Sunday, May 5, 2019 ~ LANGFORD
~ by Mary P Brooke, Editor, West Shore Voice News
While the April 2019 real estate statistics release from the Victoria Real Estate Board(VREB) painted an overall picture of a non-traditional non-peak spring market, sales in the west shore — particularly Langford and Sooke — held strong both for volume and price-point and sales are relatively on par with spring and summer 2018.
Generally the spring market — March to May in terms of Greater Victoria real estate — shows a high number of listings and robust sales at generally the highest prices of a given year due to peak demand. Houses sell best in good weather and after renovations have been done over the fall and winter months, and people (especially families) like to move in summer before fall and a new school season sets in.
While the number of listings is about the same as previous spring seasons (see graph below), the number of sales is about half the number of listings — that’s the same trend as seen in April and May 2018, but the ratio of sales was higher in April, May and June 2017.
VREB says there are signs of market cooling which are not unexpected due to the continued impact of the mortgage ‘stress test’ which impacts entry-level buyers who need a significantly larger down payment in order to qualify for a mortgage. The nationwide stress test came into effect in January 2018 and has continued to cool the market.
In the Greater Victoria area where housing has also been a commodity purchase for retirement planning or equity investment often as a second property, there is the additional impact of the BC Government’s fiscal policies that are serving to chase away speculative investors. While this had moderated the market pricing in the past six months in particular (as the reality sunk in), prices are still not modest but are lower than in previous years. The Greater Victoria average house sale (single family dwelling, all map areas) was $885,309 in last month, compared to one year earlier when it was $917,793.
A total of 696 properties (all types) sold in the VREB Region in April. That’s 10% fewer than 774 sold in April 2018, but up 8.8% from March 2019. Single family home sales volume was down 12% overall from April 2018 to April 2019.
The market is not is serious trouble, with home value still significant. With a one-year scope, home prices seem to have peaked about six months ago, sagged a bit three months ago, but are up a bit and holding strong.
In the west shore where people are flocking to the relatively more affordable home pricing, Langford pricing for single family homes held strong over $750,000 (in some months in the past year it had fallen below $700,000) and had strong sales at 57-count. In Sooke the pricing of single family homes has not fallen below half a million for over a year (showing in April 2019 well past $550,000) and the sales count was a remarkably high at 47 last month.
Single Family Detached Homes – raw average price [# of sales] – April 2019 (VREB stats):
- Langford $760,474 [57]
- Colwood $653,536 [14]
- Sooke $572,107 [47]
- Greater Victoria $885,309 [338]
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An earlier version of this article was published on page 3 in the April 26/May 3, 2019 combo print/PDF edition of West Shore Voice News.
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