BRADEN'S MARKET PREDICTIONS

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 is the whole story of a right-sizing move, and almost nobody is talking about it.

Brian Buffini’s research is what got me looking. He puts the median American home seller at 64 years old, with boomers at 55% of sellers, and I covered what his predictions look like against Kelowna data in a separate post. That is U.S. research, so I’m not going to pretend it measures Kelowna. What I can measure is what the two sides of a right-sizing trade have done here.

Figures below are Interior REALTORS® Matrix data for single family detached homes, by MLS area, as of September 2026 (pulled September 9, 2026). Medians are medians of recorded sales, and 2026 covers January to August only.

The two sides moved in opposite directions

Take Wilden as the big-house side and Kelowna South as the smaller, more central side. Both medians, same source, same windows:

• Wilden: $900,000 in 2019, $1,369,000 in 2023, $1,535,000 for 2026 so far
• Kelowna South: $665,000 in 2019, $997,000 in 2023, $857,500 for 2026 so far
• The gap between them: $235,000 in 2019, $372,000 in 2023, $677,500 today

The gap between the two nearly doubled in three years. Wilden’s median rose about 12% from 2023, while Kelowna South’s fell about 14%. Sell one side and buy the other and that difference is what funds the rest of the plan, so a widening gap isn’t a detail.

It isn’t only those two areas. Springfield/Spall came down from $827,500 in 2023 to $735,000 for 2026 so far, and North Glenmore from $852,500 to $836,500. Over the same three years McKinley Landing went from $1,425,000 to $1,625,000, and Dilworth Mountain from $1,175,000 to $1,230,000.

The regional line hides all of it. The Central Okanagan median sat at $950,000 in 2023 and $945,000 for 2026 so far, which reads as nothing happening. Underneath it, the two ends of this particular trade pulled apart.

Where the equity came from

Over the longer run both sides are still well up. Across the eleven areas I have tracked longest, the median went from $625,000 in 2019 to $915,000 for January to August 2026, about 46% in a bit under seven years. For anyone who bought before that ran, a good part of it is equity, less whatever is left on the mortgage.

That’s the piece a flat market doesn’t touch. Prices stopped climbing regionally after 2022. The gains from before that are still in the ledger.

Where right-sizers actually land

These are the 2026 medians, January to August, for the areas people move into when they want less house and a shorter drive:

• Kelowna South: $857,500, 54 sales. The hospital district, Pandosy, the Abbott Street corridor.
• Kelowna North: $865,000, 29 sales. Downtown, the North End, Knox Mountain.
• North Glenmore: $836,500, 64 sales.
• Springfield/Spall: $735,000, 41 sales. Between the two malls, with everything inside a short drive.
• Peachland: $824,000, 45 sales. A separate town on the lake, 25 minutes out, and a different life rather than a smaller version of the same one.

Every one of these has its own guide with the ten-year numbers, which is the fastest way to see which direction an area has been heading.

What this does for buyers

If you’re a family trying to buy on a hill, the right-sizing wave is the best thing happening in this market. Those large homes come back to market as owners move on, at regional prices that have not climbed in four years, in a market carrying about seven and a half months of inventory across the neighbourhoods on my market report. That’s choice that didn’t exist in 2021.

The part that actually needs planning

A right-sizing move is two transactions, not one, and the sequencing is where people get hurt. Across the neighbourhoods on my market report, the typical month this year has run about 45 days to sell. Plan on the sale being a process rather than an event.

Two things I’d sort out before a single photo gets taken:

1. Which side you lead with. Buying first gives you certainty on the new home and exposure on the old one. Selling first does the reverse. There’s no universal right answer, and the mechanics are in selling and buying at the same time.
2. What you actually want next. One level, low upkeep, walking distance, or a place you can leave for three months. Those are four different searches pointing at different neighbourhoods, and picking one narrows the work enormously.

My read, heading into 2027

These are my opinions on direction, not a guarantee about any price.

1. The gap stays wide. Nothing in the last three years of area medians suggests the smaller central stock is about to jump back over the hills.
2. The small side is the harder half. Everyone in this position is shopping the same short list of central, single-level homes, and there aren’t many of them.
3. Equity, not price growth, is what funds these moves. Another flat year doesn’t change that.

If you’re thinking about it

The question I’d start with isn’t what your home is worth. It’s what the gap is between your home and the one you actually want next, because that number is what decides whether the move works. It’s a half-hour conversation, and it’s worth having before anything gets listed. How I handle the listing side is on how I list and market a home.

Local figures are Interior REALTORS® Matrix data for single family detached homes by MLS area, pulled September 9, 2026; 2026 covers January to August. Months of inventory and days to sell cover the neighbourhoods on my market report, not the whole region. Brian Buffini’s seller figures come from his Bold Predictions 2026 episode and RISMedia’s coverage of his August 2026 talk, and describe the U.S. market. Median-to-median comparisons illustrate scale and are not an estimate of any specific property. This is market commentary, not financial advice. Braden Koop Personal Real Estate Corporation operates under RE/MAX Kelowna. Each RE/MAX office is independently owned and operated.