The manic pace of real estate sales in Langley and its neighbours continued through November – and even into December, according to a local realtor.
“It has not slowed down, whatsoever,” said Garry Voight of Royal LePage Wolstoncroft.
Single family homes, in particular, remain in extremely high demand.
While there’s more houses for sale than a couple years ago, when the market dipped for about 18 months, there are a lot more buyers, largely drawn by a combination of low interest rates and a need for more space for home offices, Voight believes.
The most recent statistics from the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB) show that the demand is starting to affect home prices in Langley.
The price of a single-family home in Langley has gone sharply upward in recent months as the real estate market has been extremely busy despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
The benchmark price of a detached house in Langley was $1,115,200 in November, according to statistics released Dec. 2 by the FVREB.
That’s up 12.6 per cent from the same month a year ago, when the benchmark price – the average price for a typical single family home – was $990,300.
There were 143 sales of single-family homes in Langley in November, a 74.4 per cent increase compared to November 2019.
The price increases come after months of stronger-than-average sales through what is usually a quiet time in the real estate market.
Because of the near-shutdown in activity in March, April, and early May in the Lower Mainland, there were very few home sales in the spring.
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Sales bounced back starting in the early summer, but has not really abated.
Voight said even restrictions on open houses – which have essentially ended in recent weeks as COVID-19 restrictions ramped up – haven’t stopped the buying.
Buyers have gotten used to either virtual tours, or to going in wearing masks, gloves, and doused in hand sanitizer for no-touch visits, Voight said.
“We’re running out of superlatives,” said Chris Shields, FVREB president. “We expected November activity to moderate due to the season, but the desire for family-sized homes and their benefits continues to dominate. Since the summer, we’ve seen the strongest demand in our board’s 99-year history specifically for single-family detached and townhomes.”
While demand remained high, there was less supply of houses in Langley.
The number of homes listed for sale feel to 167, down 44 per cent from November of last year, and down 23.4 per cent from this October.
While demand was also up year-over-year for townhouses and condos, prices were not rising as fast, and more properties were coming on the market.
There were 121 townhouses sales in November, a 28.7 per cent increase over the year before. The benchmark price in Langley hit $579,200, a five per cent year-over-year increase. The number of homes for sale was up slightly compared to last year.
Condos saw the biggest single jump in year-over-year sales among the three housing categories.
There were 127 sales of condos in November in Langley, a 95.4 per cent jump from the same month in 2019.
The benchmark price was $398,000, up 5.2 per cent from a year earlier.
While detached houses are in short supply and townhouses remained steady, a lot more condos came onto the market.
There were 346 active listings in November, up 28.6 per cent from the same month a year ago, and only down 11.5 per cent from October. There were 164 new listings just this month, a 72.6 per cent jump from a year earlier.