Demand is up. Prices are up. Real estate inventory supply is short and there’s no sign the Island real estate market will cool anytime soon.
So says the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board, which is backing up the claim with figures favouring a seller’s market.
According to the Multiple Listing Service Home Price Index, Nanaimo’s March sales were up 26 per cent. There were 162 units sold – up from March 2015 with 129 units – and the average sale price per home was $427,786, five per cent higher than $408,070 in March 2015.
The benchmark price for homes in Nanaimo is now $367,000, up from $346,000 for March last year.
Island-wide, 520 single-family homes sold in March, up 24 per cent from March 2015’s total of 420. March also posted a 29-per cent sales hike over February’s 406 processed sales. February’s 1,599 active listings were down 26 per cent from 2,167 in March 2015.
B.C. Real Estate Association economist Brendan Ogmundson chalks current market conditions up to a strong provincial economy, but Janice Stromar, VIREB president-elect, cites other factors heating up Nanaimo’s market.
“We’re on an cycle and we’re just starting the upward trend,” Stromar said. “I don’t see it getting any better for quite a while unless something major changes, like interest rates go way up … because right now it’s really just being driven by demand and inventory.”
Stromar said people in Nanaimo are buying and selling within the same market, or selling off real estate bought in the U.S. when the Canadian dollar was strong against the U.S. dollar to buy in the local market, rather than the city seeing a big influx of new buyers from other markets, but that could be about to change.
“Nanaimo’s starting to come on the radar as maybe a place that’s still fairly economical in comparison to some of the other urban and it feels smaller and it’s just the lifestyle,” Stromar said. “There’s no snow. There’s daffodils right now.”
Buying now before the market cools means existing home owners can sell their homes for more in a market starved for inventory. New buyers will benefit from continually rising prices when they go to sell and trade up.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Stromar said. “I can’t say in three years it’s going to be more, but the trend is certainly up for the near future and the trend is upward.”
For more information, please visit www.vireb.com.