B.C. property assessments show significant jumps in real estate value
Posted January 3, 2022 6:12 am.
Last Updated January 3, 2022 10:22 pm.
The latest property assessments have been released in B.C., and there are — once again — some significant jumps in real estate value.
It’s not the New Year’s news that many prospective home buyers wanted to see.
Pandemic-fuelled pressure has, by some estimates, pushed up prices for single-family homes around 20 per cent across the Lower Mainland.
Tom Davidoff with UBC’s Sauder School of Business says it’s likely to be a little less for multi-family homes.
“There was this rush for more space and a lack of a need to be close to downtown, so that was better for single-family and detached homes than for multi-family. But I think most people are going to see increased assessments.”
We’re expecting a deeper analysis from BC Assessment on Tuesday, when we’ll also get a sense of market trends and other information.
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As the year progresses, Davidoff expects prices will keep rising, and not just for those looking to buy.
“My best guess is rents are going to continue rising on the Lower Mainland. It’s hard to build homes at the pace at which we’re seeing immigration and the political will isn’t necessarily there,” he explained, predicting it will stay that way as long as interest rates remain low and demand outpaces supply.
“Unless something happens with the macro economy — higher interest rates without price and wage growth — then we probably see prices continue to outpace inflation as well. I can’t believe we’re going to see, you know, 20 per cent plus increases year-over-year for a long time, that’s just a little difficult to imagine, but if you look at the past 10 or 20 years, that level of increase was pretty hard to imagine as well. Best guess, probably we continue to appreciate above inflation in the long run, but out two or three years it’s very hard to know.”
The preliminary data has some would-be first-time buyers suffering from sticker shock.
Many have taken to social media to express their surprise, with many posts suggesting even more people are losing hope of ever being able to afford a home in Metro Vancouver.
One person on Reddit notes they only have two friends in their 30s who own homes, adding one “makes all her money illegally” while the “other inherited a house.”
“When will this bubble pop? I want to buy a house…one day,” writes another, echoing a sentiment shared by many others.
According to the B.C. Real Estate Association’s latest data from November, the average MLS® residential price in the province year-to-date was up almost 19 per cent per cent to $921,806.
The @bcrea is reporting that November home sales lead to a new annual record for BC: https://t.co/Fs7KAidh7y #BCRE #BChomesales #BCrealestate pic.twitter.com/tQ7XGnyqa5
— BC Assessment (@bcassessment) December 15, 2021
“Provincial MLS® home sales reached a new annual record in November with still one month to go in 2021,” said BCREA Chief Economist Brendon Ogmundson. “Home sales have already surpassed the previous annual record of 112,425 units set in 2016.”
As prices rose, active listings continued to fall, with declines of 39 per cent year-over-year to what the BCREA has called a “record low for the province.”
“Active listings are now about half of the level reached prior to the pandemic,” the association notes.
Preliminary property assessment data was made available on Sunday, Jan. 2, for individual addresses.
The BC Assessment reflects conditions from last July.
