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The right-sizing wave, and why the gap just got wider If you own a large home on one of Kelowna’s hills and you’ve been thinking about something smaller and more central, the arithmetic moved in your favour over the last three years. The big houses held their value. The smaller central ones didn’t. That spread…

Braden’s market predictions for Kelowna, heading into 2027 Kelowna’s housing market is heading into 2027 balanced, steady and a lot more workable than the headlines make it sound. Brian Buffini called for a return to a 2019-style market this year, and the Central Okanagan numbers say we’re already there. Buffini runs Buffini & Company, a…

GST on a new home in BC, worked out at Kelowna prices A newly built home in BC carries 5% GST, and at Kelowna prices almost nobody gets the regular rebate back, because it ends at $450,000. First-time buyers are the exception. They can now get up to $50,000 back on a new home valued…

Speculation and vacancy tax in Kelowna, and who actually pays it Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country and Peachland are all inside BC’s speculation and vacancy tax area. For 2026 the tax is 1% of a home’s assessed value a year for Canadian owners and 3% for foreign owners, unless an exemption applies. If you’re a…

The BC home owner grant threshold, and what changes in 2027 For 2026, the BC home owner grant threshold is $2,075,000 of assessed value. Below it, a Kelowna homeowner gets the full grant, which is $770 this year. Above it, the grant shrinks by $5 for every $1,000 of value and it’s gone at $2,229,000….

How much property transfer tax you’ll pay in BC Property transfer tax in BC is 1% of a home’s value up to $200,000, 2% of the value from $200,000 to $2 million, and 3% above $2 million. Residential value over $3 million pays a further 2% on top. On a $1 million home in Kelowna,…

Selling a house with tenants in it Yes, you can. You do not need the unit empty to list it, and you do not need your tenant’s permission to sell. What you do need is to get three things right: how showings happen, whether the tenancy ends at all, and when the clock on that…

Can I buy a house before I sell mine? Short answer: yes, and there are three ways to do it. Which one is right depends on your house and the one you want, and picking wrong is expensive. Most of my clients aren’t first-time buyers and aren’t cashing out. They’re moving — selling the house…

Poly B: what it actually does to your sale If your house went up in the Okanagan between roughly 1978 and the late 1990s, there’s a good chance it has polybutylene supply plumbing — grey or sometimes blue flexible pipe, usually stamped PB2110, running to your fixtures. Two things are true at once and people…

Is geothermal worth it, and what does it do to a home’s value? Geothermal comes up on almost every Wilden listing that has it, and the question is always some version of the same thing: is this a feature or a problem? It’s a feature. But it’s a feature with a bill attached, and the…