Record year for real estate

Photo: CTV

Over the course of 2016, a more than $1.1B worth of real estate changed hands in the South Okanagan, according to numbers recently released by the South Okanagan Real Estate Board

That soars over the previous record of $956 million, set in 2007, and marks the first year the region has sold more than $1 billion in sales, and comes from a total of 2,947 sales all year.

When the region broke the previous record in October, SOREB president Garry Gratton attributed 2016's spike in sales to trends, in which the region tends to see spikes in real estate growth every five years or so.

"Right now we are poised at the very beginning of one of these increasing markets with increasing sales activity and dollar volume," he said. "More people have increased consumer confidence, and therefore, they're prepared to spend their money on what they deem to be a good real estate investment."

The majority of that comes in residential real estate, which totalled around $893 million.

The Penticton area made up a large chunk, but not the majority of the region's sales, totalling around $471 million.