finished August at $869,900, down 0.9 per cent from July and 7.2 per cent from August 2025. That is the third consecutive month of a decline close to one per cent, following 0.8 per cent in July and 1.0 per cent in September. The sales-to-active listings ratio was 10 per cent, down from 11 per cent in July, and below the 12 to 20 per cent band the British Columbia Real Estate Association uses to describe a balanced market.

The supply side kept contracting from both ends. New listings fell to 2,373, down 16.3 per cent from July and 15.0 per cent from August 2025, a drop of 463 from the previous month. Active listings finished at 9,787, down 2.6 per cent, a reduction of 257. As in July, the inventory decline came mainly from the listing side rather than from absorption. The board recorded the stock as still 33 per cent above the ten-year seasonal average, a slightly wider overhang than July's 32 per cent despite the lower absolute count, which is what happens when the seasonal benchmark falls faster than the stock does.

That framing is worth holding onto, because it offers a mechanism for the month's apparent contradiction. If motivated sellers are meeting opportunistic buyers at lower numbers, you would expect exactly what August produced: transaction counts holding up against the prior year while the price level keeps giving way. The all-property-type average price was $944,900, which actually rose 0.5 per cent from July even as the benchmark fell, and was down 6.3 per cent from August 2025. Year to date, the board recorded 7,844 sales against 8,289 over the same eight months of 2025, down 5.4 per cent, with new listings at 24,579 against 27,990, down 12.2 per cent.

Benchmark Prices by Property Type

MLS® HPI benchmark prices, Fraser Valley Real Estate Board area, August 2026. Days-to-sell figures are reported in the board's news release as monthly averages; the package publishes no month-over-month or year-over-year comparison for that metric, so none is implied here.

The three property types fell within a narrow band in August, between 0.7 and 1.2 per cent. The yearly figures separate them: apartments off 8.9 per cent, detached homes 8.4 per cent, townhouses 7.1 per cent. Townhouses have held their value best over twelve months and also sold fastest, at 37 days against 45 for both detached homes and condos.

The sales column is where August's character shows. Detached sales were exactly flat year over year at 332 units, a change of 0.0 per cent. Townhouse sales were down 2.0 per cent and apartment sales down 7.5 per cent. All three are far shallower declines than July produced, when apartment sales alone fell 21.9 per cent year over year. The board's modest annual gain in total sales was not driven by any one property type surging; it came from all three types declining much less steeply than they had been.

The ten-year column again supplies the context monthly reporting removes. The apartment benchmark is up 88.8 per cent over a decade and the townhouse benchmark 65.1 per cent. An owner who bought a decade ago and an owner who bought three years ago are reading the same monthly headline against completely different purchase prices. Interim Chief Executive Officer Anthony Boone put the three-year view in the release, saying prices were now as much as 15 per cent lower than they were three years ago. The board's composite three-year change in the same package is 15.6 per cent, so his figure is consistent with the table, though the phrasing is his.

City-by-City Snapshot

August separated the region's communities more sharply than any other month in this series. One community fell more than four times as fast as the board composite; another was essentially unchanged.

MLS® HPI composite benchmark by community, August 2026. Two notes on reading this table. The row labelled Surrey is the board's Central Surrey sub-area, not the City of Surrey as a whole; the board publishes no single composite figure for the full city. And these community rows overlap, since South Surrey and White Rock covers territory also counted in the Surrey sub-areas, so they cannot be added together.

Mission: the largest single-month community decline in the series

Mission's composite benchmark fell 3.8 per cent in August, to $800,200. The board composite fell 0.9 per cent in the same month, so Mission moved more than four times as fast. Its detached benchmark fell further still, down 4.5 per cent to $892,700, and its detached twelve-month decline of 11.8 per cent is the steepest detached figure in the package. Mission detached sales were 27, down 28.9 per cent year over year.

Set against that, Mission retains the strongest ten-year gain of any community at 59.1 per cent, and its detached ten-year figure is 65.6 per cent. The community that gave back the most in a single month is still the community that has appreciated most over a decade. Both things are measured from the same table. See the Mission market snapshot →

South Surrey and White Rock: a complete reversal from July

In July this was the hardest-hit community in the table, with the composite down 2.4 per cent. In August it was the softest landing, down 0.1 per cent, and its detached benchmark actually rose 0.1 per cent to $1,649,200. Sales moved too: detached sales were 48, up 33.3 per cent year over year, and apartment sales 52, up 26.8 per cent. The townhouse side went the other way, with the benchmark down 11.1 per cent over twelve months, the steepest townhouse annual decline in the package. This remains the region's most expensive sub-market and the one with the weakest decade, at 2.4 per cent over ten years. See the South Surrey market snapshot →

