What a great city in Central BC.

2018 has arrived with a fresh round of snow, and new mortgage rules to navigate for those of us interested in Prince George real estate. Snow aside, the new BC mortgage rules went into effect starting January 1st, 2018 and time will tell what type of impact they will have here on our local real estate market.

The biggest change is how homeowners, even those who have down payments of 20% or higher and do not require mortgage insurance – will need to qualify for mortgages that are two percentage points higher than the rates at which they are applying.

New mortgage rules aside, we are still looking for inventory as Prince George continues to boom. We saw an increase of 25% for permanent residents locating to Prince George in 2017. In comparison, other northern BC towns saw a sharp decrease or remained flat with respect to population, so that’s great news if you’re already in the Prince George real estate market and you’re considering a move in 2018.

2017 was...

As part of a barrage of government funding announcements for tech-related programs throughout B.C., the University of Northern B.C. and the College of New Caledonia will collectively receive $650,000 in startup funds to bolster their engineering programs.

Full article - http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/prince-george-gains-new-civil-engineering-programs-1.23146820

Photo credit UNBC JDC West

Ottawa, ON, January 15, 2018 – Statistics released today by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), show national home sales continued to climb in December 2017.

Highlights:

• National home sales rose 4.5% from November to December.
• Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was up 4.1% year-over-year (y-o-y).
• The number of newly listed homes climbed 3.3% from November to December.
• The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) in December was up 9.1% y-o-y.
• The national average sale price advanced by 5.7% y-o-y.

Home sales via Canadian MLS® Systems posted their fifth consecutive monthly increase in December 2017, fully recovering from the slump last summer.

Activity in December was up in close to 60% of all local markets, led by the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Edmonton, Calgary, the Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island, Hamilton-Burlington and Winnipeg.

Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was up 4.1% from December 2016. While activity remained below year-ago levels in the GTA, the...