Over 51,000 new homes registered in British Columbia in 2022

Residential towers under construction in Vancouver. (Shutterstock)

British Columbia recorded its second-highest-ever new home registrations in 2022, with a total of 51,407 new homes registered — just behind the record of 53,189 new homes in 2021.

Newly released data from BC Housing shows this includes 9,037 single-detached and 42,370 multi-unit (apartments and townhomes) homes. The number of registrations for single-detached homes dropped by 24% compared to the previous year.

“New home registrations” are defined as not building completions but the provincial registry step before a building permit is issued and/or before construction begins.

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Of the total, 14,546 are purpose-built rental homes, the highest number since BC Housing began tracking this data two decades ago. This figure is also about seven times higher than the number of new registrations for purpose-built rental homes in 2012.

New rental home registrations represented 34% of all multi-unit registrations in 2022.

For December 2022, Metro Vancouver accounted for 56% of all new home registrations, with Surrey leading at 380, Vancouver with 322 and Abbotsford with 226. There were more multi-unit than single-detached home registrations over last month in Vancouver, Burnaby, North Vancouver, Coquitlam, Surrey, and Langley.

There were more single-detached home registrations in Vancouver (1,019 units; +39%), Surrey (956; +37%), Langley (510 units; +28%), Richmond (254 units; +9%), and Delta (275 units; +26%) in 2022, compared to 2021.

The next largest areas for new home registrations in December 2022 are the Fraser Valley (11.5% of the provincial share), Greater Victoria (11%), Nanaimo (8%), and Thompson-Nicola (3%).

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