Category: Real Estate Information

Kamloops Real Estate Information

Tranquille (Padova) Real Estate Development, Kamloops

Real Estate Information

Tranquille, also known as Padova is located at the eastern bay of Kamloops Lake. It is a beautiful piece of real estate that has been sitting vacant and overgrown for numerous years and it’s future has often been questioned. Recently the Kamloops This Week reported that plans are in the works to develop this site. I have included the article written by Melissa Lampman below detailing those plans.

After years uninhabited, worn and dilapidated buildings and mounds of overgrown vegetation are the only things still visible on the site of the historic Tranquille Sanatarium. But looking through the eyes of the property’s owners, it’s the beginning of what will one day be an extraordinary agrarian resort town.

BC wilderness Tours, owner of the property since 2000, shared it’s vision  this week. Estimated at $1 billion by completion, Tranquille on the Lake will be built around a 300-acre farm and feature eco-friendly and sustainable lifestyles. “We want to develop it into something we have never seen in the past,” said Tim McLeod, the company’s development manager. “We think it’s world class, we think it’s unusual and it’s in Kamloops.”

After getting the nod from the City of Kamloops, the plan is to design an entire town of about 4,000 people around a state-of-the-art organic farm, including greenhouses and a vineyard. The town will include lake shore pathway systems, a public beach, a marina, a five-star hotel and a mix of single and multi-family housing that’s affordable for most people.

“It’s not going to be gated. It’s not for the rich and famous – it’s for Kamloops,” McLeod said. The plan includes construction of 1,200 to 1,800 units at an average of 1,000 square feet, each designed so that 80 per cent of the sites remain as green space. In designing the town, the developers plan to use healthy building practices, such as recycled and energy-efficient materials, as well as incorporating solar and geothermal technologies. “It will take about 15 years to build entirely,” he said. “But we’re doing it for the love of healthy and healthy living.”

However, there are many inherent challenges – and Phase I is expected to cost about $100 million. Among the priorities is building a new water-supply pipeline, getting rid of the $1.5 million worth of asbestos, eliminating all lead paint and dismantling most of the existing site.

McLeod said the developers will restore and reuse as much of the original buildings and infrastructure as possible, including the old fire house and some of the cottages as well as fully restoring the sunken gardens and cemetery. “It’s going to take $5 to $6 million to take the town apart,” he said, adding they will be working with the historic society. “We’ve got quite a complex site…but we’ll be retaining it’s history and preserving it as we move forward.”

Phase I is slated to begin in the spring with other developments getting underway in 2010.

More information can be found here: Tranquille on the lake

Should You Sell Or Rent Your Kamloops Home?

Information For Sellers, Real Estate Information

Many home owners today in Kamloops are wondering whether they should sell or rent. Homes are on the market for a longer period of time. More homes listings are expiring and many homeowners are getting frustrated with the recent decline in Kamloops real estate prices. I have heard numerous times in the past few months “I am going to rent my home for a year and sell it at a later time”. This plan works in theory, but when you dig deeper the rate of return on capital makes keeping the property a poor investment depending on the numbers.

Capitalization rate is a measure of the ratio between the net operating income produced by an asset (real estate) and its capital cost (the original price paid to buy that real estate) or alternatively its current market value. I have found a capitalization rate calculator that indicates “Rent” or “Sell” once you input the numbers for your property. This calculator makes the decision very straight forward. Unless you are receiving around a 5.7% rate of return, holding on to a property and renting it is not beneficial to you according to this calculation.

Click here to try the Rent or Sell calculator.

B.C. Real Estate Association Market At A Glance

Kamloops Real Estate Statistics, Real Estate Information
Kamloops Real Estate: 2008 YTD MLS Transactions by Board (small boards) Here are some charts that the B.C. Real Estate Association has released. I personally find it helpful to see statistics as an image or chart, sometimes just numbers are not enough. The first chart is a comparison of all the smaller boards throughout B.C.  Kamloops is one of the mid-sized boards among the smaller markets. As you will see in this chart, the Kootenays, Kamloops and Chilliwack appear to be very similar in the amount of activity for MLS listing sales. You can click on the image to enlarge it.
 

Kamloops Real Estate: Housing Market MLS Listing ActivityThis next set of 4 graphs shows the direction of the market. From left to right the graphs read Kamloops Residential Market Conditions, Kamloops Quarterly Residential Price, Kamloops Months of Residential Supply and finally bottom right Kamloops Residential Unit Sales. It is interesting to see the sales to active listings ratio in the first graph and how the lines flipped to the downside suddenly. I think that this flip took a lot of people by surprise. The bottom left chart shows the strong buyers market that we are in and how it shot up mid to late 2008.
 
 Link

My Opinion On The Kamloops Real Estate Market

Information For Buyers, Information For Sellers, Real Estate Information

Over the past couple days I have been through a whole variety of single family homes in Kamloops; upwards of 25 or so listings. I have found that in today’s market the pricing of these properties is all over the place. It appears that there is no consistency in the pricing of listed properties and I think this is because of either the home seller or agent confusion.

First, in my opinion, since the market has dropped some sellers are stuck at 2007 values, where homes were 10% or so higher than today’s market value. We were living in a real estate bubble where housing prices “would never go down” or “buy now or be priced out forever”. It is a fact that when we are in the midst of a housing bubble, people feel like it will never end, probably because of human nature. It is easy to get caught up in the euphoria of it all. I have to admit, that was the feeling I got from a lot of people around me, but I personally felt the change coming. We are now getting back to reality and working towards  a balanced market, but are still far from it. Sellers have to price their homes competitively to sell, there are far more homes rejected from the market because of price in comparison to the number of homes that sell. To get your home sold, price your home right from the beginning. If you as a seller want to reduce, approach your agent, they should welcome the idea.

Secondly, there is this belief out there that prices will return to previous levels in the spring. This is felt by some sellers and Realtors alike. I have a very hard time believing that this could be remotely true. With the incredible uncertainty in today’s economy from job losses to a lack of confidence in the markets, there are no indicators out there that show that the market will return to previous levels anytime soon. This is my opinion of course.

The encouraging news to sellers is that over the past couple weeks I have seen an increase in the number of buyers looking to purchase a home. There are always people that have to sell their home and buy another. The Kamloops Real Estate Board has been reporting more sales lately than we saw last month. The statistics will come out in early February and I will include them here.

If you are thinking about selling your home, my suggestion would be, get it on the market sooner rather than later. There are a number of sellers wanting to go on the market in the spring. Beat the rush and get your property on the market and advertised to the public before the spring rush and  increased competition.

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