Chilliwack and the surrounding area is the only real estate market in the Lower Mainland that didn’t see a decline in sale prices in 2019.
With an average sale price of $522,776 in the Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board (CADREB) area last year, that’s a 1.1 per cent increase from the average of $516,843 in 2018.
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The average sale prices in the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board (GVREB) and the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB) areas declined 5.9 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively, according to the British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA).
Both boards, however, had much more room to fall with the average sale price in the FVREB at $721,775 last year and GVREB at $986,797.
And while the Lower Mainland saw prices drop or, at best, flatten in 2019, some other markets saw increases, pointing to signs that some Vancouver buyers are looking farther afield.
On Vancouver Island, the average sale prices rose 5.1 per cent from $465,124 in 2018 to $488,847 in 2019. B.C. Northern saw the same percentage rise from $295,428 to $310,548.
The Kamloops and Kelowna markets each both rose 7.2 per cent up to $418,846 and $344,351 respectively.
Unit sales in the CADREB area were flat year-over-year with 2,809 last year compared to 2,829 a year prior. There is, however, not much to buy right now with just 696 active listings at the end of 2019 down from 987 year-over-year.
Provincewide the BCREA calls 2019 “flat” overall after a strong second half of the year.
“Housing markets across the province staged a strong recovery in the second half of 2019,” BCREA chief economist Brendon Ogmundson said in a press release.”This sets up 2020 to be a much more typical year than what markets have experienced recently.”
BCREA reports that a total of 77,331 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in 2019, a decline of 1.5 per cent from the 78,516 units sold in 2018. The annual average MLS residential price in B.C. was $700,460, a decline of 1.6 per cent from $711,564 recorded the previous year.
Total sales dollar volume was $54.2 billion, a three per cent decline from 2018.
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