Local home sales ended 2017 even hotter than the year began with December numbers up 24 per cent year over year.
• READ MORE: Chilliwack real estate prices soaring amid record-low listings
Prices, too, continue to rise with the average sale price of $483,156 up 25 per cent over December 2016 at $387,190, according to data from the Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board (CADREB).
The annual average price was $464,897, up 16.8 per cent from 2016. This was similar to the 18.4 per cent increase in 2016 versus 2015.
Over all, 2017 showed a slightly cooled market compared to 2016, but last year still represented the second best year on record by a large margin.• RELATED: Property assessments may give sticker shock to some Chilliwack homeowners
“While activity has cooled a little from the extremes of early 2016, supply has also come down further, so the market remains as tight as ever,” said CADREB president Greg Nord-Leth. “That’s why prices were up by almost as much in 2017 as they were in 2016.”
There were 204 units sold in December 2017 in the CADREB area — which includes Chilliwack, Agassiz, Hope and all places in between — the second highest level ever for a December even up from 165 in the huge sales year of 2016.
Annual home sales in 2017 totalled 3,983 units, down 7.5 per cent from 2016 but well above every other year on record.
New residential listings numbered 181 units in December, up 36.1 per cent from a year earlier, but at just 607 active listings at the end of December, that was the lowest level by New Year’s since 2003.
The combined dollar value of home sales in December 2017 was $98.6 million, up 54.3 per cent year over year. This smashed the previous December record set two years ago.
The two price categories with the highest number of sales last month at 20 each, was $400,000 to $449,000 and $550,000 to $599,999.
Twelve properties sold over $900,000, six of those over $1 million.
As for 2018, the B.C. Real Estate Association’s (BCREA) fourth quarter housing forecast calls for a drop in sales for 2018 in CADREB along with just a 4.3 per cent increase in price.
• READ MORE: High Chilliwack home prices, sales forecast to moderate
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