Land accounted for nearly half the value of all commercial property sales in the Lower Mainland through the second quarter of this year, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).
Land sales tallied $546 million, while total commercial sales reached $1.1 billion in the three-month period, the Board states in its Commercial Edge survey, which tracks transactions through the Land Title and Survey Authority in the Lower Mainland
Over the first two quarters of 2014, there were 887 commercial real estate sales in the region, a 4.5% increase from the same period in 2013.
“The sale of vacant land has led the Lower Mainland’s commercial real estate market this year, while office, retail and industrial activity have not been as active as we saw last year,” said Ray Harris, REBGV president.
In the second quarter the total dollar value of commercial sales in the region posted the lowest quarterly dollar value since the first quarter of 2013.
There were 429 commercial real estate sales in the Lower Mainland in the second quarter of 2014, according to Commercial Edge. This is a 7.3% decline compared to the 463 sales recorded in the second quarter of 2013, a 20.6% decline from the second quarter of 2012, and a 15.7% drop from the same period in 2011.
There were 157 land sales registered in the second quarter, up 15.4% from second quarter of 2013. The dollar value of land sales was up 4% from the second quarter of last year.
Sales of office and retail property in the second quarter fell 10.4% compared to the second quarter of last year, while sales of industrial property were down 27.5% compared to year earlier. Sales of multi-family properties were unchanged, but the dollar volume dipped 28.4% from last year, to $204 million in the second quarter.