Abbotsford: sales up on both of its main property types

Abbotsford produced the clearest sales story in the package. Detached sales were 56, up 12.0 per cent year over year and 9.8 per cent on the month. Townhouse sales were 43, up 2.4 per cent year over year and 26.5 per cent on the month. Both rose while the community's new listings fell hard, down 25.0 per cent for detached and 37.5 per cent for townhouses against the previous August. More transactions against fewer fresh listings is the tightest supply-and-demand combination any community showed in the month, and Abbotsford's composite benchmark still fell 1.6 per cent, a little faster than the board. Its ten-year gain is 46.4 per cent, and its detached ten-year gain 68.0 per cent. See the Abbotsford market snapshot → Read the Abbotsford City Guide →

Langley: the only community still ahead over five years

Langley's composite fell 0.8 per cent to $948,600, almost exactly matching the board. Its distinction is in the long columns: a three-year decline of 9.2 per cent, the mildest in the table against the board's 15.6 per cent, and a five-year change of positive 0.2 per cent, which makes it the only community in the board area still above where it stood five years earlier. Langley apartment sales were 65, up 35.4 per cent year over year, the largest annual sales gain anywhere in the package, with the apartment benchmark unchanged on the month at $534,000.

Inside the Average: The Month the Seller's Markets Disappeared

The board reports one ratio for the region: 10 per cent in August, its lowest of the summer. SnapStats, a separate statistical publication working from the same Fraser Valley Real Estate Board MLS® data, resolves that figure into fourteen area-and-property-type segments. August split them exactly in half: seven balanced and seven buyer's markets. For the first time in the months on record this summer, not one segment was a seller's market. The range narrowed to 7 per cent through 20 per cent, the tightest spread of the summer.

SnapStats® Fraser Valley Report, August 2026, data captured 1 September 2026 from Fraser Valley Real Estate Board MLS®. SnapStats classifies 0 to 11 per cent as a buyer's market, 12 to 20 per cent as balanced and 21 per cent or above as a seller's market. Three cautions on reading this table alongside the board's figures. SnapStats Attached combines townhouses and apartments, so it is not the board's Townhouse category. SnapStats area names are its own and are not the board's HPI community definitions. And a SnapStats sales ratio is a different construction from the board's all-property-type sales-to-active ratio, so these percentages are not directly comparable with the board's 10 per cent.

Langley attached crossed out of seller's territory

In July, Langley attached homes were the one segment above SnapStats' 21 per cent seller's-market threshold, at 22 per cent. In August the same segment came in at 19 per cent, which puts it in balanced territory, and days on market lengthened from 21 to 27. That single segment crossing the line accounts for the whole change in the month's classification tally. Across the three months on record so far this summer, seller's-market segments have gone from two in June, to one in July, to none in August. That is a description of three consecutive months of recorded data rather than a forecast, and SnapStats itself prints the relevant caution on its reports: refer to year-to-date figures for sustained periods.

No segment was a seller's market, but eleven price bands were

SnapStats breaks each segment into price bands, and this is where a single regional ratio becomes least informative. August had zero seller's-market segments and eleven seller's-market price bands sitting inside them.

Mission is the sharpest illustration of why a falling benchmark and a fast-moving band are not in conflict. Both Mission segments were buyer's markets at 11 per cent, and both contained a seller's-market price band: detached between $700,000 and $800,000 at 22 per cent, attached between $600,000 and $700,000 at 24 per cent. Mission is also the community whose composite benchmark fell hardest in the month, by 3.8 per cent. The two measures answer different questions. The benchmark is a composition-controlled price level; a band ratio is absorption speed within a price slice. Prices in Mission came down, and homes at certain prices moved quickly once they did.

The month slowed at the top and quickened at the bottom

Days on market moved in a legible pattern in August. The expensive segments slowed: White Rock and South Surrey detached went from 30 days to 43, Mission detached from 31 to 40, White Rock and South Surrey attached from 28 to 38, Abbotsford detached from 20 to 30. The cheaper and smaller segments quickened: North Delta attached from 19 to 11, Mission attached from 23 to 20, Langley detached from 25 to 23. Surrey detached held at 40 days and Cloverdale detached at 19.

That gives the month its widest internal gap. White Rock and South Surrey detached, the region's most expensive segment at a board benchmark of $1,649,200, took 43 days. Cloverdale detached took 19. The board's single published figure for the month was 45 days for detached homes, which sits above both and describes neither.

One SnapStats figure needs a caveat instead of an interpretation. North Delta attached shows its sale-price-to-list-price ratio moving from 104 per cent in July to 97 per cent in August. The 104 per cent was a late-reporting artifact under SnapStats' own footnote, which states that a figure above 100 per cent reflects MLS® data reported in the previous month. The apparent seven-point fall is therefore not a collapse in negotiating position. The segment recorded six sales in August, which is too small a base to carry any reading at all.

What This Means for Buyers

August was the most uniformly buyer-friendly month of the summer at the segment level. Seven of fourteen segments were buyer's markets and the other seven were balanced, with nothing above 20 per cent. If you were shopping in August, the odds that your specific segment was competitive were lower than in any prior month of this series. That is a real and measurable improvement in position, and it is the sort of thing the board's one-point ratio drop from 11 to 10 per cent understates.

