Image Credit: Pexels/Rodnae Productions
The heady days of March are far behind us in the real estate market.
That’s when sale prices peaked following a fast and furious 2021 with ever increasing prices and shortages of supply.
But such good times for sellers couldn’t last forever.
“We knew our market was in trouble when we saw that the homes in parts of Springvalley and Rutland were priced the same as they were in Old Glenmore and the Mission,” Joe Ungaro, a real estate agent with Ungaro Albrecht Courtney and Associates/Royal LePage, told iNFOnews.ca. “One of those sectors was out of alignment and sure enough, Rutland corrected faster. It normalized pretty quick.”
READ MORE: Loss of out-of-town buyers bringing Kelowna house sales to near record lows
That kind of correction and the fact that the higher end of the market dropped off is one reason why the average price of single-family homes has been falling steadily in the Central Okanagan since the spring.
But averages don’t tell the whole story of what’s happening in the local market.
“What was really unusual through the pandemic was that we saw demand through the whole sector,” Ungaro said. “We saw homes selling in all price categories at crazy rates. We’ve never seen that here before. There’s always been a sweet spot, which was connected to what people could afford.”
For years his firm has been tracking sales by price range rather than relying on averages provided by the Association of Interior Realtors.
“If you’re looking at homes in the $700,000 to $1 million range, that part of the market is in pretty sound shape yet,” Ungaro said.
The realty association statistics show prices for single-family homes in the Central Okanagan were up 17.1% in July compared to a year ago.
But the average price of a single-family home in the Central Okanagan dropped from a peak of $1,281,000 in March to $1,077,431 in July, a decline of almost 17%.
Part of the most recent price drop off is because while there were 11 single-family homes that sold for more than $3 million in the past three months, only one of those was in the past 30 days, which impacts average prices.
That also helps explain why the number of sales is slumping.
In the last 90 days less than half (48%) of the homes sold for more than $1 million but 69% of the homes listed for sale were priced over $1 million, leaving a lot of unsold homes in that part of the market.
On the other end of the spectrum, 52% of homes sold for less than $1 million. Only 31% of listings were in that price range, meaning it’s still a seller’s market in that category.
While the market has been slowing for months, that may be changing.
“Already in the last couple of weeks we’ve seen single-family homes are turning over better than the two weeks prior to that,” Ungaro said. “It seems like it’s turning better but it’s too early to know.”
To contact a reporter for this story, email Rob Munro or call 250-808-0143 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won’t censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.
