Category: B.C. Real Estate News

Vancouver, BC – June 2, 2016. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) released its 2016 Second Quarter Housing Forecast today.

Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) residential sales in the province are forecast to climb 12.3 per cent to a record 115,200 units this year, eclipsing the previous record of 106,310 units in 2005. Housing demand is expected to pull back by 8.3 per cent to 105,600 units in 2017. Strong economic fundamentals are expected to underpin the housing market and produce above average consumer demand through 2017. The ten-year average for the province is 83,000 MLS® residential unit sales.

“Robust employment growth and a marked increase in migration from other provinces is buoying consumer confidence and housing demand in most regions of the province,” said Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist. “Record housing demand has depleted inventories in many urban areas, and the resulting imbalance between supply and demand has pushed home prices considerably higher.”

The average MLS® residential price in the province is forecast to increase 20.4 per cent to $766,600 this year and a further 3.4 per cent to $792,800 in 2017.

New home construction activity has ramped up to meet the extraordinary demand for housing. Waning inventories of newly completed and unoccupied units are being offset by a marked increase in the number of homes under construction. Total housing starts in the province are forecast to climb 20 per cent to 37,800 units this year, before edging back to 34,200 units in 2017.

BC Real Estate Association (BCREA) Chief Economist Cameron Muir discusses the April 2016 statistics.

Vancouver, BC – May 13, 2016. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a record 12,969 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in April, up 30.3 per cent from the same month last year. Home sales last month beat March’s record of 12,560 units. Total sales dollar volume was $9.64 billion in April, up 52.7 per cent compared to the previous year. The average MLS® residential price in the province was up 17.2 per cent year-over-year, to $743,640.

“Housing demand is exceptionally strong across the southern regions of the province,” said Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist. “Consumers appear to be particularly active in the Vancouver Island, the Fraser Valley and the Thompson/Okanagan regions.“

“Strong employment growth is helping underpin consumer confidence,” added Muir. The BC economy employed more than 78,000 additional workers during the first four months of the year, an increase of 3.5 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The year-to-date, BC residential sales dollar volume increased 64.3 per cent to $31.2 billion, when compared with the same period in 2015. Residential unit sales climbed by 36.2 per cent to 28,028 units, while the average MLS® residential price was up 20.6 per cent to $761,860.