Kamloops home sales down year-over-year in March

Apr 3, 2018 | 9:56 AM

KAMLOOPS — March was a rough month for real estate in Kamloops.

The Kamloops & District Real Estate Association says sales were down 24 per cent last month compared to March 2017.

“Yes, they were down year-over-year. I think that was largely due to the number of listings we saw in the month,” says President Doren Quinton. “We saw an 18 per cent decrease in the number of new listings to 364. So, we have a lot of demand pent up but just not enough inventory coming on the market so sales are suffering because of that.”

He says the median price of a home in the Kamloops area climbed to $462,500 from $437,000 in February and $400,000 in March 2017 thought that number will “be skewed a little bit because we had 600 plus homes actually leave the market in number of sales in March.”

As for the most popular neighbourhoods, Quinton says Sahali led the way in March with 25 sales. Brocklehurst was second with 19 sales and Aberdeen third with 16.

So far this year he says sales are down six per cent though he’s optimistic things will improve.

“We are seeing some headwinds in the industry due to some of the new mortgage regulations and what not however we’re still seeing very strong demand out there,” Quinton says. “I think if you saw a month with a number of new listings, which we typically see in the spring, I think you’d see sales numbers pick up because of new listings.

“Keep in mind also we’ve had a pretty slow start to the spring here with snow in a lot of places so we’re not seeing that usual bump in spring like we usually do.”