After a blistering pace in the first half of the year, Penticton’s real estate market cooled down a bit in July.
Property sales in the city last month totalled $27.3 million, down from $33.9 million for the same period a year earlier, according to figures from the South Okanagan Real Estate Board.
However, property worth a combined $173 million changed hands during the first seven months of the year, well over the $133 million in real estate that was swapped in the comparable period in 2013.
The same trend held for the greater South Okanagan region.
Total property sales of $64 million were recorded in July, down from $70.9 million a year earlier. But the sales tally through the first seven months of this year stood at $386.8 million, well up from the $293.5 million in 2013.
“We’re heading more towards a balanced market as opposed to a buyer’s market,” said SOREB president Judy Klassen, who works as a realtor in Princeton.
“I don’t think it’ll be a record year, but it will definitely be maybe a small increase overall.”
More stock is coming on the market, too, with 20 homes at the Sendero Canyon development now sold or subject to a pending sale, according to realtor Brian Cutler, who’s a member of one of three teams of listing agents for the project.
“There’s just a constant stream of people through,” he said of the open houses running six days a week in the master-planned community expected to one day boast 230 homes in the Upper Carmi area of Penticton.
Since construction began this spring, 38 homes are now underway or complete, Cutler added.
Sendero Canyon Homes took out six of the 71 building permits the City of Penticton issued in July for work valued at $7.5 million, which brought the year-to-date total to 387 approvals for $36.2 million.
That’s well over the 291 permits worth $23.6 million the city issued through the first seven months of 2013.
Construction activity is also up in rural areas governed by the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen, which through July issued 233 building permits for work valued at $22.4 million, up from 216 approvals for $19.6 million during the same period a year earlier.