Victoria Real Estate Board President Ara Balabanian predicts that the huge sales numbers experienced in 2016 will not be matched in 2017 in Victoria. What we can see so far is that as of February this year, sales are down 12.6% from Feb 2016. Some of this is related to the weather as many buyers did not venture out to view properties during snowfalls. Importantly there are 40% fewer listings this February than in 2016. Pricing in the Victoria area has increased by 21.3% this February over February 2016, with the benchmark for a Single-Family Home now at $775,000.
Pender Sales are also down slightly from February last year and we are at an all-time “Low Listing Inventory” with only 48 Listings. One of our top realtors--says that what's currently slowing her down is low inventory, she has keen buyers but not enough homes to show them!
There are many buyers looking to purchase Pender Island properties right now but this has not driven prices up. The record sales in 2016 were due to the lower prices being very attractive to buyers. Pender Island experienced a Seller’s Market from 2002 - 2007 when global market conditions were ideal and demand was very high. In those years, Albertan oil money was really helping to inflate our property prices. Our managing broker recalls how in 2002 there were no waterfronts for sale but she had a driven buyer who insisted she knock on someone’s door to see if they would sell. The seller said they would, for $700,000... far above the $500,000 average waterfront price value at that time. She told the seller “Thank you, but the buyer will not likely pay this.”, which would be the case under any normal market conditions. Well, the buyer bought that property, then within6months there were 24 waterfront properties in the $700,000 range with most sellers obtaining their asking price. That was an incredible 5 - 6 year run for sellers!
Then prices crashed in 2008 and for the next few years the Pender Island real estate market was abundant with inventory but the sales were slow, with over 200 listings and an average of only 50 sales per year. As sales slowed down and the prices dropped, properties finally reached a price point where buyers were comfortable again to invest on Pender and the crash-recovery began.
In 2016 there were 135 Sales, more consistent with the numbers in 2002 - 2007, but the prices were nowhere near the record highs of those boom years. We anticipate a busy summer season as there are many inquiries for Pender and Saturna, and we all know Victoria is still in very high demand.