Kamloops real estate continues to defy the odds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prices remain at all-time highs and July saw the most home sales in Kamloops in 10 years, with 340 sales.

Kamloops and District Real Estate Association president, Wendy Runge, says there’s a lot of good reasons to buy right now including low-interest rates on mortgages.

“I think the big story is just one of measured recovery, from early spring. And I think people are pleasantly surprised at how things are bouncing back compared to March, April and May. So that’s encouraging.”

The average home in Kamloops sold for $490,526 in July, which is a 7.7 per cent increase from July of 2019.

For single family homes, the average selling price for single-family homes in Kamloops was $531,185 (up 5.9 per cent from July 2019), and the average unit in a multi-family building sold for $362,924 (up 14.2 per cent).

Runge says we’re continuing to see a lack of supply, as well as pent-up demand.

“There’s a lot of people who were ready to jump, before COVID-19, and were put on hold essentially while we waited this out to see how it would all transpire. So we’re seeing a lot of those people who were ready to buy, they were already planning to buy say in January and February and thought okay, this spring we’re going to go. And then COVID-19 happened and everything got put on hold.”

Meantime, the average home price has jumped between 23 and 30 per cent in many rural areas around Kamloops in the past year.

In Chase and area (including Monte Lake, Pritchard, Westwold, the South Shuswap and North Shuswap), the average home sold for $390,200 last month, compared to $315,300 twelve months earlier.

The average home price in Merritt and area (which includes Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Clinton and Lillooet) rose to $341,300 last month, which is up from $268,900 in July of 2019.

And in Logan Lake, the average home sale price last month was $272,900, versus $210,400 a year earlier.