The loud B.C. housing boom that has made Vancouver the most expensive market in Canada quickly falls silent once you get out of town.
A driver heading southeast from the west side of Vancouver, where prices surpassed $1.9 million in April, will find houses priced at less than 25 per cent of that within 40 minutes. Some Fraser Valley community house prices haven't risen in four years and sales are flat. In Abbotsford, for example, average house prices are 3 per cent lower now than three years ago, at around $420,000. In Chilliwack sales are down 9 per cent from a year ago and sales volumes are off nearly 20 per cent.
The urban-small town price chasm is even more pronounced when one moves out of the Lower Mainland, according to the BC Real Estate Association.
Residential sales in the South Okanagan are 30 per cent lower this spring than in 2010 and MLS sales volumes are down 32 per cent, with a similar trend in the Kootenays. Vancouver Island housing sales are running 10.7 per cent behind 2010, which was not a strong year.
Victoria has seen residential sales fall 17.4 per cent this year, with dollar volumes down 21 per cent, the association reports.
from Western Investor June 2011
