August Home Sales Suggest Impact of Stress Test Fading
Vancouver, BC September 13, 2018. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a total of 6,743 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) across the province in August, a 26.4 per cent decrease from the same month last year. The average MLS® residential price in BC was $669,776, down 1.2 per cent from August 2017. Total sales dollar volume was $4.5 billion, a 27.3 per cent decline from August 2017.
The downturn in housing demand induced by the mortgage stress-test is now largely behind us, said Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist. The BC housing market is evolving along the same path blazed by Ontario and Alberta, where the initial shock of the mortgage stress-test is already dissipating, leading to increasing home sales.
Year-to-date, BC residential sales dollar volume was down 19.9 per cent to $41 billion, compared with the same period in 2017. Residential unit sales decreased 21.3 per cent to 57,674 units, while the average MLS® residential price was up 1.7 per cent to $719,064.