As we begin to wrap up the year, a local realtor says they are seeing a change-up in the people moving to Kamloops.

Quinn Pache says it’s a big change from the start of 2022 when people were moving from other cities to Kamloops.

“Earlier this year we had people from the coast, people from other cities moving into Kamloops, we are seeing less of that, but we are still seeing a lot of people in Kamloops moving within Kamloops.”

Pache suggests the majority of people moving within the city are those who bought their homes for a lower cost at the beginning of the pandemic.

“I have clients who are going from a townhouse to a single-family house — that’s the best move for their family. We are seeing people selling their million dollar homes, and they are still buying million dollar homes but they can get it for a little bit of a better value right now.”

As for why that change has occurred, Pache suggests it’s because the market has increased since pre-COVID-19.

“The reason why is let’s say you bought a decent single-family house for $500,000, well the market still went up, and even though it cooled off a little bit, your house is likely worth $700,000 now.”

He says these buyers have collected a lot of equity in their homes since then and locked themselves into a fixed mortgage rate they can port.

“What we are seeing now is people saying ‘Okay, I may not have been able to get $800,000 for my house as I could have eight months ago but now, I can buy a house that is better for my family, port my equity and my low mortgage over to it and make a good move without any competition.”

As we head into 2023, Pache says those looking to buy will depend on several factors such as mortgage and insurance rates.