The cost of housing in the Kamloops area stayed afloat and continued to rise in 2020, despite the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The average monthly single-family home price in Kamloops passed $600,000 for the first time in December, reaching $617,026. That’s a 31.8 per cent rise from December of 2019. Also, the average price for multi-family units last month reached $327,378, which is a 7.2 per cent rise from 12 months earlier.
Altogether, the average home price across the board last month was more than $492,000, which is a 25 per cent increase from December of 2019.
“Yes, the average sales price in the region has increased by 25 per cent but that number is true for December only,” Wendy Runge says, president of the Kamloops and District Real Estate Association. “This can be attributed to more homes selling in the $600,000-dollar price range last month.”
Runge also says the 211 homes sales in the Kamloops region last month was by far the highest December total in the past 10 years.
Crunching all home sales in Kamloops in 2020, the average home sale price was $488,812, which is a 7.4 per cent rise from 2019. That figure includes all home sales within city limits as well as sales in Sun Peaks, Heffley, Tobiano, Cherry Creek, Savona, Sun Rivers, Pinantan and Lac Le Jeune.
Meanwhile, the Merritt area also saw a large increase in housing costs last year, rising 17 per cent to just over $360,000. That includes Merritt, Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Clinton and Lillooet.
And the North Thompson also saw a considerable rise in home prices, jumping 15.2 per cent to more than $327,000 on average. That figure primarily includes Barriere and Clearwater.
Average home sale prices in the Chase area weren’t far behind Kamloops, at $472,000 for 2019. That includes Chase, Pritchard and the North and South Shuswap.
With developments of COVID-19 vaccines, Runge says she hopes that will lead to more people being willing to sell their homes.
“Until then, we can expect the inventory to be low and average prices to be high.”
