Real estate in the Chilliwack region continues to perk up with the warmer weather, but sales remain well below what they’ve been in past years.
The latest stats from the Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board (CADREB) show 277 residential properties selling in April, down from 293 in March. The average value (AV) ticked up very slightly, rising 1.70 per cent from $723,283 to $735,614. That fits the definition of holding steady, but the year-to-year comparison isn’t good. While the amount of units sold in April 2022 (290) versus 2023 (277) is in the same range, the AV has dropped by 17.82 per cent. Twelve months ago, residential units were going for $895,165.
CADREB president Brad Latham found a silver lining in the year-to-year comparisons.
“Year-over-year declines are shrinking as we move past the one-year mark of the peak in sales activity,” he noted. “We’ll likely see year-over-year gains start to show up in the next month or two, which will then grow larger as we pass last year’s downturn.”
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The downturn Latham refers to happened between May and November of 2022 when home values plummeted from an AV of $819,250 down to $649,006.
Despite bouncing back since then, April home sales were still 11.4 per cent below the five-year average and 17 per cent below the 10-year average for the month of April.
Single-family homes did see a month-to-month increase in AV, rising 5.75 per cent from $846,401 to $895,068 despite there being 17 fewer sales than March. They stayed on the market for an average of 28 days.
Townhouses experienced a 4.60 per cent dip in AV from $636,298 to $607,060 while taking an average of 34 days to sell.
It was a better month for condominium sales, with 42 selling for an AV of $414,601. That was an 8.47 per cent increase from the March AV of $382,210 with condos taking an average of 26 days to sell.
There were two residential sales topping $2 million and 38 over $1 million, and Latham expects inventory, or lack of, to continue to “put upward pressure on prices.”
There were 865 listings on the market at the end of April, 11.01 per cent lower than this time last year when there were 972. Inventory has not topped the 1,000 mark yet in 2023, but there’s still time. That number tends to be at its highest between May and September and it’s still way above the all-time low of 264 set in December 2021.
CADREB is a realtor association of more than 280 members covering an area from Yarrow to Lytton, including Chilliwack, Sardis, Rosedale, Agassiz, Harrison Hot Springs, and Hope.
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eric.welsh@theprogress.com
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