Multi-family homes selling at rapid pace in Kelowna

Fewer Canadians are occupying single detached homes as the demand for multi-family dwellings grows.

According to the Statistics Canada 2016 Census, the decline is especially prominent in British Columbia, where the share of single-detached houses fell from more than 60 per cent in the 1980s to 44.1 per cent in 2016.

British Columbia and Quebec are the two provinces where single-detached houses represented less than half of occupied private dwellings in 2016.

In the city of Kelowna, occupancy of single-detached homes is just over half, sitting at 52.1 per cent.

“I don’t find that surprising at all,” director of sales with Mission Group, JoAnne Adamson, said. “I think it’s because people are looking for a simpler life and a lock and leave lifestyle, they want to travel, and they want to enjoy what the amenities of Kelowna have to offer.”

Mission Group is the marketing company selling the Central Green condominiums at the old KSS site near the city’s downtown core. The project has seen very brisk sales since day one of sales in March 2016.

“We sold over $10 million in inventory in that one day.” Adamson said.

Fortune Marketing started selling townhomes at the Drysdale Row development in Glenmore one week ago and already 75 per cent of the homes have been sold, with the first day of sales being a banner day.

“We sold 32 homes in the first day,” Don Warkentin with Fortune Marketing said. “Certainly our most successful day and I am sure probably one of Kelowna’s most successful days.”

At the Cameron Mews development near the Guisachan village, the townhomes have been selling so fast, the developer had to take the unusual step of temporarily halting sales.

“We had a unique problem,” sales manager at Cameron Mews, Bill Wendt, said. “We’ve sold so fast and then we had to come along and build the units so what’s happened is we’ve paused our sales to allow construction to catch up.”

Cameron Mews will be releasing the last 42 townhouses for sale this September.