More people from outside the Kootenays bought into the real estate market during the pandemic than ever before. That’s the latest information from the Kootenay Association of Realtors.
“There’s no denying the fact that among other regions in the province, the Kootenay region provides great value for your home investment,” said KAR President Chuck Bennett. “I have noticed that with remote working opportunities arising after lockdown, more people were interested in locations that would’ve previously been out of their consideration. As per a recent report on buyer locations, it was observed that during the pandemic, our region saw growth among buyers coming from outside the region.”
While the majority of buyers during the past year of a very hot Kootenay real estate market were from the region, there was a considerable jump in out of region purchasers as well.
“Since October 2020 until May 2021, we recorded the percentage share of out-of-district buyers of Kootenay properties to be in the range of 35-45 per cent. Whereas a year before, the same was in the range of 25-35 per cent. This means that compared to a year before, we saw an increase of about 10 per cent in the number of buyers that came from out-of-district areas each month during the pandemic. Considering we sell 300 listings on an average each month, a shift of 10 per cent means that there were about 30 more buyers from other regions who bought Kootenay properties each month, since the hot market started last year,” said Bennett.
The majority of the out of region buyers are from either Alberta or the Lower Mainland.
Since Oct 2020, about 250 buyers who bought Kootenay properties were from the Lower Mainland. As compared to the same months a year before, there were only 102 buyers who came from the Lower Mainland. Similarly for the same period, the number of buyers from Alberta increased to 440 from 266 in the previous year.
“KAR will continue to monitor where the buyers are coming from, and it will be interesting to see if the current trend continues in the coming months. For now, the majority of buyers are still from within the Kootenay region,” Bennett said.
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