Sure, there are fables of Kelowna homes that go on sale for $ 500,000 that attract 26 performances in a single weekend, and tons of listings that cause them to change hands for $ 560,000.
“But that’s still the exception, not the rule,” said Francis Braam, managing broker at Royal LePage Kelowna.
“We definitely have a seller’s market in Kelowna. There’s less supply and more demand, and prices are back to their 2008 highs. However, a home is more likely to sell for 98 percent of asking price in 41 days after two or three bids are received. “
After a long, slow spike following the 2009 recession, the Kelowna real estate market has been a bit of a turmoil lately.
But the hottest city in BC is Vancouver, where an average two-story home currently sells for $ 2.4 million, 30 percent more than a year ago ($ 2.1 million).
It’s also the backdrop to the true story of a bungalow listed for $ 1.5 million and sold for $ 2 million just a few days later after 110 screenings and a bidding war among frenzied potential buyers.
“Vancouver is crazy. Nobody knows what a house is worth there now, including the real estate agent, ”said Braam.
“Kelowna is far from that.”
Still, Kelowna has a market unseen in seven years.
“There’s a pent-up demand,” said Braam.
“The condo is over and sellers are likely to receive multiple offers on all types of homes, possibly for slightly more than the asking price if it’s nice and clean.”
After suffering in a buyers’ market from 2009 to 2013, the market was evened out with families confident enough to look for homes in the $ 400,000-450,000 range.
The market benefited sellers as more people searched for property up to $ 800,000 and the condominium flood cleared.
That discussion comes when Royal LePage published its home price survey for the first three months of the year.
It found the average two-story Kelowna home sold for $ 631,200 in the first quarter, up 13 percent from $ 558,300 last year.
Typically two-tier bungalows in Kelowna are currently changing hands averaging $ 472,500, up 2.4 percent from $ 461,500 last year.
And condos rose 1.6 percent from $ 301,200 to $ 306,000.
The Kelowna market is primarily powered by locals who have the confidence to move from a rental property to a purchased home, move to a bigger and better home, or downsize empty nests and retirees to a still expensive home.
However, the Vancouver absurdity has driven some lower mainland buyers to the Okanagan in search of affordable property prices.
Ironically, fueling oil prices has also benefited Kelowna.
The working Albertans moving to Kelowna and the retirees accepted the difficult times in their province to actually move.
The Royal LePage survey tracked prices in 53 Canadian cities.
Kelowna’s 13 percent jump in price is somewhere in the middle, similar to Victoria, Surrey, Belleville-Trenton, Ontario, and Ottawa.
The most monumental hike was in Vancouver, but other lower mainland markets had impressive lifts, with Burnaby arriving at 22 percent, Coquitlam at 20 percent, and West Vancouver at 19.5 percent.
Despite the doom and darkness in Calgary, the average retail price of a two-story home there is only one percent to $ 518,500.
Cities that have lost ground include Fredericton, down 10 percent, Kingston, down 8 percent, Charlottetown, down 4 percent, and St. John, down 3 percent.
