Photo: Contributed

We’ve all noticed more sold signs in Kelowna, but have you noticed how many of those are on the water?  Lakeshore sales are up year to date by 20% and August of 2012 saw an increase in the number of waterfront sales from August of 2011 by 450%!!

We are seeing an increase in the number of people buying homes from outside the Central Okanagan Board and those people often (but not always) spend more than the average house price.

19.4% of the buyers who bought real estate in July were from Alberta (this is up 13% from June) and 13.4% were from the Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island.

There are currently 143 single family lakeshore homes for sale in Kelowna ranging from $739,000 (Peachland, 90 feet of frontage older home) to $20,000,000 (Kelowna side, 120+ acres subdivision potential).  Prices for lakeshore have come down considerably from the peak in 2008 and there are some lovely properties now available for well under $1.5 Million.

Prices for lakeshore will depend on a number of factors such as the frontage, how far out the property is situated, how sloped the property is and what the water is like (shallow, deep, sandy beach etc...).