Property Type:

18.13% First Time Purchase (up from 16.87% in January)

16.58% Move Up Purchase (down from 19.28%)

18.65% Relocating to Similar Property Type (up from 18.07%)

11.92% Revenue/Investment (up from 10.84%)

12.95% Downsizing (down from 16.27%)

  8.29% Moving from Single family Home to Strata Unit (up from 4.82%)

  4.66% Moving from Strata Property to Single Family Home (up from 2.41%)

  6.22% Recreational Property (down from 7.83%)

  2.07% Retirement Home/Seniors Community (down from 3.61%)

Buyer Type (Family Dynamic):

22.40% Two Parent family/children (down from 30.30% in January)

25.00% Couple without children (up from 23.64%)

18.75% Empty nesters or retired (down from 23.03%)

16.15% Single female (up from 12.12%)

  9.90% Single male (down from 10.30%)

  3.13% Single parent with children (up from 2.42%)

Moving From:

62.89% From within Board area (down from 63.86% in January)

16.49% From Lower Mainland/Island (up from 12.65%)

  7.22% From other...

The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a total of 4,533 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in February, a decline of 27% from the same month last year.

The average MLS® residential price in the province was $678,625, a decline of 9.3% from February 2018. Total sales dollar volume was $3.08 billion, a 33.8% decline from the same month last year.

“Prospective homebuyers continue to be sidelined by the mortgage stress test,” said Brendon Ogmundson, BCREA Deputy Chief Economist. “As a consequence, and despite a strong BC labour market, sales remained slow in February.”

Total MLS® residential active listings increased by 36.5% to 30,891 units compared to the same month last year. The ratio of sales to active residential listings declined from 27.4% to 14.7% over the same period. “Falling mortgage rates should provide some relief for homebuyers,...