Home sales plunge 50 percent in April 2020 due to COVID-19: B.C. Real Estate Association

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      Not surprisingly, April 2020 was not a good month for real estate in B.C.

      Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, home sales dropped more than 50 percent last month compared to March 2020 and April 2019.

      While the economy is gearing to restart, sales next month are not expected to improve significantly, according to Brendon Ogmundson, chief economist of the B.C. Real Estate Association (BCREA).

      In a phone interview, Ogmundson indicated that activity may remain sluggish for a while.

      “I think May is going to look like a lot like April, and April was obviously pretty low in terms of sales,” Ogmundson told the Straight.

      In a media release Wednesday (May 13), the BCREA reported that 3,284 homes were sold in April 2020.

      The number represents a 50.8 percent decline from April 2019.

      Compared to the total homes sold in March 2020 of 6,717, last month’s sales dropped 51 percent.

      According to the BCREA, the average price of a home in B.C. last month was $737,834.

      The association noted that the April 2020 average price was a 7.8 percent increase from $684,430 of April last year.

      The average price of a home in March 2020 was $789,548.

      This means that last month, the average price of a home in the province dropped 6.5 percent compared to March 2020.

      “We expected to see a sharp drop in sales for April as we confronted the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ogmundson said in the BCREA release.

      The association reported that year-to-date, the dollar volume of B.C. residential sales was up 9.6 percent to $15.3 billion, compared with the same period in 2019.

      Year-to-date, residential unit sales were down 1.7 percent to 20,164 units. Meanwhile, the average price was up 11.6 per cent to $758,614.

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