Growing numbers moving to Thompson-Okanagan from Lower Mainland
The Thompson-Okanagan region saw a large, escalating spike in migration of people from the Lower Mainland during a number of years pre-pandemic, and it's a trend that will likely continue if not accelerate in the coming years, according to the Business Council of British Columbia.
Using data supplied from Statistics Canada, the council tells iNFOnews.ca the amount of people leaving the Lower Mainland for Vancouver Island and the Thompson-Okanagan region tripled within about four years to 12,000 people by 2018-2019.
"There are two million people in the Lower Mainland but in terms of impact... on population in the regions these people are moving to, it's significant," the B.C. Business Council's Ken Peacock said.
A dramatic jump of migration east to the Thompson-Okanagan has been seen in the last decade.
During 2009 and 2010, a total of 373 new residents migrated to the region from the Lower Mainland but by 2018 and 2019, that number had surged to 4,810.
"I'm pretty certain those numbers are going to increase just from COVID. It's accelerating these pre-existing trends." Peacock said. "House prices are going up even more in the Lower Mainland, and people can now work remotely."
The Association of Interior Realtors of B.C., whose realtors span an area including the south, central and north Okanagan and the Shuswap, say there was a significant spike in migration from both the Lower Mainland and Alberta following last years lockdown.
"A lot of people are saying they've adjusted. They're revising their lifestyle. They can work remotely, they can move out of major cities into the suburbs, smaller towns and continue to to work for their companies," Association of Interior Realtors president Kim Heizmann said.
By factoring in last year's pandemic lockdown, 2020 would likely be a temporary exception to the trend with a possible drop in Lower Mainland migration east, Peacock said.
Numbers compiled in an informal survey of realtors by the Association of Interior Realtors coincide with that conclusion.
It was the month of May, part way through 2020, when the association begin to see a significant swing upwards of new property buyers from out-of-region that year.
While most buyers the association deals with are from within the Okanagan/Shuswap region, Heizmann says their realtors saw an 18 percent jump in buyers from outside the region per month through the rest of the year, with a range of nine to 12 percent from the Lower Mainland, depending on the month.
And in the Kamloops area, there also appears to be an increase of new property buyers who came from the Lower Mainland at the end of the last decade, albeit a relatively small one, according to the Kamloops and District Real Estate Association.
In 2019, a total of 273 greater Vancouver-area residents bought property in the Kamloops area, up from 152 in 2018. The 2020 figures show 267 buyers from the Lower Mainland but that number also includes the first few months of 2021.
And from the Fraser Valley, which includes a large swath of Lower Mainland and other outlying communities like Abbotsford, 69 buyers purchased Kamloops and area property in 2018, and that number rose in 2019 to 104, but slid in 2020 to 90.
Alberta meanwhile, saw a loss of 1,655 residents who moved to B.C. in the third quarter of 2020 alone. Most residents who left Alberta chose B.C. as their destination.
The British Columbia Real Estate Association's Kellie Fong says there has been a migration from the Lower Mainland to other parts of the province in general over the last five to seven years.
However, while Kelowna saw a large draw of B.C. residents moving in, Fong says the primary source of population growth in that city has been people moving from other provinces.
The latest Statistics Canada numbers show 2,081 people from outside of B.C. moved to Kelowna in 2019 and 2020, while 1,480 moved to the city from within the province.
But no matter where new residents are coming from, the B.C. Business Council's Ken Peacock says the same group of factors are likely at play.
"Retirees are cashing out equity gains, some are on the move for lifestyle reasons, affordability for young people... all are pretty common nowadays," he said.
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