Image Credit: CFJC Today
Real Estate

Kamloops home sellers emerged from their slumber in February

Mar 2, 2020 | 3:37 PM

KAMLOOPS — After a sleepy start to 2020, the Kamloops real estate market is showing signs of awakening.

New numbers from the Kamloops and District Real Estate Association (KADREA) show a 4.9 per cent bump in February sales, compared to the same month in 2019.

And KADREA President Wendy Runge notes new listings were up 30 per cent last month from January, showing sellers are coming out of hibernation.

“It’s good to see that people are out getting their houses ready to put on the market,” Runge told CFJC Today. “I’m hoping that trend will continue and we’ll continue to see some more inventory coming out for the buyers who are waiting for those homes to be on the market to be able to buy.”

“From January to February, we had a big increase — which is normal due to the time of year,” she continued. “But if we look (this) year over last year, we’re up just a little over two per cent in our inventory. So that’s encouraging to see as well.”

The most active neighbourhood in Kamloops last month was South Kamloops with 22 sales, followed by Pineview Valley with 18 and North Kamloops with 17.

Runge says the higher end of the market saw a lot of movement, and that may trickle down to trigger more moves at lower price points.

“We saw a lot of sales this past month in that $400- to $500 (thousand) range — 45 homes, in fact — and we saw 20 sell in the $600- to $700 (thousand range). So that was a little bit of a change from last month or even a year ago at the same time.”

The median sale price in February was $495,000, and the median price for single-family homes was $530,303.

“We do see a lot of first-time home buyers; the interest rates are good right now. But we are also seeing a lot of people moving up from… a townhouse to a single-family home,” said Runge. “Across the board, that price point of $400- to $500 (thousand) is usually the really busy price point market.”

“We did see some positive numbers all across the board this last month, which is really encouraging.”