Okanagan, Kamloops real estate sales steady; new listings down

Real estate sales and prices were pretty steady last month in the Okanagan and Kamloops even though new listings took a dip.

Home sales for July in the Okanagan and Kamloops are almost the same as during the same month last year, according to the Association of Interior Realtors monthly statistics.

In the Central Okanagan there were 438 units sold, virtually the same as July last year. In North Okanagan there were 162 sales, down 5.3 per cent, in Kamloops there were 254 sales, down 1.6 per cent.

The South Okanagan was an outlier from the rest of the region with 174 sales marking a larger decline of 9.8 per cent from July of last year.

Benchmark prices for single family homes stayed consistent as well, up around two per cent across the region. The benchmark for a single family home in Kelowna is $1,072,400, in North Okanagan it’s $782,100, in South Okanagan it’s $761,000 and in Kamloops it’s $684,000.

“We’re continuing to see a normal seasonal pattern across the Interior market with sales activity
tracking closely to the pace established during the same month last year,” the real estate association’s president Ryan Mayne said in a press release.

The only metric that took a significant hit was new listings.

In the Central Okanagan new listings were down 16.6 per cent, in the North Okanagan they were down 27.1 per cent, in South Okanagan they were down 22 per cent and in Kamloops they were down 10.6 per cent.

The number of homes coming onto the market is lower, but Mayne said that isn’t a concern because the rest of the data is consistent.

“Although inventory growth has been slightly muted, the fact that listings aren’t building up points to a market that is steady and stable, continuing at a sustainable pace rather than experiencing significant shifts in either direction,” Mayne said.

While the association’s report shows some stability year-over-year, the real estate report from Rennie shows that sales are down in Central Okanagan compared to the 10-year average. Sales for detached homes were down by nine per cent compared to the 10-year average for July, townhomes were down five per cent and condo sales were down 18 per cent.