One thing that hasn’t slowed down economically during the pandemic is the Kamloops real estate market and it apears it will be staying that way.

Realtor Quinn Pache, said on the NL Morning News that COVID-19 seems to have created a sellers market. “What we’re really seeing is, there’s a lot of people who aren’t listing their house right now because if they are concerned about safety measures and different things, they’re staying put and that’s creating this shortage of inventory. So, for all the people who want to buy houses, they don’t have much to choose from.”

“We’ve got buyers who are say, looking at a six hundred to seven hundred thousand dollar budget, if they only have five houses to choose from, without a doubt they’re going to pick one of them and that’s what’s really driving the prices up and it’s creating the abnormally high prices and bidding wars and houses can’t stay on the market right now. They’re flying.”

So what would we have to see for the market to slow down? “There’s the potential if there’s a second lock down.”

“Really what we saw in the first lock down was people not being able to go out and look at houses and that did slow things down. But realistically if we’re staying on this path and the curve stays relatively flat, I think we’re going to have a really strong final quarter to this year and it’s going to be a record setting year.”

As for the current trend, Pache says buyers need to be on their toes. “Talking to my team and seeing what’s out there, we put a place on the market yesterday and in one day we had eight showings.”

“Any place that comes on the market, the buyers have to be ready, they’ve got to be flexible to go look at it because in a day to two days, those places are under contract and gone.”