Frenzy of real estate sales in 2021 means B.C. is starting the new year with lowest-ever number of active listings

Snow-covered houses and the downtown Vancouver skyline are seen with the North Shore mountains in the distance on Thursday, December 30, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Despite a full year of COVID-19 impacts, the number of homes sold in British Columbia broke a record, as did the sales dollar volume.

A total of 124,854 residential units were sold in 2021, according to a report from the B.C. Real Estate Association based on data from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

That's up from 94,001 units the year before – an increase of 32.8 per cent – and a record number of sales in the province, the BCREA said Wednesday.

And it was a good year for sellers, with the average price up 18.7 from the previous year. Homes across B.C. sold for an average of $927,877, compared to $781,572 in 2020.

The total sales dollar volume for the year was a whopping $115.8 billion, the BCREA said. That's up nearly 60 per cent from 2020.

"Listings activity could not keep up with demand," the association's chief economist, Brendon Ogmundson, said in a news release.

Seven market areas in B.C. saw new sale highs, he said. Record sales were seen in the following real estate board areas, Ogmundson told CTV News in an email:

• Vancouver Island (most of the island, outside of Greater Victoria);
• Greater Vancouver (Metro Vancouver, excluding Surrey, Langley and North Delta);
• Fraser Valley;
• Chilliwack;
• Kamloops;
• Interior (the Okanagan); and
• Kootenay.

The B.C. Northern region, which covers the Cariboo area and northwest B.C., was about 60 sales short of setting a record as well, Ogmundson said.

According to Ogmundson, the frenzy of activity in 2021 means 2022 is starting out with the lowest level of active listings on record.

The BCREA said supply is "particularly concerning" right now for real estate boards in Chilliwack, the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island "where there is one month or less of supply at the current pace of sales."

The news of demand outpacing supply may be good news for sellers, but unaffordable housing is increasingly an issue in B.C.

Data released earlier this year from the B.C. Assessment Authority (BC Assessment) was not a welcome update for those interested in entering the market.

Experts said significant increases in assessed property value are "devastating" for some first-time buyers.

A Vancouver-based realtor who has some younger clients told CTV News earlier this year that the pandemic moved the market at a disproportionate rate. And Kate MacPhail said the assessments are based on market values as of July 1, 2021, so they don't paint the whole picture. 

Others say the higher property values are likely here to stay.

"It's not crazy to think that we'll continue to see home prices, and certainly rent prices, increase, and at a rate greater than inflation," University of British Columbia director Thomas Davidoff said in an interview last month.