Category: Kamloops Real Estate News

This article appeared in the Friday, January 7th, 2011 issue of Kamloops This Week . Many of my clients have experienced an increase in their home’s assessed value. I find it interesting that the majority of them are listed either below their home’s assessed value (some significantly) or very close to the assessed value. Will BC Assessment continue to increase Kamloops home values even though real estate prices have not continued up? This makes it very confusing for home owners wanting to sell their homes especially when the assessed value is much higher than the asking price.

Large jumps in property values around the Tournament Capital that likely caused shock to most residents during the mid-point of the last decade are a thing of the past. For the second year in a row, the majority of Kamloops homeowners will see a modest increase in their property assessments.

According to BC Assessment, the average property owner of a single-family dwelling will likely see their property value increase by 4.7 per cent. Some 33,000 assessment notices in Kamloops for 2011 were sent out this week. The biggest change was in the downtown, where the average property jumped to $392,484 from $348,347, or about 12 per cent.

Other neighbourhoods around town saw more modest increases in assessments. “There was no hot spot in particular in Kamloops,” said Graham Held, a deputy assessor with BC Assessment.

Homes in Sahali and Aberdeen increased to $412,925 from $389,311 , East Kamloops including Juniper Ridge, Dallas and Barnhartvale were up to $394,653 from $375,069 and Batchelor Heights rose to $373,769 from $364,014.

Held said the city isn’t seeing the big market movement of years past, suggesting a diverse economic base in Kamloops has contributed to stability in the real estate market.

The overall assessment roll for the city increased to $13.5 billion from $12.9 billion the previous year. Last year, a majority of property owners in Kamloops were looking at an increase of up to 20 per cent on their 2010 assessments.

It was only a couple of years ago property owners were seeing assessments jump by more than 20 per cent year-after-year. Due to the economic meltdown at the end of 2008, the province decided to put what amounted to a freeze on property assessments for 2009.

There is recourse for residents who are unhappy with their property assessment. They can challenge their assessment by speaking to the appraisal staff or submit a written request by the end of January for an independent review by an assessment panel. The panel will be hearing complaints starting in February and running until March 15.

However, Held encourages residents to go to BC Assessment’s website bcassessment.ca to do as much analysis on their own. He noted a little less than two per cent of assessments in Kamloops end up being disputed.

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This article, written by Jeremy Deutsch of Kamloops This Week appeared in the Wednesday, December 15th, 2010 newspaper and online.

After years of slim pickings for rental accommodations, the vacancy rate in Kamloops has finally risen to a healthier level. According to new figures from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the apartment vacancy rate in the city during October increased to 2.6 per cent, up from 1.5 per cent the previous year.

Two years ago, finding a place to rent was a far more daunting task as the vacancy rate plunged to just 0.4 per cent. Paul Fabri, a market analyst with the CMHC, suggested there are a couple of factors for the increase, including a jump in the number of renters turning into homeowners in the past 18 months. He said people have been drawn to ownership by low interest rates and dropping prices in the real-estate market.

Fabri also noted an increase in the number of investor-owned condos and secondary suites in town. However, the vacancy rate in Kamloops still remains one of the lowest in the province, with communities like Prince George, Kelowna and Nanaimo all above the three per cent mark.

According to the CHMC’s numbers, there’s more than just a river that separates the north and south shores. The biggest increase in available units came on the North Shore, as the vacancy rate rose to 3.9 per cent from 1.9 per cent the previous year. The vacancy rate on the South Shore sits at 1.5 per cent. Fabri said greater employment opportunities are drawing people to the South Shore.

The CMHC only surveys purpose-built rental accommodations — such as apartment buildings — and not suites or condos rented out by owners.

Though it may be easier to find a place to live in Kamloops, it won’t necessarily be any cheaper. The average rent in the Tournament Capital has remained steady at $742, down slightly from $747 the previous year.

It would be no surprise a greater demand for units on the South Shore comes with a higher cost of rent. The average rent is $784, compared to $694 on the North Shore.

The CMHC is predicting vacancy rates to remain steady in the short term, but creep lower in the coming years as the province’s economy rebounds from the recession.

