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It’s been a busy year for homebuilders in Penticton.
New home starts are up nearly 160 per cent in the first six months of 2017, when compared to the same time last year. 244 new homes have broken ground in the Penticton area, up from 94, according to CHMC.
The growth is being driven by multi-family starts, with 109 apartment units starting construction. Work also started on 73 single family homes.
“We are very busy,” said Chase Valley Investment Corporation president Trevor Caine. “On our construction services side…we have brought in five new excavators and they are running flat out”
Caine says Penticton is seeing a wave of new investment from Vancouver and Alberta, and a confidence in the city that has not seen for years.
On the residential side, many new home starts are being spurred by Vancouver residents cashing out of the market and investing in homes in Penticton, said Caine. He noted they are seeing a increase in housing starts for both single-family and multi-family homes, across the board.
On the commercial side, Caine says there is a “lot of interest in new projects.”
“We have investment companies coming to us looking for land to build commercial projects, and there is no supply.”
That wasn’t the case just a few years ago, he said, adding most of the vacant sites in the community have been sold.
Even better, Caine said in the past, vacant Penticton lots were bought up by land speculators who aimed to make a profit by reselling the land years down the road.
“But the sites that have been sold have actually resulted in applications for development — they’ve been bought by end users that can actually develop them — and that’s really positive.”
Chase Valley is behind the $10M building planned for Front St. where Slack Alice’s used to be. Construction on that should begin in the coming months.
Last month the City of Penticton reported building permit applications and inspections are up more than 35 per cent.
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