Housing sales in Northern BC continue downward trend in March

Northern BC home sales dipped 12.5% in March compared to the same time last year according to the BC Real Estate Association (BCREA).

That’s still a far cry from the provincial outlook, which saw a nose dive of nearly 25% over the past calendar year.

“A total of 7,409 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) across the province in March, a 24.6 per cent decrease from the same month last year.” Read the entire news release here: https://t.co/Dfr1aUuotV pic.twitter.com/HDUm379507

— BC Real Estate Assoc (@bcrea) April 12, 2018

We’re about halfway through the adjustment process of the new mortgage rules according to BCREA Chief Economist Cameron Muir.

“It tends to last about four to seven months with the deepest decline felt in month three, so that would be March, we do expect to see continued weaker consumer demand activity over the next few months.”

“This is not an exact science but we still expect to see sales down in April compared to a year ago and could be as substantial or significant as we saw in March.”

Approximately 300 units were sold in all of Northern BC last month, down from the 351 in March of 2017.

Ditto for BC as a whole, which only saw 7,400 unit sales overall.

The average home price in Prince George continues to hover around $320,000 while the regional average continues to lag behind at $282,000.

Provincially, the cost of a typical comes out to $727,000, which is due to inflated prices in the Metro Vancouver area.