Tuesday, February 5, 2019 ~ GREATER VICTORIA.
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
The Victoria Real Estate Board (VREB) focussed their public report this month on the number of properties listed and sold and saying that demand has outstripped supply in recent months. Meanwhile, homebuyers and homeowners/sellers are dealing with decreasing price-points on their properties.
In January 2019 there were 309 residential property sales in Greater Victoria, down 23.8% from 406 in January 2018. Within that, there was a slight decline of 6.7% in condo sales volume (110 sales in January this year compared to 118 last year). The number of listed properties is up 38% compared to a year ago.
For houses, the HPI climbed from $702,200 in January 2018 to a peak of $766,000 in July 2018, but last month settled at $742,000. However, the actual average sale price was significantly higher at $851,117 in January 2019. It’s unclear whether VREB indicates with that $109,117 differential that housing prices will continue to fall.
It’s the reverse for condos: those strata units are presently selling low compared to the HPI, though prices fluctuated in recent months: the actual Greater Victoria average condo sale price in January 2019 was only $420,370, but much higher in December 2018 at $472,612 and was a scorching hot $539,019 in November 2018. The condo HPI settled in January 2019 at $499,700 after peaking at $502,400 in December 2018.
This article was first published on page 1 in the February 1, 2019 print-PDF weekend digest of West Shore Voice News