The provincial housing market continues to show signs of a turnaround.

The B.C. Real Estate Association reported today that there were 6,616 sales in November through the multiple listing service. That's up 27.5 percent over the same month in 2018.

The MLS average residential price rose 5.5 percent on the year to $746,939. And the dollar volume of sales last month was $4.94 billion, an increase of 34.4 percent over November 2018.

"After several months of strong gains, home sales are now firming around long-run averages," BCREA chief economist Brendon Ogmundson said in a news release. "We expect 2020 will be a much more typical year for markets compared to the volatility of recent years."

The largest year-to-year increase in percentage terms in unit sales occurred in Greater Vancouver. It was up 55 percent, whereas the Fraser Valley rose 34.9 percent and the Okanagan increased 22.2 percent.

Despite the year-over-year gains, the dollar volume of transactions is still down six percent through the first 11 months of 2019 compared to the same period a year ago.

The average MLS price is off 2.2 percent this year through 11 months compared to the first 11 months of 2018.

Commercial real estate mired in slump

Meanwhile, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver has reported that sales declined by 32 percent in the third quarter in the commercial real-estate market compared to the same quarter in 2018.

The dollar volume fell even more sharply, by 59.8 percent, compared to the same quarter of 2018.

“Activity in our commercial market this year is trailing the pace we’ve experienced over the last five years,” REBGV president Ashley Smith said in a news release. “We’ve seen activity pickup in our residential market over the last few months and we’ll watch to see if conditions strengthen on the commercial real estate side in the last quarter of 2019 or the first quarter of next year.”

On a quarterly basis, land sales volume fell 61.7 percent, the office and retail sales volume were off 37.2 percent, and the multifamily land sales volume plummeted by 47.8 percent.

The only bright spot was industrial-land sales, which were up 4.2 percent in the third quarter over the same period in 2018. The dollar volume on industrial-land sales spiked upward by 41.7 percent.