Prince George, B.C. – The diversified economy in Prince George is helping to offset the impact of the downturn in the oil industry when it comes to real estate sales.

Latest stats from the BCNorthern Real Estate Board show communities closely tied with the oil and natural gas industries have seen a slowdown in real estate sales.

” Prince George, which is our largest market, is more diversified than the remainder of the Board areas and is weathering the storm” says BCNRB President David Black. “Although some areas of town are showing slight decreases, the City as a whole is showing an increase of 4% year over year.”

The stats show that in Prince George, during the first six months of 2015, there were 721 properties (486 of them single family dwellings) with a total value of $186 million dollars have changed hands. That is up from the 695 properties valued at $170.2 million which sold in the same period last year.

Throughout the city of Prince George,  here’s how  home prices shaped up during the first half of this year.

The average price of a single family home in Prince George was $282,254, up from the average of $275,353 recorded during the first half of 2014.

During the first half of the year, there were 2376 properties sold within the BCNRB region through the multiple listing service (MLA). That’s down from the 2637 sales reported throughout the North, during the same period last year.

The overall value of the properties sold throughout the  BCNRED was $601 million, down from the $672 million recorded in the first six months of 2014.

BCNRB President, David Black, remains optimistic “The communities that heavily depend on the oil and gas industries are experiencing some drops in volume; however they have been very strong markets in the past and will rebound. Those communities expecting to benefit the most from LNG had a great year in 2014 and have now returned to traditional volumes but at higher values. They will now have to wait for the beginning of one of these projects to actually realize the projected benefits.”

Here is how home sales shaped up throughout the rest of the region during the first 6 months of 2015: