The Chilliwack real estate market is heading for a transition from a slower market to a significantly busier one in the past year.
There were 288 single family homes sold in October 2015 in Chilliwack, compared to 232 houses the same time last year, an increase of 24.1 per cent, according to CADREB stats.
"Everything is going fantastic, except for the fact that the inventory of properties for sale has been very low, and that pushes up the prices," said president Travis Heppner of Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board.
The stats support this. There were only 1,637 listings at the end of October compared to 2,103 in October 2014.
Builders have been trying to play catch-up by adding units, he suggested.
"But that's going to take some time," Heppner said.
There's been some new town home and single-family residential construction on Promontory, subdivisions in Sardis as well as some townhouses in Chilliwack proper.
Those townhouses near downtown are going for $299,000 to $350,000, he said.
So the prices are definitely higher than they were, and because there's no inventory, people seem willing to pay more for what is available.
A lot of buyers are still moving into Chilliwack from communities west, such as Langley where a $600,000 residential property can be had for more like $450,000, Heppner noted.
Total value of the real estate sold last month was $117,247,354 compared to $74,966,040 the same time last year.
Most house sales were in the $400,000 to $499,999 range, according to CADREB stats. There was also a sizeable bump in commercial real estate transactions, including retail and industrial properties, at $16.6 million compared to last year's $976,828, during the same month.
Chilliwack's robust real estate activity reflects the strong numbers also shown in the Vancouver area market over the same time period.
B.C. Real Estate Association (BCREA) reported a total of 8,725 residential sales by MLS in October, up 14.1 per cent from the same month last year. Total sales dollar volume was $5.8 billion, up 32.3 per cent compared to the previous year. The average MLS residential price in the province rose to $667,480, up 16 per cent from October 2014.