By James Peters / Chad Harris

Lucky 13: Kamloops real estate, home building totals up 13%

Oct 3, 2016 | 3:10 PM

KAMLOOPS — Those whose job it is to find Kamloops residents a home are happy after a big month in September.

Both the residential construction and real estate sectors are reporting big increases last month.

Nearly $10 million in residential permits were taken out from the City of Kamloops last month, a 13 per cent increase over the same month in 2015.

Development and Engineering Services Director Marvin Kwiatkowski says the demand for new homes is extremely strong.

“That is where we have been seeing the strength all year, and I think we are going to see that round the year off, and you will see that every month – pretty strong in residential, 503 units to date. We predicted about 375, so we broke the 500 barrier here, and we have a few months to go, so that is really positive,” explained Kwiatowski. 

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“As much as there has not been any really large commercial permits, we do have still a couple that will come in. There is substantial interest in projects in the next couple of years. Those numbers should start to come up again in the next year, and the year after.”

And existing homes are selling, too.

Cindy Crossley of the Kamloops and District Real Estate Association says 279 homes changed hands last month, a 13 per cent jump over September of 2015.

Crossley says much of that activity is coming from inside the city, but there are still a significant amount of people fleeing rising home prices in the Lower Mainland.

“You still take those folks down there, and they turn around and sell and come up here and they can get pretty much exactly the same house they had down there, substantially less and [they can] put their money in the bank, retire, go travel and do what they want,” said Crossley.

Crossley adds the dollar value for September sales was up 21 per cent, proving that prices are still on the upward trend.

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