Condo sales cooling off faster than other housing in Central and North Okanagan

Housing sales in the region from Revelstoke to Peachland are slowing.

Sales of all categories of housing dropped from 652 in September to 625 in October throughout the region.

It’s not unusual for the housing market to cool at this time of year, according to an Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board media release.

“With the holiday season approaching it’s not unusual for consumers to have other financial priorities on their mind, perhaps putting home purchases on the back burner until the new year,” board president Michael Loewen said in the release. “Typically, we see less market activity as we head into the colder months as those that are not in a rush to move prefer to do so when weather conditions are more agreeable.”

What is more telling is the comparison to the same month last year. Sales for October 2019 were down by two per cent, year over year for all housing categories.

The sale of condominiums, on the other hand, was down five per cent from 2018 and 14 per cent from September of this year.

“It is too early to say whether this shift in the condo category is an anomaly or the beginning of a trend or merely just a case of construction of more compact and affordable units having caught-up to consumer demand creating competitive market conditions,” Loewen said.

As for prices, the average price for all categories in October was $516,940. That’s five per cent higher than for the same month last year but six per cent lower than September 2019.

For the Central Okanagan, the average price in October was $536,382, up 2.6 per cent from October 2018.

By comparison, the average price in the North Okanagan was $473,710, up 1.9 per cent from October 2018.

A complete statistical summary can be found here.

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