I think we can all agree: This has been a big year for the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board.
Whether we’re talking about the market, the media, or our organization, there was much to talk about in 2016.
For instance, did you know that this year we reached the highest number of active members in our Board’s history? As of December, there are 3,265 members of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, surpassing the previous record of 3,250 members set in July of 1994. Of those record-setting membership numbers, 352 were new. On the opposite end of the spectrum, roughly 40 will earn the title of ’25-year member’!
And what were those members up to? Plenty, if you look at our market activity data for the year. With one month left to go, our Board has already surpassed the previous record for sales annually. In 2005, we ended the year at 21,282 sales across all property types – residential and commercial combined. As of November 30, 2016, we’re already at 23,022 sales and rising.
We also saw an incredible surge in inventory. At 33,937 new listings so far for 2016, we’ve reached the third highest intake to the MLS® in our Board’s history, falling only slightly behind 2008 and 1994.
With all of that going on, it’s no surprise that the total dollar volume of properties sold in the Fraser Valley was its highest in 2016 by far, reaching $15,636,547,375 – yes that’s over 15 and a half BILLION dollars of property sales with still one month to go. For perspective, 2015 ranked second in the Board’s history finishing at $12,141,651,269 in total dollar volume sold.
Changing course slightly and looking at the Board itself, departments such as Helpdesk and Professional Standards also saw big uptakes in activity throughout the year.
The Board’s Helpdesk department received on average 750 calls from members each month, with a total of 8,274 calls logged for the year so far. The communications department fielded over 70 media requests for interviews with our President Charles Wiebe. Additionally, the Board appeared or was mentioned in approximately 420 online articles or in print publications. Our Professional Standards department was also busy, tracking approximately 2,400 unique inquiries via phone this year, with an average of 10 unique phone calls and 5 emails coming in to our Manager of Professional Standards, Dennis Wilson, every day.
Lastly, our new websites! Since launching on April 25, our new online NewsReal has received 41,591 page views, with over 200 articles published and 31 newsletters issued. In July we also launched our new public website, which has received 75,653 page views from 19,991 visitors who spent an average of 00:1:37 browsing.
And that’s a wrap for 2016! It’s been quite the ride for our REALTORS®, Brokers and the Board, but we made it through and can now look back in awe at what was an extraordinary year for Fraser Valley real estate.