Real Estate in Victoria continues to be at a premium despite the COVID-19 pandemic, with low supply and high demand driving prices up.
The Victoria Real Estate Board (VREB)’s statistics for the first month of 2021 show that 646 properties sold in the region.
That represents an increase of 57.2 per cent over January 2020, which saw 411 sales, and a rise of 2.4 per cent in sales from December 2020.
“Our bustling market continues to be fueled by strong consumer demand to own a home in Greater Victoria, driven in part by low interest rates and by the overall desirability of our larger community,” said VREB President David Langlois.
“This continuing demand, coupled with our record low inventory, has resulted in competition for desirable properties.”
Langlois says this competition for sparse inventory has pushed up pricing, with significant increases in Multiple Listing Service® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) benchmark values.
VREB says the MLS® HPI benchmark value is based on ten years of sales data to define benchmark prices for single family, townhouse and condominium categories.
According to their methodology, the MLS® HPI benchmark value for a single family home in the Victoria Core was $932,000 in January 2021.
That represents an increase of 8.3 per cent from January 2020, and 1.8 per cent from December 2020.
Condominiums saw a modest price decrease from the past year, with an MLS® HPI benchmark value of $518,800 in January 2021, down 0.9 per cent from January 2020.
“The competition for sparse inventory has pushed both pricing and activity up and has created the very fast-paced market that we’ve been experiencing for the past several months,” said Langlois.
