The weather in Kelowna and Central Okanagan Valley had been unseasonably cool for the first few weeks of the month; the same can not be said for the local real estate market! The month of July proved to be the strongest month for sales so far this year, not only experiencing an uptick of 13.3% over last month but logging 18% more sales than July 2018. In fact, with 511 residential sales transactions, July saw the most sales in a month in nearly 2 years, since August 2017. The year started out much of the noise out there being negative, prices were down, sales were down, and the media was hyping it up. Year-to-date, sales are now down just under 10% from 2018 and values appear to be among the highest they’ve ever been. With 5 months left to go in 2019, we could easily see this year’s sales surpass that of last year’s.
With just 422 new listings coming on the market confirming my prediction from last months issue that we had reached the listing peak. Inventory now sits at 2809 active listings, down a slight 3% from last month. This was a welcomed changed and typical for this time of year. When looking at inventory level compared to current sales we see that the Kelowna real estate market is now holding just 5.5 months of inventory, down from 6.43 months of inventory. This is and indicator of a true balanced market, however, it is a relatively sharp turn from last month which makes me wonder if it’s not just a temporary expression. The likelihood that we see more sales in August than in July is low but if year-over-year sales continue to be up, we can at least expect to see days of inventory drop again or at least stay in the range of balanced market again next month. Otherwise, we may see the beginning of a more typical autumn market.
Central Okanagan Avg. Selling Price for Past 12 Months by Market Segment
The valuation of residential properties increased ever so slightly in all segments with the average up by 1.42% from last month and is down only 3.99% compared to June of last year (I’m not comparing to July of last year because it was a strong outlier leading to a bad comparison). This year we’ve really seen values stabilize with the last 4 months all seeing average selling price for residential properties between $570-580,000. The average time it took for a residential property to sell in July was 64 days, up from 57 last month and up from 50 in July 2018. This confirms that we are holding more inventory than we have in the past few years and that buyers are taking their time to make purchase decisions.
For single family homes, the Glenrosa neighbourhood has really taken off with year-to-date sales up 21.3% over last year. Glenrosa is definitely a standout for a strong sellers market right now - 28 sales in the past two months and 35 homes currently listed for sale. Other strong but more balanced neighbourhoods include:
Rutland: 3.93 MOI (currently 112 homes for sale)
Glenmore: 4.48 MOI (currently 112 homes for sale)
Smith Creek: 4.57 MOI (currently 16 homes for sale)
On the other end of the spectrum, there are still neighbourhoods that are experiencing buyer’s markets. Besides the common ones like McKinley Landing and Joe Rich, three notable buyer’s markets right now include:
Glenmore Highlands (Wilden): 10.67 MOI (currently 32 homes for sale)
Lakeview Heights (West Kelowna): 10.54 MOI (currently 137 homes for sale)
Pandosy/KLO: 9.67 MOI (currently 87 homes for sale)
All data is from OMREB/MLS® System. Interpretations of the data is done with the utmost care and attention, however, errors and omissions may apply. Selling and purchasing real estate comes with risk and should be discussed in depth with your real estate agent of choice.