Things are looking up in Kelowna, unless you`re a renter.
The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation released its annual Market Survey, highlighting that Kelowna is one of the most difficult places in the country to find rental accommodation.
The rental rate dropped from 4.8 per cent in April 2013, to 1.5 per cent April 2014.
51.97 0.46 0.89%) is poised to win government approval as soon as today for its proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to the Pacific coast, a major step for the project that still faces opposition from aboriginal and environmental groups.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper`s cabinet must decide by midnight tomorrow whether to approve the $6.5 billion pipeline, which would carry diluted bitumen from Alberta`s oil sands across British Columbia. Canada`s petroleum industry is seeking measures to move landlocked crude to offshore markets with another proposed pipeline, TransCanada Corp`s, Keystone XL, in regulatory limbo in the U.S.
For two years, Fort St. John resident Matt Burdock has attempted to find a more affordable place to live in the hopes of saving up money to buy a permanent house.
"We were just looking to find something that's a little cheaper, me and my girlfriend, so we can have more money to do things,` he said.
BC home sales in May take biggest leap since recession
B.C. home sales jumped 13.9% in May compared with the same period a year before ` the biggest increase in numbers for the month since before the 2008 recession.
The B.C. Real Estate Association reported 8,729 here.
Columbia Valley real estate showing signs of stability
The real estate market in the Upper Columbia Valley is holding steady, according to first quarter sales volume figures and single family home prices, even as some major financial institutions warn that Canadian real estate is overvalued.
`Generally speaking, the sales volume and prices of single family homes in the (East Kootenay) region and in the Upper Columbia Valley have been really stable during the last few years and our trend year-to-date for 2014 has been consistent with that,` said BC Assessment East Kootenay deputy assessor Rodney Ravenstein.
Smaller markets in British Columbia are posting the highest increases this year as the province has seen an overall 18% spike in residential sales, according to the here.
Not all doom and gloom for Metro Vancouver housing
Yes, I know, Vancouver, it`s very expensive. I`ve heard.
I`ve heard nothing else. Stratospheric home prices. A city of homeowners who are hanging on to their houses by their fingernails, and who are saddled with enormous mortgages that impoverish them. A generation of the young that will never, ever be able to afford a home in the Metro area. A global city where only the very rich can afford to live, who are displacing the native-born who will now be forced to live in the, ugh, hinterland.
Vacationers from Alberta and Saskatchewan buying BC recreational property
The low dollar is helping lure Canadian recreational property buyers back home and away from the U.S. sun belt, Re/Max`s annual recreational property report suggests.
Buyers from Alberta and Saskatchewan who used to purchase recreational property in hot spots like Arizona and Florida are now buying in B.C.`s Interior, where recreational housing sales are rising, according to Elton Ash, regional executive vice-president for Re/Max of Western Canada. The increase in some areas is striking ` in the North Okanagan, for example, unit sales surged 51 per cent compared to last year, to 223 this May compared to 148 units a year earlier.