This is the question I get most often right now, and it has a published answer rather than an opinion. The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board reports a sales-to-active-listings ratio every month, and the BCREA definition FVREB prints alongside it puts a balanced market between 12% and 20%. Below that band is a buyer's market. Above it is a seller's market.
In September 2026 it was 9%: 922 sales against 9,763 active listings at month end. FVREB's own release says the Fraser Valley has spent most of the last two years in a buyer's market, and that September brought no change. So yes, by the only measure anyone actually publishes, this is a buyer's market, and it has been one for a while.
That is the easy part. The useful part is that 9% is a board-wide figure covering Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford, Mission, White Rock and North Delta, across every property type at once. Nobody buys the board. The segment you are shopping in can sit a long way from 9%.
The ratio by segment, September 2026
These are worked out from the sales and active listing counts in the board's own September package, one segment at a time.
Langley: detached 64 sales against 449 active listings, which is 14%. Townhouse 61 against 283, which is 22%. Apartment 67 against 416, which is 16%.
South Surrey and White Rock, which the board reports as a single area: detached 60 sales against 600 active listings, which is 10%. Townhouse 47 against 283, which is 17%. Apartment 43 against 310, which is 14%.
Not one of those six segments is at 9%. Five of them sit inside or just under the balanced band, and one, the Langley townhouse at 22%, is above it. That is a seller's market by the standard definition, in the same month the board described the region as a buyer's market. A Langley townhouse owner who reads the headline and assumes they have no leverage is reading the wrong number.
The other end of the range is detached in South Surrey and White Rock at 10%, where ten homes sat listed for every one that sold. That is the softest segment in either market, and it is where a buyer has the most room.
The spring read was that this was about to balance
It did not. An earlier version of this post, written in April, called the spring the most balanced market in 18 months. That was wrong against the board's own numbers at the time, so it is worth correcting here rather than quietly deleting.
What April 2026 actually looked like: 1,118 sales against 9,816 active listings, a ratio of 11%, still below the balanced band. Inventory sat 45% above the 10-year seasonal average. The board's April release, published May 4, said conditions remained firmly in buyers' favour. Sales really were rising, both from March and year over year, but they were rising inside a buyer's market rather than out of one.
Six months later the ratio had gone the other way, from 11% in April to 9% in September, with sales down from 1,118 to 922. The spring pickup did not carry. That read was not unique to this site either. The local market blogs writing up the April package were forecasting a move toward balanced territory too.
What six months did to prices
Benchmark prices, April 2026 against September 2026, from the two packages.
Langley detached went from $1.526M to $1.471M, down 3.6%. Townhouse from $812,000 to $802,600, down 1.2%. Apartment from $554,100 to $525,900, down 5.1%.
South Surrey and White Rock detached went from $1.741M to $1.613M, down 7.4%. Townhouse from $878,200 to $797,100, down 9.2%. Apartment from $588,200 to $544,400, down 7.4%.
South Surrey and White Rock fell roughly twice as hard as Langley, across all three property types, over the same six months. That is the most useful thing on this page. The two markets are twenty minutes apart and they are not behaving the same way, so a regional average describes neither of them well. If you are tracking one of them, track it directly: the Langley market update for September 2026 and the South Surrey and White Rock market update for September 2026 break each out by property type.
It also means the April claim that White Rock had limited inventory holding prices firm between $1.600M and $2.200M did not hold up. Inventory was not limited. The board reports White Rock together with South Surrey, and that area ended September with 600 detached listings active against 60 sales. The detached benchmark for the area is now $1.613M, which is the floor of that range rather than the middle of it.
The ten year numbers explain more than the six month ones
The package carries a Home Price Index table with three, five and ten year changes, and it tells a sharper story than any single month does.
Over ten years the residential composite for Langley real estate market is up 37.9%. For South Surrey real estate and White Rock real estate, reported together, it is up 0.9%. Detached only: Langley up 57.4%, South Surrey and White Rock up 10.5%. Over five years, Langley detached is down 2.9% and South Surrey and White Rock detached is down 5.3%.
Ten years of close to flat pricing in South Surrey and White Rock is not something you hear in a listing presentation, and it is the context the current softness needs. One of these markets is giving back part of a long run up. The other never had the run up to give back.
On the peak, the board notes the Fraser Valley detached benchmark now sits $460,000 below where it was in March 2022.
What a buyer's market does not mean
It does not mean nothing is selling. In September the average days to sell was 45 for a detached home, 38 for a townhouse and 46 for a condo. In April those were 37, 32 and 42. Everything got about a week slower over the six months, which is a real change and a small one.
One caveat on that statistic, and it matters more than the number: average days to sell counts only the homes that sold. In a segment where one listing in ten sells in a month, the ones that did not sell are not in the average at all. A 45 day figure does not mean your home sells in 45 days.
It also does not mean financing is the problem. The Bank of Canada's target for the overnight rate was 2.25% as of October 16, 2026, and chartered bank prime was 4.45% for the week of October 14. Rates are not what is keeping buyers out. The board's own read is that economic uncertainty is, and that is harder to forecast than a rate decision.
What I would do with this
If you are selling, find your own segment's ratio before you set a price, not the board's. A Langley townhouse at 22% and a South Surrey detached at 10% are not the same listing problem and should not get the same pricing strategy. That is also the honest answer to why two agents can quote you very different timelines on the same street.
If you are buying, the room is where the ratio is lowest, and at the moment that is detached in South Surrey and White Rock. More inventory buys you time, and time is what lets you keep subjects in an offer.
If you are doing both at once, the two sides of your move are in different markets, which changes the order you should do them in. That one is worth its own answer, and I worked through it in should I sell before I buy.
All of these figures move every month, and the segment numbers move more than the board-wide one. If you want your own segment run against the current package, or what your home is worth in it, send me a note and I will pull it.