It's now been 6 weeks since the new foreign buyers tax was introduced and so far there has been very little impact to the market as far as prices go. Sales volume has dropped, however I wouldn’t read much right now into the 26% decline in sales when comparing Aug 2016 to Aug 2015 that was reported last week. August 2015 was a record breaking month and we had much more inventory to sell. We continue to have record low inventory levels. For prices to start coming down, inventory levels (homes for sale on MLS) are going to have to increase dramatically going forward. The next 2 to 3 months will tell the story as we head into our busy Fall season, where we normally start to see an increase in the number of listings. If sales don’t keep pace and we see inventory levels rise, then that is usually a precursor to price reductions.
Finally an article on why average home price graphs are not a true picture of where prices are going. Unless you are in the market for a 10 million dollar home. The benchmark or Median price index shows a much more accurate picture of where home prices are going for 99% of the buyers.
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-real-estate-1.3746472