BC Northern Real Estate Board

The number of homes sold through the MLS® System of the BC Northern Real Estate Board totaled 434 units in October 2024. This was up sharply by 31.5% from October 2023.

Home sales were 7.4% above the five-year average and 9.3% above the 10-year average for the month of October.

On a year-to-date basis, home sales totaled 3,539 units over the first 10 months of the year. This was an increase of 9.5% from the same period in 2023.

“Sales activity rocketed up both on a year-over-year and month-over-month basis in October, a trend that’s also playing out across most of the country at the moment,” said Kristine Newell, Chair of the BC Northern Real Estate Board. “At a time of year when sales are typically settling down, we are instead seeing a massive surge in buyer activity. In just one month our market has gone from balanced to sellers’ territory, although we’ll be keeping an eye on that as things quiet down through the winter.”

The average price of homes sold in October 2024 was $427,537, a slight gain of 0.1% from October 2023.

The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $426,866, increasing by 3.1% from the first 10 months of 2023.

The Board cautions that the average residential price is a useful figure only for establishing trends and comparisons over a period of time. It does not indicate an actual price for a home due to the wide selection of housing available over a vast geographic area (the Board serves an area covering over 600,000 square kilometers or 72% of the province).

The dollar value of all home sales in October 2024 was $185.6 million, an advance of 31.6% from the same month in 2023.

The number of new listings was down by 6.7% from October 2023. There were 419 new residential listings in October 2024. This was the lowest number of new listings added in the month of October in more than five years.

New listings were 4.4% below the five-year average and 7.3% below the 10-year average for the month of October.

Active residential listings numbered 1,685 units on the market at the end of October, a decrease of 7.9% from the end of October 2023.

Active listings were 0.3% above the five-year average and 16% below the 10-year average for the month of October.

Months of inventory numbered 3.9 at the end of October 2024, down from the 5.5 months recorded at the end of October 2023 and below the long-run average of 5.2 months for this time of year. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.