Your price band can still contradict your segment, and in August it did so eleven times. This is the most practical instruction in the data. Cloverdale attached at $500,000 to $600,000 absorbed half its inventory in the month. Abbotsford detached at $700,000 to $800,000 ran at 33 per cent. North Delta attached at $800,000 to $900,000 ran at 25 per cent inside a 9 per cent segment. Before assuming you have time, check the absorption rate at your actual price point rather than for your city.

Expensive detached homes are where the leverage was. White Rock and South Surrey detached sat at an 8 per cent sales ratio and took 43 days to sell, the slowest segment in the report, while that same community's detached benchmark was flat on the month. Surrey detached was at 7 per cent and 40 days. For a buyer with the budget to be in those segments, August offered more negotiating room than anywhere else in the region, measured both by absorption and by time on market.

Mission deserves a close look and a careful one. Its composite fell 3.8 per cent in a single month and its detached benchmark 4.5 per cent, which is the fastest price adjustment in the series. Both its segments were buyer's markets. The caution is that the specific bands around $700,000 to $800,000 detached and $600,000 to $700,000 attached were moving at seller's-market speeds, so the opportunity and the competition sat in the same community at different price points.

Condos carried the steepest annual price decline for a second month. The apartment benchmark was down 8.9 per cent over twelve months, against 8.4 per cent detached and 7.1 per cent townhouse. Apartment sales fell only 7.5 per cent year over year, a far shallower decline than July's 21.9 per cent. The ten-year figure on that same benchmark is a gain of 88.8 per cent, which is the counterweight to read alongside it. See the Fraser Valley condo snapshot →

What This Means for Sellers

More homes sold in August than in August 2025, which is the first encouraging comparison in a long while. Total sales were up 1.1 per cent year over year, detached sales exactly flat, townhouse sales down only 2.0 per cent and apartment sales down 7.5 per cent. After a year of double-digit declines in some types, that is a meaningfully better demand picture. It arrived alongside a 7.2 per cent lower price level, so it is a statement about volume rather than about value.

Your competition thinned considerably. New listings fell 16.3 per cent from July and 15.0 per cent from August 2025, 463 fewer homes than the previous month. In Abbotsford the effect was sharper still, with detached new listings down 25.0 per cent and townhouse new listings down 37.5 per cent year over year, against rising sales in both. If you listed in August, fewer directly comparable homes arrived beside yours than in any recent month.

Price to the benchmark, and know your community's benchmark rather than the region's. The board composite fell 0.9 per cent, but Mission fell 3.8 per cent and South Surrey and White Rock fell 0.1 per cent. A Mission seller working from a July comparable was working from a number nearly four per cent stale within one month. Chair Ismail's description of the mechanism is the useful one here: sellers who needed to sell were accepting lower offers, and that is what moved the benchmark.

Expect the top of the market to take longer. The segments that slowed in August were the expensive ones. White Rock and South Surrey detached went from 30 days to 43. Mission detached went from 31 to 40. Abbotsford detached went from 20 to 30. If your home is in the upper reaches of its local market, the board's 45-day detached average is likely to flatter your timeline rather than describe it.

Check whether your list price lands in a fast band. Eleven price bands were absorbing inventory at seller's-market rates in a month when no whole segment was. A Cloverdale townhouse or condo priced between $500,000 and $600,000 was in a band where half the standing inventory sold. That is a different conversation about pricing strategy from the one the regional headline implies. Request a home evaluation →

Looking Ahead: What to Watch

Whether the year-over-year sales gain repeats. August's 1.1 per cent was, on the board's own count, only the second annual gain since the start of 2025. A single month of it is a data point. Two or three consecutive months would be the first real evidence that transaction volumes have found a floor, independent of what prices are doing.

Whether the seller's-market segments stay away. June had two, July had one, August had none. If balanced segments keep converting to buyer's markets, the practical shape of the region continues to soften regardless of the board's headline ratio. SnapStats' own instruction is the right frame: one month is not a sustained period, and the year-to-date reports are where sustained periods are read.

Whether Mission's drop was a step down or the start of a slide. A 3.8 per cent single-month composite decline is large enough that the following month's figure matters a great deal. A flat September would make August look like a repricing; another sharp fall would make it look like a trend.

Whether Abbotsford's supply squeeze holds. Rising sales against sharply falling new listings is the one combination in the August package that would normally firm up prices. It did not firm Abbotsford's benchmark, which fell 1.6 per cent. If the listing shortfall persists while sales hold, that is the community to watch for the region's first price stabilisation.

The policy rate, which was held through August. The Bank of Canada's target for the overnight rate stands at 2.25 per cent and has been unchanged since 30 October 2025, a run of six consecutive holds. Interim Chief Executive Officer Anthony Boone said in the board's release that conditions were expected to continue to favour buyers for the foreseeable future. That is his forecast and it is quoted here as such rather than endorsed. The September 2 announcement falls outside August's reporting period; a further decision is scheduled for 28 October 2026. Confirm the current rate at bankofcanada.ca before relying on any figure here.

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