This article appeared in the New Home Buyers Guide of the Kamloops This Week on Friday, December 10, 2010.

Two years after the economic meltdown, it appears the recession that followed never really hit Kamloops City Hall’s building department. As the end of the year approaches, the city has handed out $187 million worth of building permits and could top the $200-million mark for just the second time.

“It looks like we went through the year and the year previous without even hitting the recession,” said David Trawin, the city’s director of development and engineering. The city had originally estimated between $120 and $140 million worth of building permits to be taken out in 2010. Last month, the city topped the $160 million in permits it handed out in 2009.

Trawin said the city could eclipse the $200-million mark by the end of the year, but that will mean a batch of projects the city was counting on for next year to keep the numbers level will make it in for December.

He predicted permit numbers will drop in 2011 to a more average year, which is roughly between $120 million and $140 million in value. The numbers at city hall continued to climb after a steady month of November. The number of single-family permits issued last month did dip to 14 from 24 in November 2009.

However, the overall construction value for the month hit $12 million, a couple million more than the $10 million the previous year. The city also issued $6 million in commercial-building permits for the month. The number of residential permits — which includes single-family and multi-family units for 2010 — has nearly doubled, to 647 from 416 in 2009.

The city has only topped $200 million in permits once — in 2008. In that year, the city doled out $207 million worth of permits, which was a record.

Before the beginning of summer, the city handed out $222.5 million in permits for 883 dwelling units in a 12-month period. That proved to be a record. The unexpected construction frenzy has also been good to the city’s coffers.

Trawin noted the city’s building-permit department will finish 2010 with an operating surplus of more than $1 million.

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This article was written by Jeremy Deutsch of Kamloops This Week and appeared in the November 30th, 2010 edition.

It may be an eyesore now, but all eyes will be on next week’s court proceeding for the Mission Hill development.

The court-appointed monitor looking after seven developments for the New Future Building Group, including Mission Hill in Kamloops, off the Summit Connector, will be in front of a judge in Vancouver on Monday, Dec. 6, submitting a report on the projects.

At that time, the judge could decide, based on a report provided by court-ordered monitor the Bowra Group, that New Future proceed and complete construction, or that the projects be sold in their current state. Other projects are in Kelowna, the Shuswap, Nelson and Squamish.

In October, New Future filed for protection from its creditors under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangements Act. The group of companies, which is headed by Kamloops developer Mike Rink, owes a reported $80 million on projects including Mission Hill.

Mario Mainella, vice-president of the Bowra Group, told Kamloops This Week it is unlikely the courts will order the Mission Hill development be sold because the best chance creditors have to get their money back is via completion. Mainella said whether the project will be completed through receivership is to be determined and will be based on the findings in Bowra’s report.

“This project sitting there idle does nobody any good,” Mainella said. “It’s at a point where it needs to be compete.”

He said if New Future is to remain involved in any of the projects, it will likely be under some conditions.

The Bowra Group, which provides financial-advisory services, is now looking after all the money for the projects on behalf of the courts until a final determination is made. In the meantime, the company plans on putting up funds to preserve and protect the projects during winter.

Mainella also met with city officials last week to determine what outstanding issues remain with Mission Hill. The city gave New Future until November 30 to meet a set of conditions in order to receive a new one-year building permit. David Trawin, Kamloops’ director of development and engineering, said the city is still owed money for lighting improvements, securities and permit fees for the one-year extension. He noted the total amounts to less than $500,000.

Trawin suggested the city is willing to give the Bowra Group extra time it needs to submit an application for a building-permit extension, provided the correspondence does not come from Rink. “Our goal from a city perspective is to do what’s best in order to get the project moving forward and finished,” Trawin said. After meeting with the Bowra Group, he said the city feels positive the project will commence in the new year.

Work on Mission Hill came to a halt several months ago after New Future ran into financing problems at the beginning of the summer. The first phase was scheduled to be complete by July, but Rink told KTW bank lenders decided to suspend funding until they reviewed the project.

In the meantime, a handful of prospective owners who bought into the project came forward, demanding — and, eventually receiving — their deposits back.

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