A seller’s market now
New records for construction and real estate sales set last year in Penticton may not hold up for long. Real estate transactions in the city totalled $471 million in 2016, easily exceeding the old record of $385 million set in 2007, according to data from the South Okanagan Real Estate Board.
Statistics show there were a total of 1,214 sales in 2016, with the average singlefamily home trading for $457,000.
SOREB president Pamela Hanson said the average sale price in Penticton was stuck around the $400,000 mark for much of the first half of the year, but shot up as the number of listings dropped; there were just 85 single-family homes on the market at the end of December.
“For so long it’s been a buyer’s market, but it’s now a seller’s market — the tide has turned,” said Hanson.
As a whole, transactions in the South Okanagan totalled $1.1 billion, well over the old record of $957 million set in 2007. It also marked the first time the region has broken the $1-billion barrier.
Hanson expects the torrid pace to continue as baby boomers from across
“There are people coming and the money that they’re bringing into our area that they’re purchasing their properties with doesn’t have anything to do with oil prices or a job. They just want to be here. They already put their savings away,” she explained.
Meanwhile, Penticton also set a record on the construction front in 2016, with city staff issuing building permits for work valued at $196 million, smashing the old record of $153 million set in 2006.
A quarter of that total came from the residential sector, while much of the rest came from big projects like the new patient care tower at Penticton Regional Hospital and a 70-room expansion at the Penticton Lakeside Resort.
And it doesn’t appear things will slow down anytime soon.
City staff during the first week of January issued 19 permits for $3.2 million worth of work, a sharp spike from the three permits worth $94,000 handed out in the first week of 2016.
The city’s building and permitting manager said there is “strong potential” for continued growth in the construction sector based on the number of applications for planning and development permits his staff received in the final two months of 2016.
“The hospital has two more large permits to go to complete the new tower and there are a number of multi-family projects on the books as well as over 30 single-family dwelling projects in for review to start before spring,” Ken Kunka said in a statement.
“The one noticeable trend I have seen in comparison to the building boom of 2005 to 2008 is that we have seen a lot more singleand two-family developments so far, which could indicate a stronger base of families wanting to stay and grow in Penticton.”