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B.C. residential real estate prices have gone up by 16% since last January: report

BCREA said unit sales and dollar sales volume were much higher than January last year
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FILE – A real estate sign is pictured in Vancouver, B.C., on June, 12, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS Jonathan Hayward

House prices in B.C. have increased by 16.1 per cent over the past year, according to figures released by the B.C. Real Estate Association Thursday (Feb. 11).

The data showed that the average residential price last month was $845,169, compared to $728,269 in January 2020. The region that saw the biggest spike was the Kootenays, where homes increased by 28.5 per cent since January 2020 to $427,544 last month. The Fraser Valley saw an jump of 25.8 per cent to $944,996, while the notoriously expensive properties in Metro Vancouver went up 11.2 per cent to cross the million-dollar mark to $1,089,096.

On Vancouver Island, prices have increased by 10.9 per cent to $528,930, while the North saw a 12.6 per cent increase to $339,608, and the Interior went up 26.7 per cent to $500,789. The only region to see a drop was South Peace River, which fell by 22.2 per cent to $197,874.

While home prices went up, the number of active residential listings went down by 21.5 per cent compared to a year ago, with the 20,254 units listed in January – the lowest level of provincial active listings on record, going back to 2000.

However, the number of unit sales shot up by 63.3 per cent to 7,169 compared to January 2020, and ended up being thousand sales higher than the previous record for the month of January. Total sales dollar volume hit $6.1 billion in January 2021, an 89.6 per cent increase from last year.

READ MORE: Female Realtors in the Lower Mainland receiving harassing phone calls, explicit texts


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katya.slepian@bpdigital.ca

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