Posted by
paige on
May 28, 2010 |
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Real estate in Kelowna can be full of twists and turns and after a rocky period over the last several months has really become quite stable in terms of prices and inventory. However, the last couple of days have been absolutely quiet. This is one of those wierd things that happen from time to time and in chatting with my fellow realtors, they’re finding the same thing… buyers taking more time to decide and very few calls for showings on well priced listings. Hmmm… hope this doesn’t last for long!
On the upside, and pointing to this being just a “glitch”, there have been 204 single family sales in the last 30 days compared to 206 last year same time. Turn that tap back on!
Here’s an interesting article from the Kelowna Daily Courier.
Talk to you soon…
Paige
Posted by
paige on
May 20, 2010 |
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Bob Rennie, the condo king from Vancouver was here the other day to talk about the real estate market in BC. His opinion is that all the underlying factors are here to see continued growth and prosperity for British Columbia and certain more desirable areas like Kelowna, Vancouver Island, and Vancouver. In particular the fact that the whole world saw a lot of our province for the first time during the Olympics is important. Real estate should continue to be a strong and considerable investment when you consider that relatively speaking, Kelowna is considered inexpensive compared to other parts of the world and on the world stage we are only JUST on the radar. Condos in Vancouver are an oversaturated market as it is here. Fortunately for Kelowna though, a lot of the projects that were slated to be underway didn’t break dirt as the market started to feel the economic pinch of the recession we’ve just been through. This means that although there are a number of condos still available and competing with each other, the market for condos is becoming more stable, with those buildings having important ammenities contributing to lifestyle like proximity to shopping and leisure activities are selling first over those that have less that all the necessary fundamentals. CMHC has just released it’s spring housing market for Kelowna and it’s positive!
Talk to you soon…
Paige
Posted by
paige on
May 12, 2010 |
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Do you ever look at the real estate statistics for the Kelowna area? April was a much better month for sales than we have had for almost 2 years. Historically this time of year is always pretty good, but the sales were up over 25% from last year. What does this mean for Kelowna real estate? Sorry, but I don’t have my crystal ball handy, but looking back over the last year, statistics show that home sales do seem to be on an upward swing.
Check out my Statistics page for up-to-date numbers.
Thanks,
Paige
Posted by
paige on
May 10, 2010 |
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I had a busy weekend working with 2 couples looking to buy. One of these couples is buying their second home and had a lot of houses they wanted to see in different Kelowna neighborhoods. I had it set up to run smoothly from house to house and neighborhood to neighborhood. The second house we saw was quite amazing. I had a feeling something wasn’t quite right when we drove up. I checked the address… yup, right house. I knocked on the front door, used the lock box, opened the door and said “hello”. The sellers answered back that she was in the bathtub and would be right out. She was very gracious but said she didn’t know there was a showing. Another alarm bell is ringing in my head. No worries she said, she’d just head out and leave us to take our time looking around. While we waited for her to vacate, we went into the back yard. Wow would be a good word to describe it and again I’m thinking something isn’t right. When we started looking through the house I know for sure that something was wrong. The buyers are falling in love and I’m sure it’s not the right house. Sure enough, I spy the feature sheets and the price listed is $100,000 more than their budget allows. How did this happen? I went outside again to check the address and realized that the address of this house and the one 2 doors down that we were supposed to be in had the same numbers just in a slightly different order. Groan… had to go back and tell them that this wasn’t actually the house of their dreams but a mistake on my part and I didn’t real the address correctly. They were very good sports about it and we all had a chuckle. When I called the listing realtor later to explain the situation, she too had a good sense of humor. I hope the sellers see it that way too!
This house was truly amazing and one-of-a-kind… check it out!
Talk to you soon…
Paige
Posted by
paige on
May 5, 2010 |
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The big question I’m hearing from a lot of people these days is “what to do with my mortgage”? Variable or fixed rate? Fixed or open term? Are the rates coming down again? My crystal ball has been in the shop for the last couple weeks and I need it!
I too have all those questions swirling around in my head as we are faced with a variable rate mortgage that I’m wondering what to do with. Brenda Dilley, my mortgage broker, has spent a great deal of time with us going over all the options (thank you, thank you, thank you Brenda!). She provided us with a graph showing variable vs. fixed rates over the last 25 years… very helpful. There is also great information on the internet. I’ve attached some of the links I found interesting,
DIFFERENT OPINIONS
http://www.canadianmortgagetrends.com/canadian_mortgage_trends/2010/04/views-on-variables.html
THE BATTLE BETWEEN MR & MRS
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/possible-rise-in-mortgage-rates-pitting-couples-against-one-another/article1545411/
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/qa-variable-rate-vs-fixed-rate-mortgages/article1545026/
Around and around I go. I’ll let you know what we decide to do.
Talk to you soon…
Paige
