The average price for a single-family home in Northern BC is hovering around 412-thousand dollars – a mark that has held steady over the past 12 months.
In Prince George, the price for a single-family home is quite a bit higher at $530,000, a year-over-year spike of 14%.
This is according to the BC Real Estate Association.
However, Chief Economist, Brendon Ogmundson expects more difficult days ahead for prospective home buyers with interest rates continuing to trend upward.
“Five-year fixed rates are probably going to stay high for most of 2023. The Bank of Canada probably isn’t going to cut rates until maybe the end of next year so as long as we have rates as high as they are, it will be really difficult to see sales activity improve much.”
Ogmundson added while our region has seen a 29% year-over-year increase in active listings – it’s nothing to write home about.
“We have to remember that at this time last year we were dealing with levels of inventory that were record-lows. So, we are just now getting back to a pre-pandemic level of active listings, which took a couple of years to get there.”
In addition, home sales across the north have declined by 42% over the past 12 months.
248 unit sales were recorded last month – a far cry compared to November of 2021 when 426 homes were taken off the market.
“We are also 20 to 25% below what is considered normal for this time of year. We have had very, very slow, sales activity across the north. In Prince George, sales were down about 50% year-over-year but prices are still filling up considerably,” added Ogmundson.
About 45 hundred unit sales were recorded province-wide in November – a decrease of 51% when compared to the same month last year.
The average price for a home in BC is just under $907,000, a decrease of 8.6% from November of 2021.