A report borrows a line from a 1989 Kevin Costner movie to highlight the need for more housing supply in Vancouver.

“If you build it, he will come,” a mysterious voice tells Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, urging the character played by Costner to construct a basefield field in his Iowa corn farm.

Another Kevin in real life, this time Kevin Skipworth of Dexter Realty, makes use of this phrase that has become part of popular culture.

Skipworth, who is a partner, broker and chief economist of the Vancouver company, gives it a little twist.

“Real estate in Metro Vancouver isn’t like the Field of Dreams where it was ‘If you build it they will come’,” Skipworth wrote in a report Wednesday (November 17).

It’s more like “we need to build it, they are here”.

In the report, Skipworth noted that there are only 8,125 total active listings in Greater Vancouver as of November 15.

“The lowest we’ve seen at this time of year was in 2003 when there were 8,700 active listings in November,” the realtor explained.

Earlier this month, the B.C. Real Estate Association released a report noting that that home listings across the province have fallen to an “all-time record low for the province”.

The BCREA noted that that the total number of homes for sale in October 2021 dropped to 19,214, the lowest since 2000.

The association included a graph in its report, which had the title asking, “How low can they go?”

In his report, Skipworth also asks a question about how the direction of listings.

And that is, “Where will it be when we start 2022?”

“There continues to be a hesitation for sellers to come on the market as finding the next home when you sell continues to be the bigger challenge,” Skipworth wrote.

There is strong demand, but not enough homes to choose from.

“Those looking for detached homes don’t have the luxury of more product coming from developers,” Skipworth noted.

“Townhouses are not much better,” he continued. “Too few and far between, and for what is available, it is a race to see who can find it first.”