BC housing market slows to a ‘simmer:’ BCREA
Posted August 11, 2016 8:39 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The cooling of home sales seen in Metro Vancouver is also happening province-wide, but hot spots are plentiful.
The BC Real Estate Association says 9,900 homes were sold last month, down 3.4 per cent from a year earlier. And prices continued to go the other way, rising 9.1 per cent to $663,000.
“Housing demand has moderated in many regions of the province, after setting records earlier in the year,” explains the association’s Chief Economist Cameron Muir. “The less frenetic pace of home sales will likely provide a much needed boost to the inventory of homes for sale. The rate of home price appreciation is also expected to slow from the unsustainable level exhibited this spring.”
The provincial picture is dominated by the Vancouver-area market, where sales were 18.3 per cent lower than the previous July.
However, both Chilliwack and the Okanagan had sales gains of more than 25 per cent. Nonetheless, Muir points out that Chilliwack’s sales earlier this spring were up more than 80 per cent. Home prices in Chilliwack were up 20.3 per cent year-over-year to an average of $394,000.
