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Demand from Alberta buyers for a newly launched waterfront condominium project in Kelowna points to a reversal of a trend that has prevailed over the Okanagan market for several years until recently.
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“Since about 2014, the Alberta buyer has been missing from Kelowna condo sales,” says Jon Friesen, chief executive officer of Mission Group, the developer behind Aqua Waterfront Village in Kelowna.
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The project just launched a new, two-building phase this summer that has been met with high demand, including from Alberta buyers.
“There is an extraordinarily high level of Albertans,” he says, pointing to strong demand for ultra-luxury condos valued at $2 million or more.
Albertans make up about 11 per cent of Mission Group’s potential buyers for the lakeside project that features a boat storage garage, launch and even a club providing boat shared ownership services. That share may seem small, but demand is up significantly from prior to 2020 when Alberta buyers made up about four to six per cent of buyers for projects of Mission Group, one of the largest developers in the region.
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Prior to 2014, buyers from Alberta were commonplace, Friesen adds.
The trajectory of the energy industry has always been a key factor in demand from buyers from the province.
He notes that high energy price fueled buyer demand before 2014, and they are again driving interest among Alberta buyers today as the price of oil hovers around $100 US per barrel of West Texas Intermediate.
Overall, Albertans make up about 10 per cent of buyers in the Kelowna real estate market, according to MLS (Multiple Listing Service) data.
The market is also among the priciest in Canada with benchmark prices of a single-family home at more than $1.1 million in the central Okanagan, $763,800 for a townhome and $537,200 for a condominium apartment in June.
By comparison, Calgary’s combined average benchmark for a home was about $543,000 last month.
