The 2024 BC Assessment saw Squamish single-family homes and strata homes drop slightly in value, by -1% and -2% respectively, but what does that actually mean?
According to Andy Yan, the director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, these numbers largely indicate no change from 2023 to 2024. More information on next year is necessary to determine a pattern, he said.
“It’s virtually flat,” said Yan about the 2024 BC Assessment for Squamish. “With changes that small, it’s somewhat [an] effect of the methodology as opposed to a market change.”
To calculate value, BC Assessment considers the characteristics of homes and comparable sales of homes. Yan said in smaller communities like Squamish, outliers can play some role in shifting the overall assessments.
“If it meant that two or three commercial buildings sold for slightly higher amounts—5% higher than what occurred last year—then it means prices would go up,” he said about the business category increase of 6%.
Notably, the light industry class had an increase of about 20%. Yan said that could be due to several factors, including new classifications of properties, which could be more of an administrative change than a market change.
Yan said we will mostly have to wait and see until next year if valuations are at a peak, plateau or cliff to determine market patterns. This wait-and-see approach is somewhat because the last five years have seen mostly positive increases in residential valuations in Squamish.
Starting in 2019 to 2023, Squamish saw single-family home values largely increase with changes of 8%, 0%, 10%, 35%, and 8%.
Over the same period, strata home values were a little more volatile but still mostly positive increases with changes of 19%, -4%, 2%, 24%, and 16%.
The 2024 percent change looks similar to that of the 2020 assessments of 0% and -4%, which would have occurred on July 1, 2019. However, those percentage changes turned out to be just a one-year occurrence rather than a pattern. The following years saw tremendous percentage increases, partly due to changing hybrid work requirements from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ultimately, Yan called the 2024 assessment for Squamish “kind of dull.”
“Dull isn’t necessarily bad,” he countered.
“It’s no real surprise,” he continued. “The motivation for transactions diminishes because of how high interest rates are and how high prices are.”
With rumours of interest rates potentially lowering, Yan said, “It really is going to be what’s going to happen over this year in terms of transactions that is going to shape where real estate prices are.”
Where does Squamish rank in the Lower Mainland?
Compared to other communities in the Lower Mainland, Squamish’s residential percent change ranks in the middle and on the lower end of the spectrum.
In single-family homes, Squamish ranks 19 out of the 33 Lower Mainland communities released in the 2024 BC Assessment. In strata homes, Squamish ranks 18 out of the 19 Lower Mainland communities.
Last year, Squamish ranked 22 out of the 33 for single-family homes and 6 out of the 19 for strata homes.
