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Jaonna Lee-Young
The Province
Demand for homes in January was really high in the Fraser Valley, Interior and Vancouver Island regions. Photo by Mike Bell /PNG
January was another record-setting month for the B.C. housing market, according to a B.C. Real Estate Association report on Thursday.
The BCREA reports that a total of 7,169 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service in January, an increase of 63.3 per cent over January 2020 and over 1,000 sales higher than the previous record for the month of January.
The average price in B.C. was $845,169, a 16.1-per-cent increase from $728,269 recorded in January 2020, according to the report.
BCREA chief economist Brendon Ogmundson says while sales were strong across the province, the Fraser Valley, Interior and Vancouver Island regions shattered sales records and “pushed January sales to new heights.”
Demand is outstripping supply, however, with the report showing B.C. listings down 21.5 per cent in January, the lowest level of listings on record.
Ogmundson says with strong sales and so few listings, market conditions are exceptionally tight with less than three months of total supply.
“The supply of listings continues to be held back by the pandemic,” Ogmundson said in a statement Thursday. “With so few listings, markets are starved for supply and prices are under extraordinary pressure.”
The average price of a home skyrocketed year over year in some areas. In the Fraser Valley, the average price for all home types jumped 25.8 per cent to $944,996 and 26.7 per cent in the B.C. Interior to $634,465.
In Victoria, the average cost of a home went up 19.2 per cent to $868.509, while homes on Vancouver Island went up 10.9 per cent to $528,930. In Greater Vancouver, home prices jumped 11.2 per cent to $1,089,096 in January compared to the same month the year before.
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