The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Chilliwack Real Estate Market July 2026

By Matt Paisley | The Welcome Matt | July 2026

Est. reading time: 6-7 minutes

I have been writing this blog for several months now. I have covered federal housing policy, pipeline economics, rental markets, blend and extend mortgages, and the great basement renovation of 2026. I once dressed as Michael Jackson to make a point about rent prices. My credibility is clearly limitless.

But every once in a while it helps to put down the analogies and just look at the actual numbers. CADREB released the June 2026 MLS detailed sheet last week and it tells a story that has three distinct chapters. One of them will make buyers happy. One of them will make sellers uncomfortable. And one of them is just difficult reading for everyone involved.

Before I get into it, a quick note on the number I am going to use throughout this post. Absorption rate. If you have been following this blog you know I wrote about this concept recently. But the CADREB sheet gives us the locally sourced version directly from your own real estate board, which is more authoritative than any third party estimate. Here is the simple math: absorption rate equals units sold divided by active listings at month end, expressed as a percentage. A balanced market sits between 20 and 25 percent. Below 20 is a buyer's market. Above 25 starts to favour sellers. Keep that in mind as we go through the numbers.

The Good News in the Chilliwack Real Estate Market in July 2026

If you are a buyer of a single family detached home in Chilliwack right now, the data is about as friendly as it has been in several years.

In June 2026, 107 single family detached homes sold in the Chilliwack and District board area. At month end there were 713 active listings. That gives us an absorption rate of 15 percent for detached homes. Still a buyer's market by definition, but the healthiest segment in the entire board and meaningfully better than everything else I am about to show you.

Average days to sale for a detached home in June was 31 days. That is not a market where nothing is moving. That is a market where well-priced homes are finding buyers in roughly a month. The homes you see sitting on the market for 90, 120, and 150 days are not a reflection of buyer demand. They are a reflection of a pricing conversation the seller has not been willing to have yet. I wrote about exactly this dynamic in the Tales from the Trenches post back in May and the June data confirms it.

The other piece of good news is buyer negotiating leverage. With 713 active listings and 107 sales in a month, a serious buyer has real options and real time to make a considered decision. The days of waiving inspections and writing unconditional offers 15 percent over asking to compete with eight other buyers are not part of the current Chilliwack reality. You can take your time. You can ask questions. You can negotiate.

If you have been waiting for a market where preparation and patience are rewarded rather than punished, this is that market.

The Bad News in the Chilliwack Real Estate Market in July 2026

The headline number from the June CADREB sheet is a 19.7 percent decline in total residential units sold compared to June 2025. That is 204 sales this June versus 254 last June. But the number that tells the fuller story is dollar volume. Total residential dollar value sold in June 2026 was $158.6 million. In June 2025 it was $202.2 million. That is a 21.5 percent drop in the actual money changing hands in our local market year over year.

Fewer sales at lower prices. Both moving in the same direction at the same time. That is the bad news in plain language.

The segment breakdown makes this more specific. Townhouses sold 49 units in June with 252 active listings, giving an absorption rate of 19.4 percent. Just below balanced market territory. Average days to sale was 42 days, which is 11 days longer than detached homes. Townhouse prices are also down year over year, with the average sale price sitting at $605,993 in 2026 versus $637,406 in 2025.

Apartments tell a similar story. 30 units sold against 260 active listings for an absorption rate of 11.5 percent. Deepest buyer's market of the three main residential categories. Average days to sale was 46 days. Average apartment price in June 2026 was $431,314 versus $392,297 in June 2025, which is the one category showing a year over year price increase. That is worth noting. The apartment segment is slow to move but is holding value better than the headlines suggest.

The overall residential absorption rate across all property types sits at 14.6 percent. Every single category is below the 20 percent balanced market threshold. Every one.

The Ugly in the Chilliwack Real Estate Market in July 2026

Vacant residential land. Average days to sale in June 2026: 103 days. With 147 active listings and only 5 sales in the month, the absorption rate is 3.4 percent. If you own a vacant residential lot in Chilliwack and you want to sell it, the current data says you are looking at a very long road at current pricing. Land is the most patient asset class in real estate and right now it is requiring an extraordinary amount of patience.

