Sun
British Columbia real estate prices hit a 26-month low in November, the B.C. Real Estate Association reported Friday as sales across the province fell by more than half. Photograph by : Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun files
VANCOUVER – British Columbia real estate prices hit a 26-month low in November, the B.C. Real Estate Association reported Friday as sales across the province fell by more than half.
Real estate boards recorded only 2,707 Multiple-Listing-Service-recorded sales in November, 62 per cent below the 7,118 recorded in November of 2007.
The average home price across the province fell to $395,687, 12.5 per cent below the average home price in the same month a year ago.
BCREA chief economist Cameron Muir said that given the growing global recession, declining demand is expected, but “it is a surprise in the sense that demand has pulled back so vigorously.”
B.C. is starting to experience more job losses and businesses are cutting back as the economy slows, but Muir said home sales have fallen off much further than the weaker economic activity would suggest.
“[The decline] is being led, for a large part, by the litany of bad news permeating our lives right now,” Muir said.
The small market of Powell River posted the deepest drop in sales and in price.
It saw only two homes sold through MLS in November versus 24 a year ago, and the average price of $187,500 was 29 per cent lower than November 2007.
Greater Vancouver’s board saw the second largest monthly decline with its 889 transactions representing a 70-per-cent decline in homes sold compared with November a year ago.
The B.C. Northern and Northern Lights real estate boards were the only regions to report average prices above the same period a year ago, although all real estate boards reported declining sales.
“The irony of markets is that there’s no shortage of buyers when prices are near a peak and a scarcity of buyers when prices are near a trough,” Muir said.
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