Image Credit: SUBMITTED/B.C. Assessment

The Okanagan and Kamloops real estate markets tend to cool off with declining fall temperatures.

But given this is a COVID-19 market, the Central and North Okanagan saw a slight decline in October housing sales compared to September, which was overshadowed by a huge increase over last year.

And prices in all housing categories continue to rise.

“Seasonally, we normally see the market start to calm down towards the colder winter months, however that was not the case for October,” Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board president Kim Heizmann said in a news release. “This seems to be a trend across the province as demand for more living space continues to drive consumer incentives.”

But times may be changing.

“The recent increase in COVID will likely facilitate a calming pace to more normal seasonal market condition,” she said.

The real estate board covers the region from Peachland to Revelstoke and the Shuswap.

While there was an eight per cent drop in sales from September, it was still a 70 per cent increase over October 2019.

The number of new listings dropped and the average number of days to sell a home dropped from 90 to 83 days.

The benchmark price of single family homes went up between 7.9 per cent in the Shuswap/Revelstoke subregion to $474,100 to a 9.4 per cent increase in the Central Okanagan to $728,300.

Townhouses went up from 2.4 per cent in the Shuswap/Revelstoke subregion to $369,700 to 5.2 per cent in the Central Okanagan to $492,800.

The biggest increase in condo prices was in the Shuswap/Revelstoke subregion at 8.5 per cent to $352,500 while the Central Okanagan price went up 8.4 per cent to $394,500.

The benchmark prices in the North Okanagan was $525,300 for single family homes, $368,900 for townhouses and 248,900 for condos.

In Kamloops, the number of single family homes sold in October was up 60.1 per cent over last year to 213 units, although the year-to-date sales are down 5.6 per cent to 1,491 versus last year. Prices climbed for both the year and the month of October with the average single family home valued at $545,079 in October, according to statistics from the Kamloops & District Real Estate Association.

Multifamily sales were up 50.7 per cent in October to 104 units and year-to-date sales were up 7.8 per cent to 787. Prices were also up. The increase in October was 4.5 per cent to $358,557.

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News from © iNFOnews, 2020