A reader tweeted at me the other day wondering if a recent house sale in New Westminster means that the local real estate market is cooling off.
Well, we’ll see as the March housing sale numbers will be rolling in next week. For now, there was a house on Nanaimo Street (pictured above) that sold for UNDER the asking price – a relative rarity these days.
The house was listed for $1,488,000 and sold for $1,340,000 after seven days on the market. Now the house is pretty small – just 1,609 square feet. It’s also ancient, having been built 79 years ago, but as we’ve seen with this market many people are snapping up these old houses so they can tear them down and built something bigger.
So I’m not sure what to think.
Recently I wrote about a listing on London Street in Connaught Heights that is selling for a jaw-dropping $1.9 million. It’s 78 years old – and tiny at under 2,000 square feet for a single-detached house.
It’s clear some sellers are shooting for the moon with their prices. We’ll see how successful they are and if these homes with high prices start to languish on the market as more listings are added.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reported that residential home sales in the region totalled 3,424 in February 2022, a 49.8 per cent increase from the 2,285 homes sold in January 2022. Last month’s sales were 26.9 per cent above the 10-year February sales average.
In New Westminster, there was a big jump in sales in February, with a total of 153 compared with just 98 in January. Of course, prices went up too as the median price for a detached house sold for $1.883,000, compared to $1.3 million in February 2021.
“As we prepare to enter what’s traditionally the busiest season of the year, the Metro Vancouver housing market is seeing more historically typical home sale activity and a modest uptick in home listing activity compared to last year,” Taylor Biggar, REBGV Chair said.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
