Student's killer on parole
Charges after investigation
Hostage was on captor 
Regulating power prices
Gen X is raking it in
LeBlanc laying groundwork
US vetoes UN resolution
$100M Nassar settlement
12 Trump jurors picked
Rates slow green economy
Vicinity hires president,
Record housing starts
Warriors ready for Round 2
Kalamalka Bowl cancelled
Rockets live to fight on
Rihanna's parenting ‘hack’
Tarantino scraps film
Munn talks cancer battle
Everything is pretty much balanced, normal and going as expected so far this year. With the weather warming up it’s safe to say we all survived another winter and housing numbers are where most predicted. There are currently 1,500 residential freehold homes for sale including 1,058 residential detached. This is a reasonable number for Kelowna considering our population base but broken down it’s clear it isn’t an easy town to buy a house.
Residential Detached Freehold
| PRICE RANGE | # OF HOMES |
| Under $400,000 | 151 |
| $400,000 to $600,000 | 397 |
| $600,000 to $800,000 | 252 |
| Over $800,000 | 258 |
It’s tough to buy a house here for two reasons. The first is obvious looking at those numbers…nearly half of the available homes are over $600,000 which take a sizeable number of buyers out of the market and secondly, there’s a lot of competition for homes priced where most of us can afford. Is this good? Whether or not you think this is good depends on if and when you bought your home and if you’re planning on up or downsizing. Having a lot of equity in your home makes things easier but it’s certainly tough on first time buyers trying to negotiate mortgages.
There have been 710 residential sales so far this year including 266 in March. We’re entering the busiest time of the year for real estate and as long as mortgage rates stay reasonably low it’s looking like another solid year in the Kelowna Real Estate Market.
The Kelowna condominium apartment market is chugging along nicely with 474 units for sale right now. These come in all shapes, sizes and price ranges and condo growth over the past fifteen years can be attributed to the high cost of residential homes and affluent out of town buyer. This market appears to be growing as we speak in part because more and more Western Canadians who chose Arizona over Kelowna are deciding that Yuma just isn’t as great as all the brochures said it was and we’re getting them back. Of the 474 condos for sale, 130 are tenanted and another 115 are vacant. We generated 88 condo sales in March making this segment of the market as strong as it’s been in a while.
For a complete list of homes and condos in Kelowna check out www.okanaganbc.com
Or, call Andrew Smith directly at 250-979-8066. Over 22 years experience helping people achieve their dream of home ownership!
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