The other ugly piece does not show up as a line item in the CADREB sheet but it shows up every week in the active listings. I wrote about this in the Tales from the Trenches post and the June data reinforces it. A meaningful portion of the current active listings represent homes purchased at the 2021 and 2022 peak that are now listed at prices below what the owners paid. The single family benchmark price in June 2026 was $900,900 for the CADREB board area, down 3.9 percent year over year. Some individual properties are sitting considerably further below their purchase price depending on when they bought and where they bought.

These are not distressed properties in the traditional sense. They are ordinary homes owned by people who made reasonable decisions in an unreasonable market and are now facing the math that results from that timing. The ugly part is not the number itself. The ugly part is that some of those sellers have a price in their head that the market has already told them is too high, and the longer they hold that number the longer their home sits in a market where 14.6 percent of listings sell each month.

Thirteen REALTORS left the board between June 2025 and June 2026, dropping from 378 to 352. That is a quiet data point buried in the top of the sheet that speaks to how the current market is affecting the people who work in it. Fewer transactions means fewer commissions means fewer people who can sustain a real estate career. The market has consequences at every level.

What the Absorption Rate Actually Means If You Are Selling Right Now

Let me make this as plain as I can.

If the overall residential absorption rate is 14.6 percent, that means roughly 1 in 7 homes listed in Chilliwack sells in any given month. If you are listing a detached home the odds improve slightly to about 1 in 6.7 at the current rate. If you are listing an apartment it is closer to 1 in 9.

The question every seller should be asking before they list is: what makes mine the one that sells this month?

The answer almost always comes down to two things. Price and presentation. The CADREB data is clear that well-priced homes in Chilliwack are still moving in around 31 days for detached and 42 days for townhouses. The homes sitting at 90 days plus are not sitting because buyers do not exist. They are sitting because the price does not match what the current market will pay.

If your home is priced based on what it would have sold for in 2022, what your neighbour got eighteen months ago, or what you believe it is worth based on the money you have put into it, the absorption rate tells you exactly what your odds are. They are not great. The market does not negotiate with sentiment.

If your home is priced based on what comparable properties have actually sold for in the last 60 to 90 days in your specific neighbourhood, the data says you have a reasonable chance of selling within a month. That is a meaningful difference.

What the Absorption Rate Means If You Are Buying Right Now

You are in the best negotiating position a Chilliwack buyer has been in since before the 2020 rate cuts kicked off the frenzy.

1,394 active residential listings. 204 sales in a month. You have time. You have options. You have the leverage to ask questions, request repairs, include subjects, and negotiate on price without worrying that someone else is writing an offer on the same property while you sleep.

The Bank of Canada held at 2.25 percent for the sixth consecutive meeting on July 15. The next announcement is September 2. The rate environment is not moving dramatically in either direction in the near term and the uncertainty that has kept some buyers on the sidelines is starting to feel more like the new normal than a temporary condition.

The cost of waiting calculator on my site is worth running if you have been sitting on the sidelines for more than six months. The numbers on your specific situation may tell you something different than the general market headlines do.

The Honest Summary

The good: detached homes are the healthiest segment, well-priced properties are moving in about a month, and buyers have genuine negotiating power and real choice.

The bad: dollar volume is down 21.5 percent year over year, every residential category is in buyer's market territory, and the overall absorption rate of 14.6 percent means most listed homes are not selling in any given month.

The ugly: vacant land is essentially frozen at 3.4 percent absorption, a meaningful portion of current listings are underwater from the 2021 and 2022 peak, and sellers who are pricing against the market they remember rather than the market they are in are running out of runway.

The Chilliwack real estate market in July 2026 is not a disaster. It is a market that rewards the right strategy on both sides of the transaction and punishes the wrong one more visibly than it used to. That is probably a healthier place to be than a market where everything sells regardless of condition, price, or preparation.

Clint Eastwood would probably find it at least moderately interesting (If you got my Good, Bad & The Ugly reference).

I am easy to reach if you want to talk through what any of this means for your specific situation.

Matt Paisley | The Welcome Matt Fraser Valley Real Estate | Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Langley, Mission, Hope and Agassiz 📱 [604-991-5028] 🌐 thewelcomematt.ca

Market data referenced in this post reflects Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board statistics for May & June 2026. This post is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or real estate advice specific to your situation.