Vancouver’s real estate market last week held up with reasonably strong sales, although it was not quite enough to offset the slow start to the month.

Median detached sale prices dropped from the previous week, reveals a look at MLS® data for September 18 to 24.

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There were 40 detached home sales in Vancouver proper that week, registered by October 5 – a little higher than the 33 sales of the previous week. But the median selling price of $1,865,000 was considerably lower than the jump to nearly $2.5 million seen the previous week.

That median varies from $1,650,000 among the 25 detached home sales in Vancouver East (East Side and Downtown East) to $3,638,000 of the 15 houses sold in Vancouver West (West Side, Downtown West and West End) the same week.

Even though the median sale price of a Vancouver detached house dropped, the median listing price for single-family homes on the market, as of October 5, held firm at just under $3 million across the whole city.

Of the 1,572 detached homes currently on the MLS®, 753 are in Vancouver East, listed at a median of $1,988,000. In Vancouver West, on the other hand, the 819 houses listed have a median price of a whopping $4,555,000.

The priciest detached home sale of the week of September 18 to 24 was a 2011 custom-built, executive-style South Granville family home with six bedrooms and seven bathrooms. This luxurious property sold for $7.08 million, exactly $600K under asking price, after 195 days on the market.

A $5.9 million Yaletown waterfront condo with nearly 2,200 square feet of living space, including three bedrooms, was the top-priced condo sale of the same week. This unit sold the same day it was listed – not usually a recommended strategy, but the accepted offer was slightly above the $5.89 million asking price, so it arguably worked.

The most expensive townhome or other attached house to sell that week was also located in South Granville. This was a charming four-bedroom home that went for $8K under asking at $1.79 million after just 10 days listed.

Indeed, demand for attached homes meant that the median days on market for Vancouver townhouses plummeted to 30 days last week. The same figure also dropped slightly for detached homes, now at 57 days, and held steady for condos at 23 days.

Joannah Connolly is the editor of REW.ca, where you can find more Vancouver real estate news.