The BC Northern Real Estate Board says there were fewer sales in 2022.
The biggest drop in the Cariboo was in Williams Lake, from 212 in 2021 to just 150 last year.
The decline in Quesnel was from 153 to 129, while there were 147 sales in the 100 Mile House area last year, down from 180.
Board Vice-President Breanne Cote says there were two reasons for the drop.
“Interest rates were at an all-time low in the past couple of years and with the government hiking interest rates that has definitely slowed the market down. The other reason for the decline is coming from record numbers, everything has to settle down at some point in time, and that’s just what we’re seeing happen.”
The good news, at least for the sellers, was that the price on the sale of new single family homes were up across the board.
The average selling price in Williams Lake was more than 433 thousand dollars last year, up from 377.
An average Quesnel home sold for just over 392 thousand dollars, up from almost 341, and the increase in 100 Mile was from about 413 thousand dollars up to almost 485 grand.
Cote does say however, that the highest-priced sales took place very early in the year.
“Things then settled own towards the end of the year. We then had prices similar to what we saw at the end of 2021. Prices haven’t come down a lot, but they have come down a little bit from the peak.”