The number of homes on the market throughout the South Okanagan has jumped by 39 per cent but realtors say they haven’t seen an equally impressive reduction in pricing.
Chelsea Mann, president of the Association of Interior Realtors, said she was surprised to see the increase and a nearly 20 per cent jump across the entire valley.
With that kind of increase in inventory, she pointed out that people may assume prices would be pushed down.
“We’ve seen prices coming down a little bit but in reality, the number of listings is still incredibly low,” Mann said. “We still haven’t gotten back to where we were pre-pandemic and we have a lot of pent-up demand,” Mann said.
“There are a lot of people that are wanting to buy right now that are just being held off by the interest rates. So, with the interest rates holding for the last little while, and some of the fixed rates actually trying to come down, we’re going to start feeling that demand coming back into the market.”
Mann added that it’s unlikely that we would see a repeat in the buying frenzy and bidding wars seen in the spring and summer of 2021 – as interest rates likely won’t get that low again.
Data released by the Association of Interior Realtors indicates a total of 813 residential unit sales recorded in the region last month, which is a 5.9-per cent decrease in sales compared to November 2022.
The average number of days to sell a home, always a good barometer to watch, decreased to 69 days compared to the previous month’s 73 days.
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