The B.C. economy is expected to slow down next year, but that could be good news for home buyers.
Central 1 Credit Union is out with a new report, forecasting growth in the provincial economy will slow by 0.7 per cent next year, to 2.7 per cent.
In comparison, the B.C. economy has been growing by about three per cent each year since 2014.
Deputy chief economist Bryan Yu says the biggest reason is because of the Lower Mainland’s slowing housing market.
“We are expecting to see a total sales activity in the Lower Mainland drop of about 22 per cent in residential resale activity and pretty flat activity in 2019 and 2020. This inevitably will lead to a slowdown in the building cycle as well so we have by 2020, a 15 per cent drop in residential building permits.”
In contrast, Central 1 predicts Northern B.C.’s economy is set to boom in 2019 and 2020 because of construction of the LNG Canada Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Kitimat and the pipelines that link it to northeast B.C.
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