B.C. home sales slowly recovering: real estate report
Credit to Author: Tiffany Crawford| Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2019 16:15:37 +0000
The British Columbia Real Estate Association says home sales in B.C. appear to be recovering from a downturn.
In a report Thursday, the association says 7,093 residential homes, listed on the MLS, were sold in August, a 4.9 per cent increase over the same month last year.
The average price of all types of homes in the province was $685,575, an increase of 2.6 per cent from August 2018.
Brendon Ogmundson, a deputy chief economist with the association, says home sales continue to recover from a policy-driven downturn.
“Home sales have been rising through the spring and summer, but still remain well below pre-B20 stress test levels,” he said.
The mortgage-lending restrictions, or B20 stress tests, which were brought in at the start of 2018, require lenders to prove they can make payments at two percentage points higher than the qualifying mortgage rate.
The association says active listings were also up 10 per cent last month over the previous August to 40,098 units.
Overall market conditions remained in a balanced range with a sales-to-active listings ratio of about 18 per cent, the report said.
Year-to-date, residential sales dollar volume was down 16 per cent to $34.9 billion, compared with the same period in 2018. Residential unit sales were 12.2 per cent lower at 50,806 units, while the average MLS residential price was down 4.4 per cent year-to-date at $686,303.
Last week, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver also reported that home sales were up this summer, in Metro Vancouver.
ticrawford@postmedia.com