B.C.’s housing sales downturn deepened in October as interest rate hikes and economic uncertainty sidelined potential buyers.

The sales slow down means prices are also taking a hit.

“Sales activity remains slow across the province and inventories appear to be plateauing,” said BCREA chief economist Brendon Ogmundson in a news release. “While prices have fallen from peak levels reached in early 2022, average prices have recently levelled off.”

While monthly industry reports show sales and prices falling, some real-time gauges of median prices show sharper falls.

And even in areas such as Powell River that were outliers and showed a significant year-on-year price increase of 9.3 per cent, according to benchmark prices used by real estate boards, real estate agents on the ground say that prices are now falling as buyers face tougher conditions.

“Our prices are falling like all other markets in the province,” said Warren Behan, a Powell River-based real estate agent.

Another real estate agent in Powell River said the area had been behind in prices for many years. In the spring of 2021 and even until earlier this year, buyers from other areas, who had cashed out of their properties elsewhere, came to Powell River.

Now, he is noticing that many deals are “subject to sale” of another property. He said there are still “outside” buyers, but it’s mostly local ones who are downsizing or moving.

Behan said the market has always had a mix of local buyers and ones from elsewhere. He said that with a low number of total sales, it’s easy for a relatively small number to skew percentage increases.

The steepest year-on-year sales decline for October was 61 per cent in Chilliwack where year-on-year prices for all property types fell by 11.9 per cent. The next sharpest decrease in benchmark price was seen in the Fraser Valley where it was 8.3 per cent, according to the real estate board.

Proponents of median prices, which is the middle price in a list of sales numbers from high to low, say these can be a more accurate reflection of a market where prices are moving quickly.

The Greater Vancouver area in October posted a slight 0.7 per cent increase in benchmark price to $1,231,805 compared to the previous year, according to the real estate board.

Meanwhile, the median price for Greater Vancouver in October was $978,000, which is a decrease of 5.7 per cent compared to the previous year, according to HouseSigma.

Within Greater Vancouver, however, the median price for all properties in North Vancouver increased by 13.6 per cent and in Burnaby by 4.4 per cent and in Coquitlam by 5.8 per cent, according to HouseSigma.

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