Vancouver (BCREA) – The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) released its 2019 Fourth Quarter Housing Forecast today.
Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) residential sales
in the province are forecast to decline 1.8 per cent to about 77,100
units this year, after recording 78,505 residential sales in 2018. MLS® residential sales are forecast to increase 10.9 per cent to 85,500 units in 2020, just below the 10-year average for MLS® residential sales of 85,800 units.
“After a slow start to 2019, MLS® home sales in BC have
embarked on a sustained upward trend since the spring,” said Brendon
Ogmundson, BCREA Chief Economist. “The dampening effects of federal
mortgage rules mean that rather than a return to the heights of recent
years, home sales are simply returning to trend after sustaining a
significant shock.”
As demand normalizes, the accumulation of resale inventory has reversed
course in many markets around BC. We anticipate that this trend will
continue in 2020, with sales and listings finding balance. For most
markets, this will mean price growth that is in-line with inflation,
though for some supply-constrained areas we are forecasting strong price
growth. We anticipate that the MLS® average price will decline 2 per cent in 2019 before rising modestly by 3.6 per cent to $723,000 in 2020.
