Greater Vancouver records 29,276 sales of housing units in September
Derrick Penner
Sun
*The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver uses a benchmark price, or the price of a typical home, for much of their statistical material. This chart contains the average price and the benchmark price.
Real-estate sales across the Lower Mainland to the end of September remained substantially above the record levels set in 2004 with Greater Vancouver recording 29,276 housing unit sales, a 9.9-per-cent increase, and the Fraser Valley recording 14,736 transactions, a 13.5-per-cent increase, statistics released Tuesday show. Greater Vancouver set another monthly record with 3,344 housing units sold in September, the highest for any September on its books, and a 17.5-per-cent increase over September a year ago.
Fraser Valley September sales were 25 per cent below the board’s all-time record in August. But the 1,726 transactions were still 28 per cent above the number for the same month a year ago, and the highest number of sales the board has seen in any September for more than a decade.
Jake Siemens, president of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, said he didn’t think anything could have topped the sales the region saw in 2004, but buyers have proved all observers wrong by continuing to drive sales upward.
“There’s a lot of activity and a lot of demand,” Siemens said in an interview. “Lots of people are moving back into B.C. and there are a lot of jobs.”
However, Siemens added that while the valley saw 2,554 new listings on the market in September, giving the region an inventory of 5,824 homes for sale, the figure is still 14 per cent below the inventory figure for 2004, which is putting upward pressure on Valley housing prices.
The average price for a detached single-family home in the Fraser Valley hit $410,335 in September, a 13.8-per-cent increase from a year ago. However, Siemens said the average price compared with August is only up 0.5 per cent and “appears to be stabilizing.”
Chilliwack had the lowest average price for a single family home at $264,888, a 19-per-cent increase from a year ago, and White Rock had the highest at $676,323, which was up 21 per cent from 2004.
The average single family home in Surrey reached $408,426, which was 12-per-cent more than the same month in 2004.
However, the Fraser Valley‘s average price for a single family home was still substantially lower than the $630,204 average price recorded in Greater Vancouver in September, according to Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver statistics.
“Affordability is definitely the key No. 1 driving factor” for sales in the Fraser Valley, Siemens said.
Georges Pahud, president of the Greater Vancouver board, said buyers are still able to find affordable housing in Vancouver. He added that 67 per cent of September’s sales were made at prices below the averages for each property type.
However, for single family homes, benchmark prices — the value of typical residences — varied across Greater Vancouver from $359,489 in Maple Ridge to $960,427 on Vancouver’s west side and $1.1 million in West Vancouver.
Sales of condominiums within Greater Vancouver, which encompasses Whistler, the Gulf Islands and the north side of the Fraser River to Maple Ridge, were almost unchanged at 1,339 sales in September. Attached townhouses, however, experienced a 51-per-cent spike in sales with 592 units sold.
Sales of detached dwellings also jumped 26 per cent to 1,413, and the overall benchmark price rose 15.7 per cent to $557,739.
Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows saw the biggest increases in sales for both detached homes and attached townhouses, with 162 units and 63 units sold respectively.
The two municipalities also recorded the lowest benchmark prices for detached homes and townhouses within Greater Vancouver at $359,489 and $237,760.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
