Vancouver aids local market
Bill Hubbard - Jan 08, 2019 - Columnists

Photo: The Canadian Press

Many people think that we follow Vancouver’s real estate market, and sometimes that is true. Vancouver always affects the market in the Okanagan Shuswap, but sometimes it pushes us in the opposite direction.

Vancouver right now is in a bit of a tailspin. Sales are down around 30 per cent, and prices have started to drop as well. There are many reasons for this: the speculation tax, the foreign buyer’s tax, the stress test on interest rates and rising interest rates.

However, what this is doing is pushing people from the coast to the Interior. Five years ago the percentage of our buyers in the Okanagan Shuswap coming from the coast was about nine per cent. Going into 2019, that figure is now at 19 per cent. People are selling their small modest houses for millions in Vancouver and coming to the Okanagan Shuswap.

The market forces are putting downward pressure on our market, but migration from Vancouver and Alberta continues to moderate that downward pressure.

Bill Hubbard is a real estate broker and the owner and broker of a four-office real estate firm in the Okanagan-Shuswap. He has been in real estate for 28 years and has been an owner and broker in Vernon for 20 years. At almost 60 years old he is just as passionate about real estate as the day he started.


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