The pendulum continues to swing

As the world struggles with a looming crisis in the US once again, the Okanagan real estate economy continues to show some gains.

While the monthly figures for October show a slow down or parity in almost all categories, year to date figures tell a different story. Overall, October showed some gains, but the gains came from a large increase in waterfront property sales. While this is good news it does overshadow the dormancy of most other categories for the month because of the dollar value of the sales.

The good news, in my opinion, comes in the year to date sales where the outliners that surprise and sometimes overwhelm the other figures are actually flattened out a little.

In the YTD numbers, we see an almost 9% growth in unit sales as well as dollar volume. As we come to the close of the year, I would anticipate that to continue, leaving us with some optimism as we enter 2013.

With regards to median price comparisons, it is clear that lot prices have retrenched, which likely indicates a continuing trend for developers to clear out old inventory rather than new developments coming on stream with better values. Overall, a quick scan shows that there is pricing stability with most of the categories that the real estate board tracks and again that falls into line with my discussions earlier in the year about a return to pricing stability with slightly increased absorption. If that trend continues, that can only be good news in the future.

Now let's see if both sides of the house in the US can agree on staving off yet another very serious fiscal challenge as Canada leads the way in the developed nations for fiscal policies.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.