$399K for this little Penticton house in hot real estate market

The pending sale of a basic starter home in Penticton this week presented an example of how far and how fast housing prices have changed in the Okanagan.

Royal LePage Locations West Realty real estate agent Anita Russell recently listed a two-bedroom, one-bath starter home on Wade Avenue in Penticton. The house is 636 square feet with a screened porch on the front. It comes with a private patio area, single car garage with power and a concrete floor, alley access and a garden already planted.

Russell says there is a sale pending for the property at more than the list price of $399,000.

“A year ago, I estimated the list price for that home at $299,000 to $320,000, but the homeowners weren’t ready to list,” Russell says.

Indeed, it really wasn’t all that long ago $400,000 would have bought you something quite a bit more substantial than a 636 square foot home in Penticton.

In October 2018, an average single-family home in the South Okanagan was worth approximately $439,000, according to statistics from the South Okanagan Real Estate Board. By November 2020, the price of an average South Okanagan home was pegged at $512,022.

And by March of this year, the average price of a single-family home had climbed to $803,994.

“It’s a very, very hard market for first time buyers and buyers in general. You talk to any realtor and they are going to tell you they hate the market. It is awful, it’s very tough for buyers,” Russell says.

Those looking to sell a home aren’t a lot better off, unless they already have a second residence to move into.

“What’s out there is way overpriced for the value, or there are multiple offers on a property. It’s great for the sellers, but if the sellers have to buy, it’s not so great for them either,” she says.

Russell says the Wade Avenue property is a good news story for both parties, as the house had been in the family for 70 years.

“It’s a bittersweet thing for them to leave, but the people who are purchasing are ecstatic about the home and want to live in it, so it won’t be ripped down to make way for a duplex or some other development that’s so common these days,” Russell says.

The realtor does see light at the end of the tunnel, however.

Russell feels buyers are starting to settle down a bit and aren’t running after the first thing on the market. However, she says, predictions are the market will continue to be hot for the rest of the year.

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