Housing prices take big jump in Kamloops, South Okanagan, not so much in Kelowna

While sales were down in April, the benchmark prices for homes in Kamloops and the Okanagan all went up.

The biggest increases were in the South Okanagan where the benchmark price for single-family houses in April was $771,000, up a whopping $39,600 from March.

Kamloops prices jumped by $10,500 to $721,600 for single-family houses while similar homes in the North Okanagan went up by $8,900 to $788,600.

The Central Okanagan, which is the region’s largest and most expensive market, didn’t experience such a dramatic increase, going up only $2,800 to $1,131,800 compared to March.

These numbers were released today, May 4, by the Association of Interior Realtors, which also includes the Revelstoke/Shuswap, Kootenay and South Peace regions.

The entire region saw a 31.9% drop in the total number of sales compared to April 2021 but that was a record month in an unusually busy year.

“It is important to remember that this is not the same market we had a year ago,” association president Lyndi Cruickshank said in a news release. “For almost the entire year in 2021 we had record highs each month, so to say sales are down does not mean they are low. They are just lower in comparison to a time of unusual real estate market activity.”

Rising interest rates are also expected to slow sales but there’s still a shortage of new listings, which contributes to higher prices.

“The lack of inventory is still putting upward pressure on prices,” Cruickshank said in the news release. “Despite an increase in new listings, housing supply remains light, which points to a problem we’ve been stressing for a while: a generalized lack of housing supply. What we need is more homes getting on to market to meet demand and that is the real challenge.”

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