Northern BC projected to hit its lowest home sale mark in two decades

The BC Real Estate Association says the north is on pace for its slowest year in over two decades.

During its second-quarter report, it noted that our region is on pace to tally 35 hundred unit sales in 2023 – its lowest figure since 2002.

Economist, Ryan McLaughlin told MyPGNow.com interest rates continue to tell the story as they went up as much as 450 basis points in a calendar year.

“Housing markets are just incredibly sensitive to interest rates. Housing is the only card in the modern world where a normal family can go to a bank and say can you lend me a million dollars? When interest rates move around at all, that really affects the demand for housing.”

However, active listings in the north are nearly 60% higher than they were just 12 months ago – Currently, there are roughly 19 hundred active listings in the region.

McLaughlin expects the north to rebound in 2024 with a projected 42 hundred home sales.

“We are expecting that sales will recover from this point through the rest of the year. However, next year in 2024, our forecast is for sales to return to their long-run average in the north at 42 hundred sales.”

“The housing market doesn’t look overly vulnerable. It doesn’t look like too many people are overburdened with their mortgages – it looks sort of poised for a recovery.”

The BCREA is projecting the average home price in northern BC to hover around $390,000 this year before jumping to $405,000 in 2024.

However, PG remains a little bit higher than the regional average in price. In March, 67 detached homes came off the mark for an average selling price of $511,000.