Kelowna Area Home Owner’s Perspective on the Kelowna Real Estate Market

I purchased my home in Lake Country in the spring of 2003, just before things really took off. Coming from a small community in Alberta, the Kelowna area housing prices already seemed ridiculous at that point, but I hadn’t seen anything yet!

First of all, we got such a deal on our purchase that our mortgage broker told us we could flip it immediately for a nice profit if we wanted to. But we like the house, kept in, and within about 2 years we saw the value of the home double. In fact, if we had been even one year later, we would not have been able to afford to purchase it.

From that point on, the prices, and our home value, seemed to steadily rise until sometime in 2008, if I recall. Then the rumours of a slown began to make their rounds, and shortly thereafter, selling prices began to get a little lower.

At present, our home, which we bought for $170,000, and which was assessed at well over $00k, possibly sellable for $440k or so at the peak, would probably not sell for $400,000. But we are still sitting at over 100% gain.

In retrospect, if I could have seen the future, I might have considered selling at the peak, renting for a time, and reentering the market. However, the cost of rent is quite high here, and while I may have pocketed a profit on the sale of the home, I would be putting out over $1000 per month- significantly higher than our current mortgage- without any gain in equity. Unless prices dip down below that point where our house has doubled its value, I think staying put has been the best bet all around. But, let’s see what the next few months hold…