Article orginally published on DailyHive.com

With sustained high demand, available home listings in British Columbia at the beginning of 2022 started at an all-time record low of 12,179 units, representing a 41% drop over the previous year.

BC Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports all major housing markets in the province saw dwindling supply reach new lows in December 2021, with the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver recording 5,588 available listings (-39% year-over-year), the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board at 1,404 (-55.5%), the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board at 1,451 (-47.4%), and the Victoria Real Estate Board at 421 (-53%).

“Last year was a record year for BC homes sales with seven market areas setting new highs,” said Brendon Ogmundson, chief economist of BCREA, in a statement.

“Listings activity could not keep up with demand throughout the year. As a result, we start 2022 with the lowest level of active listings on record.”

BCREA states supply concerns are problematic, particularly for the Fraser Valley, Chilliwack, and Vancouver Island markets, where there is one month or less of supply at the current pace of sales.

Based on compiling the data from real estate boards across the province, BCREA states there were 124,854 home sales throughout 2021, representing a 32.8% increase from the 94,001 units in 2020.

The average home price in BC was $928,000 in 2021, which is an 18.7% increase from $781,572 in 2020.

Residential sales totalled $115.8 billion last year — a 57.7% increase from 2020.

For the month of December 2021, a total of 6,871 home sales were recorded across BC, down 17.6% from the record levels in December 2020. Moreover, the average home price in BC exceeded $1 million for the first time, as the average price in three of the largest markets was over $1 million last month.