Despite falling prices in Vancouver, many potential first-time home buyers are still staying out of the market.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press

For the last decade, the biggest story in Vancouver has been real estate.

The city’s high cost of housing has been a global talking point, with values on par with properties in London, New York and Hong Kong. It became an accepted fact that those prices were being fuelled, in large part, by foreign investors. This eventually prompted crackdowns on this class of purchaser by governments in Victoria and Ottawa.

Despite that, there still existed a housing crisis. Too few homes, for too many people, continued to drive up costs. Build more housing and prices would come down. It was that simple, we were told.

And, to some extent, this theory has held. More homes are available. Prices are coming down. But a funny thing has happened: many first-time home purchasers are still not buying what developers and others are selling.

Opinion: Who’s going to move to Vancouver now?

New data from the Greater Vancouver Realtors indicates that in 2025, the region recorded its lowest annual homes sales total in more than two decades. The association said sales were down 10.4 per cent........

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