An annual report out from Century 21 Canada says Burnaby house prices have climbed during the first half of 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the report, Burnaby prices for the first half of 2020 have gone up about 5% to $579 per square foot for a detached house.
This is lower than some other suburbs, such as North Vancouver, but higher than others such as Surrey and Chilliwack, says the report. A downtown Vancouver condo remains the most expensive property in Canada at $1,192 per square foot, despite a decline of almost 4%.
While the local stories vary across the country, the common theme is of house prices seeing modest changes per square foot over the same period last year. One exception is Montreal, which has seen prices increase dramatically since 2019 – though downtown prices still remain lower than those in Vancouver and Toronto.
In its annual, nationwide study, Century 21 Canada compared the price per square foot of properties sold between January 1 and June 30 this year, compared to the same period last year.
“When the pandemic took hold in Canada in mid-March, there was a lot of uncertainty about what would happen to real estate sales during the typically busy spring market,” says Brian Rushton, executive vice-president of Century 21 Canada. “What we have seen is that after a dip in the number of sales early in the pandemic, the pace of sales has returned to near-normal levels as real estate agents and companies innovated new ways of doing things. The real estate industry has proved resilient through the past several months. And even further, prices have held steady as well.”
