Kelowna average house price

Everyone in Kelowna has welcomed the New Year with a body blow of a snow storm. Even the Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario ex-pats living here weren’t poo-pooing our snowstorm as we all shoveled, shoveled and shoveled our way out. Kids missed school, neighbours helped neighbours and strangers helped strangers get through it and then we all watched Canada win a gold medal hockey game. Nice way to start the year.

Housing summary. If you’ve been reading, the year end numbers won’t be a surprise. We jumped from 2,400 residential sales in 2013 to 2,800 last year. The Kelowna average sale price jumped from $491,000 to $542,000 in a year. Apartment sales jumped to 1,028 solds last year from 773 in 2013 while prices jumped from $233,000 to $243,000. Not a huge jump but many were predicting a downward correction because of an oversupply of inventory so the results are eye opening.

The statistic that stands out now that the dust has settled is the 150 homes that sold last year over $1 million. I normally don’t write about that segment of the market but it’s up from 100 sold in 2013. A 50% increase! If nothing else, this skews the overall averages up and I don’t imagine that kind of momentum can sustain itself. Look for that number (150) to decrease this year as our next door neighbours to the east might be a little more hesitant investing in Kelowna’s high end housing market.

As for the rest of us, things are looking pretty good. We live in a sought after blue chip community that more and more people are learning about and we’re quite proud of. We have an ongoing demand for housing with a reasonable supply of available homes in an area where people want to relocate. If you’re looking for something to worry about, spend less time fretting over the price of oil and more time worrying about interest rate increases. People have been predicting doom and gloom for the Kelowna housing market since Western Star Trucks left town in 2002 when you could buy a reasonably nice home for $160,000.

To find out your House Value go to www.GetHouseValues.ca

 

For a FREE List of All Homes for sale click here make clickable link (http://www.okanaganbc.com/listings-search/) or call Andrew Smith directly at 250-979-8066. Over 22 years experience helping people achieve their dream of home ownership!

Twitter @smithap01

All the best in 2015 and thanks for reading.

Andy Smith

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