High demand, low inventory trend continues in South Okanagan real estate market

The real estate market in the South Okanagan continued to shine in November.

The South Okanagan Real Estate Board says single family home sales were up by 70.9 per cent in November when compared to the same month in 2019. That translates to 135 homes sold last month compared to 79 in November 2019.

The price of an average single family dwelling was up substantially as well from $512,022 in November 2019 to $651,990 last month, an increase of 27.3 per cent, according to a real estate board media release.

“We continue to see a very strong demand for residential housing, particularly in the single-family detached category,” real estate board president Lydia Cruickshank said in the release.

The rising demand could be driven by a need for more space, the ability to work remotely or possibly low interest rates, she said.

“Whatever the reason, supply isn’t meeting demand,” Cruickshank said.

The number of listings last month decreased 13.7 per cent compared to October from 1,536 to 1,326. Last month's listings are also down 25.2 per cent when compared to November 2019 from 1,772 to 1,326.

“When inventory isn’t able to build up and you have extremely high demand, this creates upward pressure on pricing as we can see from the data," Cruickshank said. "There doesn’t seem to be any sign of this demand waning."

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