Due to rising interest rates from the Bank of Canada, home sales across Northern BC have fallen off a cliff in the past 12 months.
In September, 293 homes came off the market in the region compared to 482 unit sales recorded during the same month in 2021 – a year-over-year decline of 39%.
By the same token, home sales in PG have dropped by 24% in the past year.
In an interview with Vista Radio, BC Real Estate Association Chief Economist, Brendon Ogmundson said while sales have plummeted, active listings are at their highest level since before the pandemic, rising 25% in the past year.
“It’s good to see that inventories are getting back to normal. We are still a fair ways off from where we were pre-pandemic in terms of total inventory but it’s certainly better for buyers as there is a lot more choice in the market.”
Overall, BC saw its lowest level of home sales during the month of September since 2012.
4,977 unit sales were tallied last month – a year-over-year decline of nearly 46% when compared to September 2021.
Ogmundson noted the low volume of sales could become commonplace for the next few months due to rising interest rates.
“That level of sales is going to prevail for a while just because of interest rates because qualifying at 7% is a pretty tough ask for a lot of buyers right now.”
“The worst of the sales decline probably occurred in the last few months so we are down considerably from the levels that we saw in the early winter months. I think in BC we are going to be trending at a very low level of sales because September was the lowest September since 2012.”
According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, the national average home price in September was just over 640 grand – BC’s average remains quite a bit higher at 927 thousand dollars.
In Northern BC, the average home price came in at $413,462 – a 4% spike when compared to the same time in 2021.
PG’s average price remained quite a bit higher than the regional mark coming in at $516,336.