Goodman Commercial anticipates a rise in large multi-family real estate transactions in Metro Vancouver as more supply continues to come onto the market in 2025.

The firm also expects non-profit organizations to remain highly active buyers, following a significant increase in their acquisition activity in 2024.

Metro Vancouver’s multi-family investment surged 71% to $1.78 billion from $1.04 billion in 2023, says the firm’s year-end report.

“After two years of declines in dollar volume of transactions, we had a pronounced rebound in 2024,” Mark Goodman, a company principal, told Connect.

In 2024, total multi-family transactions increased 33% to 97 from 73 the previous year. While the dollar volume aligned with the 10-year average, the number of transactions remained lower than all but three of the past 10 years.

A handful of large deals drove this growth, an uncommon trend in Metro Vancouver. There were eight transactions exceeding $50 million, with three surpassing $100 million—the highest number since 2018.

“Typically, we’ll be lucky if we see one over 100 million,” said Mark Goodman, whose firm specializes in multi-family real estate brokerage and development-land sales across the region.

The West End led the activity, with five high-rise buildings changing hands for a combined $434 million, representing 39% of Vancouver’s total transaction volume.

Non-profit and government buyers played a major role in the market, acquiring 18 properties for $366 million, accounting for 19% of total transactions and 21% of total dollar volume. While their activity slowed in the second half of the year, these buyers remained a key force, accounting for 14 of the 18 transactions.

“They dominated the first half of 2024 in sales, especially in the suburbs,” said Mark Goodman. “They lost a little steam in the second half of the year, but they end up acquiring $366 million worth of real estate. That’s quite significant.”

Of the 18 properties that non-profits acquired, 18 were in the suburbs.

Institutional buyers, whose presence had been waning for three years, made significant investments in 2024, spending $563 million on just seven properties. Despite this investment level, institutional transactions accounted for only 7% of total deals, down from 11% in 2023.

While suburban activity declined in the latter half of the year, Vancouver saw an offsetting increase, resulting in nearly even sales totals across both halves of 2024.

A surge in transactions occurred in June due to the federal government’s decision to increase the capital-gains tax inclusion rate, pushing $324 million in sales to close that month. (Investors faced a late-June deadline before the profit threshold was to increase, but the federal government subsequently postponed the increase, which required Parliament’s approval for a year after former prime minister Justin Trudeau prorogued the session. In recent days, new PM Mark Carney has pledged to scrap the increase entirely if the Liberal government returns to power following the upcoming election.)

“The capital-gains tax increase, or the threat of it in 2024, was a huge factor, and it sparked a flurry of sales like right down to the wire,” said Mark Goodman, whose saw a large upswing in deal completions during the month.

Among Vancouver neighbourhoods, the West End experienced the most dramatic increase, with dollar volume soaring 335% to $601 million. City-wide, 52 transactions were recorded (up 8%) for a total of $1.11 billion (up 89%). Other neighbourhoods seeing major increases included Kitsilano (up 261%), Marpole (up 39%), and Kerrisdale (up 9%). Meanwhile, South Granville and East Vancouver recorded declines of 43% and 20%, respectively.

In the suburbs, multi-family investment saw strong growth, with total dollar volume increasing 48% to $669 million and the number of transactions jumping 80% to 45. Burnaby and New Westminster led the suburban rebound, climbing to 22 transactions worth $270 million from just four deals worth $16 million in 2023. North Vancouver (up 271%) and Richmond (up 100%) also posted substantial gains, while Coquitlam (-30%), White Rock (-56%), Langley (-56%), and Surrey (-93%) recorded sharp drops.

Despite the overall investment surge, times were still difficult, said Mark Goodman.

“While the numbers are more attractive in terms of deal velocity, it still was a tough year,” he said. “It was a roller coaster, 2024. It was so hard to bring buyers and sellers together.”

And, 2025 could prove to be similar as U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports and Canada’s counter-tariffs create a “whole new ball game,” for the multi-family sector.

“The turbulence from 2024 has spilled into 2025; we were all hoping that things would settle down in 2025,” he said. “We’d be back to business.”

But a pronounced shift in market sentiment has still occurred after investors paused buying and selling decisions to see how the effects of Bank of Canada interest-rate cuts would play out.

“You can only hold off so long,” said Mark Goodman. “So there’s a lot more product on the market, tonnes of listings.”

Goodman Commercial expects listings to continue to increase over the course of the year, with the surplus driving prices down.

“So, what we need to do is stop this narrative of [lower] interest rates as the Hail Mary of what’s going to dictate value, and focus on how many listings there are the market,” said Mark Goodman.

“It’s a buyer’s market right now.”

He predicts that the region will not see a large price jump in the foreseeable future, noting that the average price per door remained relative flat while rising just 1% in 2024.

Accordingly, he does not expect development activity to increase substantially in the foreseeable future, either, despite a number of government investment incentives being available.

Large municipal development-charge increases are also having a negative impact.

“Developers are having a hard time making sure these transactions pencil out,” he said.

Photo: Vancouver apartment building at 8770 Granville Street listed for sale by Goodman Commercial.

Photo: Courtesy of Goodman Commercial