The October Housing Market in Kelowna.

Election fever has finally passed and the winds of change have blown through, bringing with it a tide of ‘Trudeau-mania’. With the new Prime Minister and his cabinet now sworn in, only time will tell what this will mean for Canada. I have to admit that I’m happy to see the end of the political dog fight so Facebook will return to normal.
It’s finally starting to feel like fall in the Valley and there’s soon to be snow falling in the hills. We’ve had an incredible fall this year with great weather and buyers keeping local realtors busy. October was a busy month with there being 355 new listings for the month bringing Kelowna's active listings to 1,683 and 151 new listings for the month bringing West Kelowna's active listings to 886 in total. With the average days on the market for October at 62 in 2015 compared 69 for the same time in 2014.

Here are some of the highlights:
• Listing inventories are down - listing inventories dropped by just over 15% from September of 2014, from 761 to just 644 in September 2015.

• Sales are up - Sales increased by 9.4% in October, to 477 listings sold compared to 426 last year. The weather plays an important role in keeping the market active.

• Average house prices are unchanged – the price of a single family home in October was almost identical to the average sale price last October at $496,639 compared to $496,250. What’s interesting is the average sale price year to-date is $524,995 compared to first 10 months of 2014, up by 5.7%. This suggests that more higher value homes are selling.

• Houses are selling faster – the average number of days on the market has decreased by 3.25% compared to October of last year. There are plenty of well informed buyers waiting for well priced homes to come on the market.

• Lower inventories and eager buyers are pointing to continued strong market conditions as we head into winter. With 2016 expected to be one of the largest mortgage renewal years in terms of dollar values, the last Bank of Canada meeting will be welcome news to many.