B.C. Real Estate
Numbers released by the B.C. Real Estate Association (BCREA) from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) show there were 9,637 residential unit sales across the province in February. That number is 44.7 percent higher than last February’s residential unit sales.
An indicator of the prices sellers are getting for their homes is to be found in the total amount of money spent on residential units. While 44.7 percent was the increase in the number of residential homes sold over February of 2015, the increase in total money paid for those homes was much higher at 76.4 percent.
Cameron Muir is the chief economist with the BCREA and in a press release he said the numbers are not expected to go down anytime soon. Home building is up, too.
“Housing demand is now at a break-neck pace,” Muir said. “Home sales last month were not only a record for the month of February, but on a seasonally adjusted basis, demand has never been stronger in the province.”
“Downward pressure on active listings has created significant upward pressure on home prices in some regions, particularly in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley,” he added. “While home builders have responded with a record pace of housing starts for BC last month, the supply isn’t expected to alleviate the imbalance in these markets in the near term.”
Sold in B.C.
The residential sales record for February that 2016 beat was set 24 years ago in 1992; in that February in B.C. there were 8,157 homes sold so last month saw the record increase by 1,480 sales.
Another reason for the increase in prices may have been revealed in a study recently released by UBC geographer Daniel Hiebert. Hiebert looked at home sales in Metro Vancouver and found that sales to immigrants has had a major effect on residential prices.
Hiebert said he found that between 2006 and 2011 immigrants bought a total of about 100,000 homes in the Metro Vancouver market alone.
