Wednesday January 4, 2023 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Housing in the west shore of Greater Victoria continues to offer relatively more affordable options for families and other homebuyers.
The number of property sales in Langford is almost always highest in the west shore, being the most aggressively expansive community, followed by Colwood. While home construction has been strong in Sooke in the last few years, its remote location remains a detracting factor (for consideration of transportation and local services).
Under conditions of mortgage interest rates that increased substantially and relentlessly in 2022 — on top of an overall inflationary economy, prices across the full Greater Victoria region have come down over the past several months.
Year-end west shore prices:
The average single family home sale in December 2022 still topped $1 million in Langford and Colwood: $1,142,695 in Langford and $1,031,000 in Colwood. Sooke’s single family home average sale price — which surpassed $1 million in the last year or two, was $888,450 last month. View Royal saw an even lower average sale price at $870,000 in December.
Together, those four municipal areas saw 34.4% of house sales in the last month of 2022. The sale price average for all of Greater Victoria (including core areas like Saanich, Victoria and Oak Bay, as well a the peninsula areas) was $1,239,045 (146 sales), which underscores the relatively lower housing prices in the west shore.
The sale average for condos was $507,000 in Langford in December 2022, but Colwood far surpassed that at $785,000 (but note, that was only one sale). Sooke doesn’t always have condos for sale. The one View Royal condo sale last month was at $432.500. The Greater Victoria average for condos in December 2022 was $549,561 (94 sales). Condo sales in these four municipal west shore areas comprised 19.1% of the full Greater Victoria region.
Looking at townhomes in the west shore, the greatest volume sold in Langford, at an average of $749,500. Colwood topped that at $767,000. Sooke townhomes averaged at $660,900. View Royal averaged at $705,889. The Greater Victoria average for townhome sales in December 2022 was $748,795. Of all townhome sales in December 2022, 51.2% of them transacted in the west shore municipalities of Langford, Colwood, Sooke and View Royal.
Low sales across Greater Victoria:
A total of 320 properties sold in the Victoria Real Estate Board (VREB) region in December 2022. The Victoria Real Estate Board (VREB) notes that as 26.9% fewer than the 438 properties sold in December 2021, and a 16.7 per cent decrease from November 2022.
Sales of condominiums were down 38.2% from December 2021, says VREB, with 94 units sold. Sales of single family homes decreased 24.6% from December 2021 with 156 sold.
A grand total of 6,804 properties sold over the course of 2022. That’s 32.3% fewer than the 10,052 that sold in 2021, and nearly the lowest sales tally in a decade. Sales in 2022 came closest to 2014’s sales year when 6,698 properties were sold.
===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
Island Social Trends is a professional news portal at islandsocialtrends.ca . Fully online since mid-2020, Island Social Trends emerged from the extensive groundwork of previous print publications in the west shore: MapleLine Magazine (2008-2010), Sooke Voice News (2011-2013), and West Shore Voice News (2014-2020).
Since 2008, journalist and editor Mary P Brooke has taken a socioeconomic lens to the news of the west shore and south Vancouver Island region, including BC provincial news, and national news impacts.
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