Craig Johnston Personal Real Estate Corporation · Brokerage: Royal LePage Elite West
The market headlines won't tell you whether you should buy. Your timeline, your qualification math, and the specific Coquitlam pocket you're targeting will. Here is the honest September 2026 read: where the corridor sits right now, the 4-condition checklist Craig walks every buyer through, the cost-of-waiting math, and why buying the right home matters more than timing the bottom.
4.9 across 36+ Google reviews Top 1% Team — GVR, 2023–2025 47+ years in the Tri-Cities"Is now a good time" is really six personal questions, not one market call. Work through them and the answer stops being a guess about the whole market and becomes a decision about your situation.
Your rate
The market rate matters less than the rate and term you personally qualify for. A firm pre-approval turns an abstract worry into a real monthly number you can test against your budget — and it holds that rate while you shop, protecting you if the market moves. Bring that number, not a guess, to every showing so you are comparing homes against your real budget.
Your segment
Detached, townhome and apartment segments are rarely in sync. A citywide headline can be falling while the exact type and area you would buy is flat or rising. The only trend that should move you is the one for your specific segment. Ask to see the trend line for your exact property type and area, not the blended citywide headline.
Your choice
More active listings means more negotiating room, more time to think, and less pressure to overpay. Thin inventory does the opposite. Choice — not the headline price — is what actually shapes the leverage you will have at the table. Count the active listings that genuinely compete with what you want before you decide the market is tight.
Your math
Compare the true monthly cost of owning — mortgage, taxes, strata, insurance and maintenance — against your current rent, not against a best-case scenario. When you own the real numbers, the decision gets a lot less emotional. Run the comparison over five years, not one month, so a single noisy data point does not drive a major decision.
Your timeline
The longer you plan to stay, the less short-term price movement matters, because time smooths out the wobble. A five-year-plus horizon absorbs a great deal of market noise that would rattle a two-year buyer. If your plans might change inside three years, that uncertainty matters more than any forecast about prices.
Your cost of waiting
Waiting has a price too — another year of rent that builds no equity, plus the risk that rates or prices move against you. Weigh that honestly against the comfort of holding off, rather than assuming waiting is automatically the safe choice. Put a real dollar figure on a year of waiting; the number is usually larger than buyers expect.
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Quick answer
Is right now a good time to buy in Coquitlam?
For buyers with a 5+ year horizon, comfortable qualification, and a target neighbourhood that's correctly priced — yes, buyers have real room to negotiate right now. September 2026 sits at a 9.8% detached sales-to-active ratio (below the 12% line), HPI of $1,584,400 detached, $976,600 townhouse, $640,100 apartment — with detached down 6.6% YoY. That's softer pricing, more selection, and more negotiating room for buyers. For anyone with under 5 years horizon or max-qualifying budgets, waiting another 6–12 months and saving more is usually the better answer.
No headlines, no spin — the canonical Greater Vancouver REALTORS® numbers, with what they mean for buyers in plain English.
The benchmark detached price has reset. A house that was a stretch a year ago may now be within range. Its YoY reset sits between townhouse (−6.4%) and apartment (−7.3%), but demand is the thinnest of the three. Sales-to-active: 9.8% (buyer-favouring).
The townhouse market is the most balanced of the three tiers — neither buyer-favouring nor seller-favouring. Family-rental demand puts a floor under prices; rate-sensitivity puts a ceiling on them. Sales-to-active: 13.3% (balanced).
Condos are down 7.3% YoY, against detached −6.6% and townhouse −6.4%. SkyTrain-walkable buildings hold premium; suburban condo stock is softer. Sales-to-active: 10.5% (below the 12% line, buyer-favouring). First-time buyers are finding more selection than in 2022–2023.
Source: Greater Vancouver REALTORS® (GVR), September 2026 statistics package — Coquitlam city-level data. Last refreshed October 7, 2026.
The market conditions are favourable. That's necessary, but not sufficient. Four conditions on your side decide whether the market window is also a window for you specifically. Need 3 of 4? Buy. Need 4 of 4? Buy with confidence. Under 3? Wait, save, qualify cleaner, and revisit in 6 months.
Round-trip transaction costs (PTT, legal, commission, a possible mortgage penalty) add up fast — PTT alone is about $18,000 on a $1M purchase. You need that long to break even on math — longer to thrive. If your job, relationship, or family stage might move you under 5 years, rent another year and revisit.
A common and costly mistake: stretching to maximum qualification because they think the market is about to run. Affordability comfort beats clever timing. If a +100bp rate move at renewal makes you have to sell, you can't afford this house yet.
Specific neighbourhood, specific layout, specific price band, specific school catchment if family. The buyers who win in this market are the ones with a decided target — they negotiate hard, walk away clean, and write fast when the right one appears. Undecided buyers get bullied by FOMO.
Strata special levy, roof, furnace, layoff, baby. Owning a home creates expense events renting doesn't. The buyers who get in trouble in year 3 are the ones who put every dollar into the down payment and have zero cushion. 6 months minimum, 12 is the comfort threshold.
