By David Wiwchar

House prices increase 94%

ACRD receives Housing Report

Oct 9, 2025 | 9:10 AM

Alberni – Clayoquot Regional District directors heard how rural homes are becoming unaffordable as prices increase faster than people’s incomes.

According to Andrew Mackie from Makola Housing, house prices increased by 94% from 2019 to 2022, to a median of $855,000.

“Housing sale prices are rising, and home ownership is increasingly out of reach for most members of your communities,” he said. “Even households with two solid incomes are stretching to afford homeownership, and of course those prices are increasing at a much higher rate than incomes, which means that we expect these challenges to get worse not better without significant intervention.”

He said despite this, the rural population has continued to increase.

“The population of your electoral areas is growing and it is changing,” he said. “In general, you probably all know that your population is ageing across the rural areas of your communities. Your population grew by about 10% between 2016 and 2021 much of that was folks graduating from older adult age cohorts into senior age cohorts.”

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Mackie said rural areas within the ACRD are seeing an increase in younger people moving in, and not every regional district is seeing that youth growth.

He said 655 households or 19% of rural homeowners earned a low or very-low income in 2021, and 8% of rural ACRD households lived in a home that was in need of major repairs or had become unaffordable.