Buyers are eyeing residential and multifamily homes as investment opportunities in B.C.
That’s according to a Thursday report from real estate services firm Avison Young (Canada Inc.), which found West Coast commercial transactions worth more than $5 million in 2024 totalled more than $10.1 billion. Residential land and multifamily properties accounted for 44 per cent of that total.
Residential land transactions made up 29.9 per cent of the total transaction value in the last six months of 2024 (H2). Of the top five residential land deals in H2, three were court-ordered sales.
In the retail sector, investment sales remained stable for the first half of 2024. New supply remains limited, apart from ground-floor commercial space in upcoming mixed-use developments.
"Grocery-anchored retail centres are the more darling asset,” Shawna Rogowski, a senior manager of market intelligence at Avison Young, told Western Investor.
She said those assets remain scarce, while retail activity is “healthy” compared with 2023.
While benchmark home prices in Vancouver declined year-over-year, the report noted affordability remains a major issue for many residents with housing being an ongoing challenge in Metro Vancouver.
For the industrial and office category, office transaction volume surged to $1.5 billion in 2024 – the highest in five years. Industrial sales in 2024 exceeded $1.5 billion in total transaction value, but this marked the lowest annual total since 2019.
Among the ten largest industrial transactions in the second half of 2024, two occurred outside Metro Vancouver, in Vernon and Kelowna.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, Metro Vancouver's office vacancy rate hit 11.1 per cent, with downtown Vancouver reaching 13.7 per cent. The city has the lowest office vacancy rate among Canada's major markets, making office investments lower risk compared to other Canadian markets, according to the report.
While the Bank of Canada implemented five interest rate cuts in 2024 – reducing its benchmark rate by 175 basis points – the report said U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods has created uncertainty.