"Wait for prices to drop further" sounds like the conservative play. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. Modeling a $1.2M Coquitlam townhouse buyer who waits six months to see if prices soften another 3%:
Two of four scenarios make you worse off than buying today. The middle-case net positive is $16,200 — real money, but smaller than most buyers assume, and dwarfed by the choice of the wrong home. The buyers who do best aren't the ones who time the bottom. They're the ones who buy the right home at a reasonable price and hold for 8+ years.
Rent assumption: $3,300/month for a comparable Coquitlam townhouse rental. Payment-shock figure assumes $960K mortgage at 5-year fixed. Adjust to your specific budget; the principle holds at every price band.
Markets like this don't last forever. Three conditions have lined up to create the current opening:
In tighter markets, buyers often had to write on the only house in the catchment. September 2026 has multiple comparable listings in most pockets — you can shortlist three, walk through them on the same Saturday, and write on the one that actually fits. That's a luxury 2022 buyers didn't have.
At 9.8% detached sales-to-active, sellers are negotiating. In a market like this, inspection subjects, counter-offers below list and flexible closing dates are all realistic asks on the right deals.
Townhouse down 6.4% YoY and apartment down 7.3%, with detached down 6.6%. For move-up buyers the townhouse-to-detached gap is $607,800 on the September benchmarks, about $44,300 narrower than a year earlier, and detached demand is thin at a 9.8% sales-to-active ratio, so the negotiating room on the buy side is real. Your current townhouse has given back a little less than the next-step detached — and the detached side is where the negotiating room sits. That spread is the move-up window.
“If you've got a 5-year horizon, your payment qualifies cleanly without stretching, and you know what you want — this is the best window I've seen for buyers since 2020. Not because the market is bottoming. Because right now sellers are listening. You can negotiate on price, on dates, on conditions in ways you couldn't 18 months ago.”
“If you're at max qualification, or you're not sure about your job, or you don't know the neighbourhood — wait. Six more months. Save another $20K. Get cleaner numbers. The market will still be here. Coquitlam has rewarded patient buyers for two decades.”
“The single worst thing I see buyers do: try to time the bottom. The bottom is only visible in the rearview mirror. The ones who do best aren't the ones who buy the cheapest. They're the ones who buy the right home at a reasonable price and hold for eight years.”
— Craig Johnston, REALTOR®
4.9 stars across 36+ verified Google reviews. Three below from real Tri-Cities clients on patient strategy, honest pricing, and the no-pressure approach.
“One of the sales was my Mom’s home. She is 97 and so this was a very emotional issue to be leaving her beloved home of so many years… Craig was extremely patient in explaining the market and was very sensitive to her concerns. We can’t thank him enough for his empathy and understanding in working with an elderly person through a difficult time in a very caring manor!”Ann English
“Craig is a true professional and I would highly recommend him to anyone looking to buy or sell their home. His approach is clear, data-driven and resulted in multiple offers for our sale.”Robert Shin
“Craig Johnston recently sold my townhouse in West Vancouver in less than 6 days for over asking price!!!!! Craig is one of the most prolific and highly motivated realtors I have seen in the Realty business, and I have extensive experience buying and selling properties of all sorts.”Riverplate Equities
For buyers with a 5+ year horizon, comfortable qualification, and a target neighbourhood that’s correctly priced — often, yes. In September 2026, the Coquitlam detached sales-to-active ratio was 9.8% (below the 12% line), and the benchmark prices were $1,584,400 detached, $976,600 townhouse and $640,100 apartment, with the detached benchmark at −6.6% year over year. Softer pricing plus more negotiating room is a set of conditions buyers often wait years for. For buyers with an under-5-year horizon or a budget at the very top of their qualification, waiting another 6–12 months and saving more is usually the better answer.
Benchmark prices for September 2026: detached $1,584,400 (−6.6% year over year), townhouse $976,600 and apartment $640,100. Sales-to-active ratios: 9.8% detached, 13.3% townhouse and 10.5% apartment. A ratio under 12% generally favours buyers. It is not a crash and not a boom: it is a market where well-prepared buyers can negotiate on price, dates and conditions. Source: Greater Vancouver REALTORS®.
When you’re stretching to maximum qualification. When your job or relationship is in flux. When you have less than 5 years’ confidence in staying. When you’re buying because you fear missing out, not because the home and the math fit. A common and costly mistake is overextending because they think the market is about to run.
A free 20-minute Strategy Call. I pressure-test your timeline, your qualifying numbers and your target neighbourhood against current Coquitlam sales. You get a written one-page plan — buy now, wait, get pre-approved first, or look at a different price band. No pitch, no pressure, no obligation. Book a Strategy Call.
Twenty minutes is enough to run the 4-condition checklist against your real numbers, compare current Coquitlam comps in your target neighbourhood, and give you a written 1-page plan: buy now, wait, or get cleaner numbers first. No pitch, no pressure.
4.9 across 36+ Google reviews Top 1% Team — Greater Vancouver REALTORS®, 2023–2025 47+ years in the Tri-CitiesOr call direct: 604-202-6092
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September 2026 Coquitlam detached HPI is $1,584,400, −6.6% YoY. What that means for your timing — without the salesy fluff. One email per month.
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