COEDC Releases Latest Report for Q4 2017
The Regional District of Central Okanagan’s Economic Development Commission (COEDC) – the Region’s primary business resource – releases a publically available quarterly Economic Indicators Report highlighting key economic data for the Central Okanagan. The Q4 Economic Indicators Report released in January 2018 contains cumulative statistics for 10 key economic indicators for 2017 including housing starts, population growth and building permits.
2017 was a record breaking year for residential construction with building permit values sitting at just over $900 million which is a 23% increase over 2016. Multi-family units saw the biggest increase – up 88% from 2016. The number of new apartments being built showed particularly strong growth, with construction beginning on 1,945 new units over the first three quarters of 2017, representing a 180 per cent increase from the 695 that were started over the same time period last year. Most of those new units are going up in Kelowna, which should lift the vacancy rate in the city to 2.1 per cent in 2018, up from the paltry 0.6 per cent it sits at today.
The median home price in Kelowna sits at approximately $700,000, which is 19 per cent higher than in 2016. The last economic indicator was traffic at the Kelowna airport which set an all time traffic record for 2017 with just under 1.9 million passengers.
