By Steve Hubrecht
[email protected]

It’s official: housing prices in the Columbia Valley are up— way up.

Earlier this winter, valley residents received their property assessments in the mail from BC Assessment, and the results on paper confirm what everybody already anecdotally knew was happening here and elsewhere in the Kootenays— that home prices sky-rocketed in 2021.

In Invermere, the value of an average single family home soared 26 per cent, from $418,000 to $527,000. In Radium Hot Springs, the value of an average single family house also leaped 26 per cent, from $315,000 to $397,000. But it was in Canal Flats that assessment values jumped the most (on a percentage basis), shooting up a whopping 43 per cent, going from an average single family home value of $194,000 to $277,000.

The 43 per cent increase in Canal Flats was the second biggest increase in average single family home assessment value of any incorporated community in the Kootenay region. That’s a considerable ranking for Canal Flats, given that there are a total of 27 such communities. Only the Village of Slocan, in the West Kootenay, was higher, with a 51 per cent increase.

“We’ve seen significant increases across the board,” Kootenay Columbia Deputy Assessor Sharlynn Hill told the Pioneer. “That was the story throughout the Kootenays. Demand for housing is high. Supply is getting better, but is still limited, so pressure on prices is hot, and pushing up.”

Hill explained to the Pioneer that every single one of the 27 Kootenay communities saw at least double digit percentage increases in assessed value of the average single family home, but that those percentage increases were noticeably larger in the region’s smaller communities, such as Canal Flats, than in its larger communities, such as Invermere. 

But that’s because housing prices in larger communities were higher to start with, she noted. Hill put it this way: In a larger community, the average single family home assessed value may have been $400,000 the year before, for example. Now it’s $500,000 — an increase of 25 per cent. In a smaller community, the average single family home’s assessed value may have been $200,000 the year before. Now it’s $300,000 — an increase of 50 per cent. Even though the rise in assessment values in the smaller community looks much larger on a percentage basis, the rise in assessment values in terms of actual dollar amount was exactly the same — $100,000 — in both the larger community and the smaller community.

“The other thing that’s really important to understand is that higher property assessments do not necessarily mean higher property taxes. Many people seem to think that, but it’s not an automatic correlation,” Hill told the Pioneer. “If the assessed value of your property goes up at roughly the same percentage as every other property in town, and the town’s budget stays the same, you probably won’t see a big property tax increase.”

Hill goes on to add, “But if the town’s budget increases, if the town buys a new fire truck or two, for instance, then your property taxes will probably go up.”

Hill also shared BC Assessment data, specifically tracking quarterly single family home sales in Invermere. It sees the overall number of sales spiking dramatically in tandem with the onset of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic started, 56 single family homes were sold in Invermere. In 2020, the year the pandemic hit Canada, the number of homes sold here jumped up to 84. In 2021 it rose even more to 92.

The median sale price of single family residential homes went from $382,500 in the first quarter of 2019, to $434,000 in the second quarter of 2019, to $476,000 in the third quarter of 2019, and then up to $555,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019. In 2020, it began dropping, as the pandemic’s first wave left people in lockdown-like conditions, with many choosing not to venture far from their own homes, let alone buy new ones. In the first quarter of 2020, the median sale price of single family residential homes in Invermere was down to $418,000, falling to $407,500 in the second quarter of 2020, then dropping even further to $390,000 in the third quarter of 2020. At this point, pandemic restrictions eased, and the flood of people seeking to leave urban areas and move to rural areas (such as the Columbia Valley) began. In the fourth quarter of 2020 the median sale price of single family residential homes in Invermere had U-turned back up to $464,000. In the first quarter of 2021 it dipped down to $407,000, then leaped up to $600,000 in the second quarter of 2021, settled down to $486,950 in the third quarter of 2021, before once again rising in the fourth quarter of 2021 to $540,000.

A decade ago, homes in Invermere were noted for being the priciest in the entire Kootenay region, but this year’s BC Assessment date shows that has changed quite a bit. Home prices in Invermere are now close to being on par with those in Golden (where the averaged assessed value of a single family home is $518,000) and Rossland (where the averaged assessed value of a single family home is $504,000), and, in fact, home prices are a good deal higher in both Nelson (where the averaged assessed value of a single family home is $646,000) and Revelstoke (where the averaged assessed value of a single family home is $719,000).

Representatives of the Columbia Valley’s three municipalities offered varying perspectives on the rise in assessment values here.

“It’s a good news and a bad news story… It means obviously the village (of Canal Flats) is in demand. But also one of the value pieces of Canal Flats is its somewhat lower cost of housing. So when that goes up, it affects a bit of the value within Canal Flats,” Canal Flats Chief Administrative Officer Adrian Bergles told the Pioneer. Bergles added the village does have some options — through its zoning and its Official Community Plan —  to create lots and developable land, to help keep home prices there affordable.  

“There definitely are both pros and cons to house prices rising. But it does affect affordability across the board,” he said.

“It is a big increase,” Invermere Mayor Al Miller told the Pioneer. “But really I believe that what we are seeing is a catch-up, in some respects. If you look back not just in the past year or two, but instead over the past five or even ten years, maybe even all the way back to the 2008 crash, what you see is that housing prices were pretty level for a long time. It couldn’t stay level forever, obviously. It had to go up again some time. I think that’s what we’re seeing now, and that’s what I mean by a catch-up.”

Miller said that increased assessment values simply reflect “the reality of where today’s housing market is. The real estate activity we’ve had here in Invermere in the past 18 months has been considerable. That’s what’s driving the higher prices.”

A number of factors are creating that real estate activity, including the large number of people who have moved to the Columbia Valley in recent years. As the Pioneer reported last week, the latest 2021 census data shows that Invermere’s population increased 15.5 per cent, Radium’s increased 72.6 per cent, and Canal Flats increased 20.1 per cent.

“The pandemic is certainly playing a role. People have learned that they can have a job that is based in Calgary, but that they really only need to be in Calgary in-person once or twice every two weeks or so. So they can live here in Invermere, enjoy the benefits of the Columbia Valley lifestyle, do the majority of their work from a home office, and commute to Calgary when they need to,” said Miller. “I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in the past two years who are doing just that.”

Miller added that in fact, he’s met people, working remote jobs, who have moved to Invermere from Ontario and even further afield.

“It’s not surprising that real estate prices are up in the valley, and all over the Kootenays,” Radium Mayor Clara Reinhardt told the Pioneer. “When you have strong demand and limited supply, prices go up.”

Reinhardt said there may be a connection between the increasing house prices and difficulty of finding long term rentals in Radium and indeed throughout the valley. She explained that many homeowners who bought during the valley’s 2004 to 2008 real estate boom may have been holding off from selling their property during the years that the valley’s real estate market was stagnant, from 2008 up to the start of 2020. In the interim, they rented out those homes as long term rentals. But now that real estate is booming again, these homeowners are selling, and the new homeowners buying these places are not interested in long term rentals, said Reinhardt.

She agreed with Bergles’s sentiment that a sharp increase in home prices comes with both pros and cons, saying “it’s tough” to label it entirely either good news or bad news. 

Readers should bear in mind that the BC Assessment notices sent out in January reflect a home’s assessed price as of July 1, 2021.