Much like the rest of the province, housing sales in Prince George are starting to plummet.
According to data released by the BC Real Estate Association, the northern capital saw a 37% month-over-month decline when comparing June and July.
In addition, housing sales across British Columbia were down more than 42 per cent
when examining the same 12-month period.
Chief Economist, Brendon Ogmundson told MyPGNow.com the volume of single-family purchases saw the biggest nosedive.
“We only saw 55 (single family sales in July), down from 97 in June. So it’s a fairly substantial decline when it comes to the bulk of the market in Prince George.”
Ogmundson adds single-family homes makeup 90% of the sales in PG.
He also explained why the northern region saw delay in its housing market correction.
“A lot of that is just affordability. The north is a lot more affordable than a lot of markets in the Lower Mainland so once mortgage rates went up in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, we saw an almost-immediate decline just because of the impact on qualifying is so much stronger.”
As for how long the downward trend will last in BC, Ogmundson stated it all depends on the Bank of Canada.
“If they raise 75 basis points and bring their overnight rate to 3.25% and say they are done raising rates then we won’t see much movement in things like five-year fixed rates. If instead, they say they are concerned about inflation and need to go higher then we could really see five-year fixed rates spike up again.”
“The really, really key thing in the next month is the Bank of Canada meeting in early September. Everyone expects they are going to raise rates again between 50 and 75 basis points and that’s already priced in the mortgage rates. What is really important is what they signal about the future and whether or not they are done raising rates,” added Ogmundson.
The north as a whole saw 318 unit sales last month, a year-over-year decline of 36% when compared to July of 2021 after 498 homes changed hands.
In BC, the average price of a home climbed by 3.6 per cent, to over 932-thousand dollars.
The average house price in the north climbed to $410,742 in July, an incline of 6.8% when compared to the same month last year where the price sat at $384,524.