Kelowna’s slow start to 2024 sends it slumping into spring February may have brought a directional change to sales counts in the Central Okanagan, but the market stagnation that began in 2023 extended into the first two months of 2024. Inventory, meanwhile, has expanded to a nine-year high.
count, the region’s supply and demand dynamics yielded a sixth consecutive month of conditions that favoured buyers in February, with the overall months-of- inventory (MOI) measure sitting at 9.6. (Note that an MOI of less than 5 reflects conditions more favourable to sellers; 5-8 MOI reflects balanced conditions; and an MOI over 8 reflects a buyers’ market.) As March, and the green shoots of a spring market, are now upon us, Kelowna’s housing market is likely due for an uptick in buying activity—although based on the early returns of 2024, any uptick is likely to be modest at best. That said, with inflation now back inside the Bank of Canada’s target range of 1-3% (at 2.9% as of January), all eyes will be on the February inflation data release, followed by the April 10th Bank of Canada rate announcement. If the Bank opts to hold its policy rate again in April, expect these trends to continue a little longer; if they decide to cut, however, the pace of sales activity will pick up as spring rolls on.
After a challenging 2023, in which housing markets were ground to a virtual halt by generationally-high interest rates, activity has remained muted in the Central Okanagan early in 2024. Potential homebuyers continue to pace on the sidelines, even as anticipation around interest rate cuts grows and other markets in BC have experienced an uptick in transaction counts, yielding atypically-low sales and high listings last month. Home sales in the Central Okanagan counts did, in fact, rise between January and February, but only to 211 MLS transactions; this may have been a 22% month-over-month increase, but it’s substantially lower than the typical January-to-February increase of 48%. What’s more, last month’s total was 17% below that of February 2023, 42% below the past 10-year February average, and the lowest total for the month since 2013.
On the new listings front, February’s total was 806, which was a 48% increase from January and double the typical January-to- February growth of 24%. Last month’s new listings count was also 21% less than the past 10-year February average and 27% higher than the same month last year. Those depressed sales counts and elevated new listings conspired to expand total inventory last month, with there being 2,020 homes available for sale in the Central Okanagan at the end of February. That represented an expansion of 13% from January, which outpaced the typical seasonal increase of 8%. Inventory was also 22% higher than one year ago, 21% above the past-decade February average, and the highest total for the month since 2015.
Unsurprisingly given the historically-low sales total and historically-high listings
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