B.C.’s ’05 Real Estate Sales Hit 100,586, Worth $33.3b
Improving economy, job growth and higher wages drive demand
British Columbia experienced a record year for real estate sales even before the beginning of December, with realtors around the province booking a staggering 100,586 sales worth some $33.3 billion. Those figures eclipsed the 96,314 transactions worth $27.8 billion made in all of 2004, B.C. Real Estate Association statistics show.
“(That result) is not a surprise,” Cameron Muir, a housing market analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said, “because when we look at housing demand throughout the province it’s quite broad based.”
The demand, Muir added, continues to be driven by B.C.’s improving economy, job growth, increasing wages, and immigration to the province both from Canadian and international sources.
B.C. saw unemployment dip to 4.9 per cent in November, it’s lowest rate in 30 years, and Muir said the province will have seen 40,000 new residents move by the end of this year.
“(It’s) not huge growth, but it’s trending upward,” he added, noting that projections are for 44,000 people to move to B.C. in 2006.
At the lower end, developer Jung Developmetn broke ground on the first of five condo towers in its $350-million Infinity project in Surrey.
At the high end of B.C. saw a record price of $7.75 million paid for the penthouse of Two Harbour Green on Vancouver’s Coal Harbour. That project, brokered by Platinum Project Marketing, sold out with an average price of $2.5 million per unit.
Lynn Hsu, CEO of Vancouver based MacDonald Realty Group, said by early December her firm had booked a record $2.5 billion in sales in 2005.
“It was definitely a phenomenal year,” Hsu said.
She expects 2006 to be much the same.
Real Estate Still Red-Hot - Market expected to remain strong.
A red-hot real-estate market has led to back-to-back record-breaking months in housing sales in the Fraser Valley.
“It’s great for the real-estate industry and it’s great for the general public, especially home owners,” said Jake Siemens, president of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board.
“If you’re planning on making a move, whether it’s moving up or down, it enables people to make a move fairly quickly and realizing a top dollar.”
Sales in June were second only to March 1991, when 2,720 sales were consummated.
The 2,517 sales in June and 2,067 sales in May were record totals for those two months and marked an increase of 22 and 38 per cent, respectively, for the same two months in 2004.
Siemens is also optimistic about the coming months.
“My gut feeling from being in the business for 18 years, I think we’re going to see probably the most outstanding summer probably on record,” said Siemens. “Everything indicates we’re going to have a strong July and August.
“We haven’t seen a price change over the last month,” said Siemens. “Prices have stayed consistent. Even though from June of last year to this year we’ve seen in the residential detached an increase of approximately 12 per cent in the Fraser Valley. You get a decent return if somebody’s got an investment in it.”
The average price for a single detached home in June was $389,330, a 12.5 per cent increase over the $346,093 for June 2004.
Townhouses averaged $230,210 in June, only 1.8 per cent increase over a year ago.