Sales increased for February in the North Okanagan marketplace. In fact, sales were up 31.08% as compared t 2009. It is nice to see sales up and inventory about the same year over year. However, housing inventory is up from January, which is disappointing.
What Is For Sale in the North Okanagan: The number of listings on the market in February ended at 1338 total residential units (this includes houses, apartments, condos, duplexes, etc.). Those numbers have decreased 3.74% from 2009, however have increased about 150 units from the 1193 units that were listed at the end of January of this year. 323 new residential listings were listed, up from the 272 that were listed in January. We were hoping not to see an increase, but we have to remember that Spring is coming and people tend to list houses in the Spring.
Residential (houses only) inventory is at 604 homes now on the market, up from the 515 reported in December of 2009/ This ended our four month streak of less homes for sale. There are now 2096 total active listings in the North Okanagan – up 142 units from January’s results which were 1954.
Lots and Acreages inventory is at 496 units, about the same as last month. Lot sales have increased to 19 sales, with 18 building lots sold in the month plus 0 acreage and 1 waterfront. That is a nice increase from last month and also up from the 5 sales total in the same month in 2009. Our subdivision that we have listed at Silver Ridge in the Foothills accounted for over half of these sales (over 50% of the subdivision sold out!).
Sales – What is Selling: This has been a relatively decent February at 97 total sales. Last year we had only 74 sales, so this is up 31.08% from last year. Plus a nice increase over January’s 77 sales. We are hopeful that these sales volumes will continue into the Spring market.
Prices – Averages and Medians: The average total residential house price is $344,317.21, up from last month. The median is now $322,500.
Also, the average days it takes a house to sell (days on market) is down 19.3% to 92 days – same as last month but up from last year. In other words, houses are still taking at least 3 months to sell, not including relists and expiries.
Months of Inventory: Right now there are 2096 active listings and there were 97 total sales for February. Therefore, when you do the numbers, we have 21.6 months of inventory. This is down marginally from the 24 months we had in January. In plain English, it would nearly TWO YEARS to sell all the properties that are currently for sale, not including any new listings. This number is down marginally from last month again – a little disappointing, as we were hoping for more – however Spring may bring increased sales to lower these inventory levels.
My advice for Sellers: We are still in a buyer’s market. Sellers must price their homes at or close to market value to even have a chance at selling. Price it too high and it will sit… and sit… and sit. We still have too much supply and not enough demand for prices to tick up by a large amount. We have given the same advice over the past 2 years – price your home close to the market and it will surely sell. Price it too high and it will not.
My advice right now for Buyers: Rates are still low, prices are still down and although the updated news from the Finance Minister regarding qualifying at the posted rates – we are happy that the 95% financing as well as the 35 year amortizations on mortgages were not touched. This may change some of the first time buyers who are currently on the edge of qualifying unfortunately.
Wrap Up: This month we were hoping for a few more sales and a few less properties listed – however this is the kind of strange market we are in, that does not seem to react the way it is supposed to or how we are hoping it will. Many factors are coming into play including the new HST TAX July 1st, that will certainly make it interesting for our market, to say the least.
Lisa Salt from the Salt Team at RE/MAX Vernon has been a Realtor in the local Vernon BC real estate market for 17 years. The Salt Team Blog contains all the most recent updated information on the North Okanagan real estate market. Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory
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