Chilliwack – Although housing inventory is up marginally over last year’s record lows, supply and demand continues to reflect higher home prices in Chilliwack and area.
A total of 482 residential sales was recorded last month, down from 544 in July of 2016, but dollar value was up by more than $11 million.
“Home prices are driven by supply and demand,” said Lori (Dueckman) Maier, President-Elect of the Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board (CADREB) for the month of June.
“While we were happy to see the number of home listings rise by 3%, new builds are still trying to keep up with the market demand, so we would love to see more houses on the market”.
There were 956 listings posted at the end of June, up 20 from the previous June, however, with an average of 26.7 days on market for single family homes and only 17.3 days to sale for townhomes, the CADREB would like to see the inventory higher to have a wide range of homes available on the local market.
Of the 482 sales last month, the most popular range (94 sales) was $500,000-$599,999, followed by 87 sales in the $400,000-$499,999 range. There were 53 sales of homes over the $700,000 mark, and 18 sales over $1 million.
“We have not seen this many sales over $1 million in recent history, again pointing to supply and demand nudging prices upward,” added Ms.(Dueckman) Maier. “On the other hand, this means a higher price for sellers too”.
Buyers from the Greater Vancouver area and other parts of Canada remain a large percentage of people buying homes locally, as houses remain more affordable than metropolitan areas.
While rumblings of changing interest rates and the uncertainty of the BC government may be causing potential buyers to adopt and “wait and see” attitude, one thing has always remained certain – real estate remains one of the soundest investments that a person can make.
