End of May 2025 Real Estate Stats

It can be important to separate personal experience from the overall numbers- May was an extremely busy month for me, I had 13 sales go firm for the month (seven listings sold, and representing six buyers on purchases). 

With this activity my initial reaction is to say that things are really busy… but the reality is that not everyone is busy and not all properties are selling, and the cut off dates and when sales are posted can also skew data a bit (a number of other recent sales were just posted at the beginning of June).

Let’s look at the numbers throughout the Columbia Valley; 

There were 131 new listings this May, which brought some much needed new inventory onto the market and this matches with the same number of new listings last May. 

At the end of May there were 451 active listings (a bunch of these are vacant building lots, definitely not all of these are homes), compared with 501 active listings for the same time last year, putting active inventory down -9.98%.

Average percentage of selling price to list price for this May is 95.69%, which is identical to last May, and year to date it is very similar at 95.47% compared to 94.32% for year to date 2024.

On the ground, the market activity seems to be mostly focused on single family homes, but not just Invermere, there have been single family home sales on the east side of Lake Windermere, Fairmont, Radium, and Edgewater. 

There have been some sales for lower priced non-short term rental condos in Radium, but more recreational Airbnb style condos in Radium, Invermere, and Panorama remain extremely quiet with weak demand and flat or slightly decreasing pricing.Some of the anxiety and fear over tariffs seems to be decreasing or stabilizing. 

But also a number of property owners are seeing past sales or thinking about their future, and we are seeing a lot more people thinking about selling or actually listing, while it also feels that buyer demand is decreasing a bit (some of the people who were really motivated to buy have purchased). 

Properties priced over $1 million that do not have lake access are slower and there seems to be a very limited number of buyers looking these properties.

I predict that June will be slower than this May, this seems to be historically true with last June having only 37 sales, but a slower month does not necessarily mean that things are crashing.

I believe that activity and demand will be strong through the summer and depending on the economy, interest rates and what happens down south, we could have a pretty busy fall as inventory tends to be absorbed (people are motivated to buy and get possession before the snow comes), new listings slow down (people give up hope that the perfect property will suddenly list), and some properties there were over priced reduce their price (sellers give up hope of getting top dollar and start getting more realistic).