June sales of single-family homes in the Comox Valley were up 5 per cent on the same month last year – but the average price dropped 4 per cent compared to 12 months ago.

New figures from the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board this week show 88 single-family homes changed hands locally in June compared to 84 in the same month last year.

The average price paid was just under $349,000 in contrast to $362,000 in June 2010.

The number of sales placed the Comox Valley in the number two spot of the six regions north of the Malahat within the real estate board’s area.

Nanaimo took top position in June with 100 sales and Port Alberni and the West Coast brought up the rear with 27.

Real estate board president Jim Stewart said across the Island there were “marginal fluctuations in unit listings and sales numbers, indicating a stabilizing market.”

But away from single-family homes, Stewart added there had been some particularly encouraging sales figures, particularly for waterfront homes and lots.

However, in the Comox Valley there is now relatively limited choice for people wanting to buy ready-serviced lots, with the lowest number of listings of such properties for some time.

Marty Douglas of Coast Realty Group in Courtenay said at the last count only 27 lots were listed within the three Comox Valley municipalities, whereas in Campbell River alone there were 138.

That imbalance was opening up a significant price difference of around $70,000 between similar lots in the two communities, which would inevitably impact new house prices.

For the longer term, he said, the potential inventory of lots in the Comox Valley was enormous, with so many new developments proposed. But for now there was a distinct shortage, reflecting a 46 per cent fall in lot sales here compared to last year.

In the first five months of this year, 37 lots were bought in the Comox Valley, but only three of them went for under $100,000. The average price had come in at just over $167,000.

Yet in Campbell River, over the same period, 86 per cent of lots there had sold for less than $100,000, Douglas noted.

pround@comoxvalleyecho.com