Roughly a third of all properties across the Okanagan and Kamloops are listed below their BC Assessment value.

According to figures from real estate platform Zealty.ca, in Kelowna, 35% of listings are below the BC Assessment value, while in Kamloops, it’s 30%. Vernon fares slightly better with 25% of homes listed below assessed value.

“There’s the clear indication of the adjustment in our market,” Vernon realtor John Deak told iNFOnews.ca. “It shows the softening of our market.”

Deak said 10 to 15 years ago, realtors could price a property by taking the BC Assessment value and adding 10%.

“That was an easy marker, and now it’s not. Now it’s just all over the place,” he said.

Traditionally it was generally seen that the BC Assessed value was lower than the market value, but a quick look at Kelowna properties that have come on the market this month shows that’s no longer true.

A four-bedroom house on Rosealee Lane in West Kelowna has just been put on the market for $824,800, and its BC assessment value is $901,000. A condo in the Lakeview Village building in West Kelowna has been listed for $679,000, below its BC assessment value of $716,000.

But not all listings are below the BC Assessment value.

A heritage home on Lawrence Avenue in Kelowna has just been put for sale for $1,179,000, more than $100,000 over its BC Assessment value of $953,000.

“Assessed value does not equal market value,” Kelowna realtor James Roffel said.

Unlike prospective buyers, BC Assessment doesn’t visit the property, but looks at what similar properties in the neighbourhood have sold for.

Roffel said a property may be in bad shape and had no upgrades in decades, but could be assessed as the same value as its neighbour, which had recently been thoroughly renovated.

He said it’s previously been looked at as just a benchmark for the area.

The stats are an indication of the market, though.

“It’s taken a lot longer for houses to sell… even after price drops,” he said. “It’s still around a couple months (to sell), which… isn’t too bad, but it is still high.”

Roffel points out sales are about the same, but inventory is coming down, which shows that people are simply taking their homes off the market.

Regardless of the downturn, Kamloops and the Okanagan are still faring better than other markets.

The number from zealty.ca shows that across BC, 44% of all listings are below BC Assessment value. In Metro Vancouver, that jumps to 55%, and in Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, 74% of homes sold this year closed below assessment.

Kamloops realtor Scott McDowell said the number of listings under BC Assessment value is the highest he’s ever seen.

“It’s not surprising because I still get clients that say, ‘it’s well under assessed value, it’s a deal,’” McDowell said.

“BC Assessment doesn’t know street to street, neighbourhood to neighbourhood, (know) what neighbourhood’s good, what neighbourhood’s not, whereas prospective buyers and sellers do. They tour the homes, they tour inside the homes,” he said.

He said BC Assessment values were always lagging behind the market – current BC Assessment values reflect July 1, 2025 – and only represent a snapshot of the neighbourhood at that point in time.

McDowell said he recently sold a “niche’ property in Kamloops for $270,000 above assessed value, but has two or three other listed for under assessed value.

“It means nothing to market value. As long as people start understanding that there’s no correlation moving forward, then I think both buyers and sellers will be happy,” he said.