Article content continued
Some are also seeing more investors in the market.
“When the market is hot, investors come,” said Baldev Gill of Lighthouse Realty in Abbotsford. He has a list of 20 to 30 buyers, about half of whom are investors looking for homes in Abbotsford, Chilliwack or Mission.
“We are seeing sight-unseen sales, cash offers, people coming with bank drafts for the deposits,” said Surrey-based One Flat Fee real estate agent Mayur Arora, who also estimated investors being about half of interested buyers.
David Smith from Royal LePage Wolstencroft in Langley said that in the last seven days, for the five detached home sales in Abbotsford registered with the MLS listing service, there was a $205,100 difference between the median list price of $899,900 and the median sale price of $1,105,000.
“This is being generated by multiple offers. Some are getting 20 offers,” he said.
One sale of a detached home in Chilliwack in his office yielded 42 offers.
Arenson said that in 2016 he found 40 per cent of some 150 Fraser Valley sales on the MLS were transacted by a buying agent from out of the local area. It could now be at that level or higher in some areas, he thinks.
Instead of more gradual price increases, “the market looks like a staircase with each sale,” he said.
“Appraisers have mixed emotions. We might say today that we can’t support a value, but then it gets sold for more and that number becomes the new comparable.”