By Anthony Corea

HOUSING NUMBERS

New report predicts home prices are expected to rise 8.5 percent in 2022, 5 percent in Prince George

Feb 8, 2022 | 4:28 PM

PRINCE GEORGE– It looks like more challenging news for the housing market.

And as Chief Economist, Brendon Ogmundson says it’s going to be a story of 2 halves this year. One with sales in the province forecasted to decline 17 percent after a record high in 2021. And two is the expected interest rate hikes expected to significantly increase. Something that could be detrimental to the market with no cheap mortgages available.

Another factor is the BC housing market entering 2022 with the lowest level of active listings ever seen which includes Northern BC.

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However, it’s not all bad news for the Prince George region as sales are only expected to decline 12 percent. This may seem like an intimidating number at first but Breanne Coté, Director of the BC Northern Real Estate Board believes this is good to see as it mean the market will get a lot better next year.

Still, as a result of those numbers home prices are expected to rise by 8.5 percent this year with much of that gain happening in the first half of the year.

However, with sales activity normalizing in 2023 and inventories rebuilding, market conditions around the province should improve and price growth is anticipated to slow to only 2.7 percent.