According to a local Mortgage Specialist, the housing market in Kamloops has been impacted by BC’s speculation tax in the sense more people are considering buying here.

Steve Bucher says the tax has scared off some home builders fearing they won’t get the money that they need to make it worth their while. He says that’s unfortunate because we have really strong demand for housing in Kamloops, particularly for rentals. “We’ve seen $350,000 rental house completely disappear from the market. That house is now worth $450,000. So we’re definitely not seeing any value from the speculation tax. I would guess that the uncertainty is causing builders to build less houses, possibly more multi-family. And so we’re not going to hit the mark and improve the situation anytime soon.”

Bucher says the increase in rental costs could also be a result of people buying homes here and then leaving them empty. “We’ve actually had some buyers come from out of town choosing Kamloops because we don’t have a speculation tax here. As well, we’re starting to see rents in the community actually rise so potentially some of these out of town people are buying houses not occupying them and then our rents are going up.”

Steve Bucher says that has impacted the availability of homes, particularly with new home builds also on the decline. “Nothing happens in a vacuum. We have the federal government making changes. We’ve got the provincial government in some jurisdictions making changes. All of those have really eroded the confidence that a builder has that they can sell a house for the dollars that they need to see it for. So I think a lot of builders have just sidelined themselves.”