Housing Market Activity Shows Signs of Recovery in May

The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a total of 4,518 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in May 2020, a decline of 45.2 per cent from May 2019. The average MLS® residential price in BC was $728,898, a 3.2 per cent increase from $706,394 recorded the previous year. Total sales dollar volume in May was $3.3 billion, a 43.5 per cent decrease over 2019.

“There were encouraging signs of recovery in May,” said BCREA Chief Economist Brendon Ogmundson. “While activity is still far below normal, both sales and listings are up significantly from April’s lows.”

New listings activity started to normalize around the first week of May, reversing a slide in total active listings. However, active listings are still down close to 24 per cent year-over-year and are more than 10,000 listings below where they would normally be in the spring months.

Year-to-date, BC residential sales dollar volume was down 6 per cent to $18.6 billion, compared with the same period in 2019. Residential unit sales were down 14.2 per cent to 24,695 units, while the average MLS® residential price was up 9.6 per cent to $753,155.