May 2016

According to telecommunications giant Telus, 39% of Canadians are willing to pay more money to have a home in an area that has high connectivity.  That means a high-speed, large capacity fibre-optic network.

So by having fibre-optic connections in your home and neighbourhood, your current home could possibly have increased in value by $5,000 to as much as $10,000.

To break that down further, of that 39% willing to pay more, 25% of those say they’d pay as much as $5,000 more, 13% indicate that would possibly pay as much as $10,000 more and 6% of those say they’d go up to $10,000 more for a house in a neighbourhood with fibre-optic service.

Armed with those statistics, Telus says that it’s putting the finishing touches on a $140-million project

Kelowna’s piping hot housing market is ripe for a new multi-million dollar housing development in West Kelowna.  

The proposed neighbourhood of Paradise Estates will be constructed on the old West Bay Beach Resort, a former campground.  This prime piece of land is just six miles west of downtown Kelowna.  This parcel will eventually have 21 luxury vacation residences in a secure, gated community.   Each two-storey home will have three bedrooms and myriad of luxury amenities.

Paradise Estates will be constructed by Gasland Properties based in Edmonton.  Construction has already started on the former campground site but the official launch will take place this Friday, May 27 at Quails’ Gate.  Attendees will be privy to a short tour of the

It’s a wild ride in the Okanagan right now with the market heating up with the valley’s spring temperatures. Last month an all-time high of 1,069 sales in the Okanagan was reached, breaking the previous record set in 2007 when 1,015 in one month was recorded. 

The high volume of sales last month was 34.3% higher than April 2015. 

Home prices are climbing higher

Prices are escalating as well, making sellers pretty happy. The average price last month came in at $459,595 which is 13.4% higher than April of 2015.  In terms of total dollar volume, this translates to 52.3% more than last year’s performance in April.

In the Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board’s (OMREB) monthly report, president Anthony Bastiaanssen called the demand for housing