While COVID-19 has impacted the Kamloops housing market, it doesn’t appear to have had an effect on house prices in the area.

The Kamloops and District Real Estate Association says the average price for a single family home in April was $495,753, a 7.8 per cent increase to the $459,828 figure in April last year.

Similarly, the median home price in Kamloops was $520,000 – as 17.5 per cent of homes sold last month was above the $600,000 mark, compared to 11.8 per cent last year.

“Despite the slowdown in the real estate market, many listings throughout Kamloops continue to experience multiple offers as supply was already low but has become even more pronounced with the decline in new listings,” said KADREA President, Wendy Runge.

Runge believes that once COVID-19 restrictions are eased and supply improves, there will be a significant jump in new sales.

“Think we’ve got still that pent up demand of people who want to buy, who did want to buy and now with inventory even lower because of COVID, when things do get back up and moving again I think we might have a little bit of a rush.”

As in months prior, most of the home sold were in the $300,000 to $400,000 price range with 22 last month. Brocklehurst led the way with 15 home sales followed by North Kamloops and Sahali with 11 each. In all, there were 120 homes that changed hands, down 56 per cent from 272 in April 2019.

Runge says as of the end of April, there were 978 active listings on the Kamloops housing market, compared to 1,116 at the same time last year.

“While demand for new homes undoubtedly slowed during April, the lack of supply kept home prices inching upward,” Runge noted. “We expect the market to continue to be challenging for buyers who are competing with strong demand for new supply.”