The BC Real Estate Association says the real estate market in Kamloops favours sellers right now.

Speaking on NL Newsday, deputy chief economist Brendan Ogmundson says prices are rising about 10 per cent year-over-year, and says there will continue to be more buyers than sellers because of low supply.

“We’re still kind of trollying along the (supply) lows that we’ve been at for several years now. At least prior to 2017 – when construction really took off – there hadn’t been a whole lot of new-home building either. So as you had demand ramp up, it really hit this small amount of supply. So that’s why we’ve seen a pretty significant run up in prices, that started around 2016,” Ogmundson says.

“We would probably classify it as something closer to a sellers market. Considering how under-supplied the market is, there’s just not a whole lot of inventory out there. Even if demand were a little bit lower, there’s still going to be more buyers than sellers.”

Ogmundson says the demand for housing in Kamloops can change essentially overnight based on market conditions elsewhere, and he says the region is still playing catch-up after demand spiked in 2016.

“A lot of what goes on in Kamloops is this sort of demand, supply imbalance that happens a lot… We tend to get these mismatches that push prices up.”