Housing sales in the new year have started on low note.
Residential sales across the region of Revelstoke to Peachland totaled 353 in January, consistent with a year ago when 334 homes were sold. When compared to the previous month, however, there was a 22 per cent decrease from 453 sales in December.
“While sales volume for January was just 5.6 per cent higher than a year ago, the inventory of properties available for sale is 30 per cent lower than this time last year,” said Anthony Bastiaanssen, OMREB President and active realtor in the Central Okanagan.
“The impact of low inventories becomes very evident when you consider average pricing now, compared to a year ago when inventories were higher.”
The average price in January was $439,472.99, which is 4.8 per cent lower than December, yet 21 per cent higher than this time last year. Days on market for January was 96 and that is relatively consistent with December at 91 and November at 96.
“Given the high number of building permits that were taken out over the course of this past year, we’re hopeful that new properties will begin to come onto the market, which should positively impact housing affordability,” said Bastiaanssen.
Low inventories may also impact prospective buyers, as there may be competition for those properties that are available for sale.
“It’s worthwhile for buyers to engage their own realtor to work on their behalf as the listing REALTOR’s fiduciary duty must be to the seller with whom they’ve signed a contract,” said Bastiaanssen, adding that a Realtor can help ensure buyers don’t miss out on new listings and has the knowledge and expertise to draft and negotiate offers that will be attractive to sellers in a competitive marketplace.
Since 2010, OMREB has been collecting information from Okanagan Realtors about buyers: who they are, where they come from, their buying motivations and more to gain insight into the market and to understand market trends.
“Since the OMREB Buyer survey was launched six years ago, move-up buyers have, on average, accounted for 23.3 per cent of purchasers while first time buyers are 20.3 per cent,” said Bastiaanssen.
“The 75- month average also shows that most buyers of Okanagan homes are those who already live in the area at 57.7 per cent , followed by folks from Alberta and the Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island.”
While buyers from Alberta and the Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island swapped positions in the past couple of years, Bastiaanssen notes that this trend reversed itself in December 2016 with Alberta buyers inching out Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island buyers at 11.1 per cent of total buyers (up from 9.2 per cent in November) and Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island buyers coming in at 10.1 per cent (down from 16.5 per cent ).
Foreign buyers continue to account for a small proportion of buyers, with the six year average at 2.1 per cent .
