The short answer: balanced. In April 2026, the latest month published when this was written, Kamloops and District recorded 217 sales and 1,313 active listings, according to the Association of Interior REALTORS® (AIR). That's a 16.5% sales-to-active ratio, or about six months of inventory, which sits in the middle of the 12%–20% band usually treated as balanced in BC. The single-family benchmark was $664,400, flat on the year.
Corrected 6 October 2026. The first version of this post said Kamloops had about 3.2–3.8 months of inventory, quoted median days on market and list-to-sale ratios by neighbourhood, and used absorption thresholds with no published source. None of those figures could be traced to AIR or any other published source. The measures below are now all calculated from AIR's April 2026 release, with a threshold that has a published source. The days-on-market and list-to-sale figures were removed rather than replaced, because AIR doesn't publish them for Kamloops.
The question "is this a buyer's market or seller's market?" is one of the most common questions anyone considering a Kamloops purchase asks. It's also the question that gets the most useless answers — usually some variation of "it's uncertain" or "depends on the property."
Markets are measurable. Here's the data and what it means.
The three measures that define market conditions
Sales-to-active listings ratio
Divide a month's sales by the homes on the market. In April 2026 that was 217 ÷ 1,313 = 16.5%.
Greater Vancouver REALTORS® publishes the rule of thumb most BC boards use: prices tend to come under downward pressure when the ratio stays below about 12%, and upward pressure when it stays above about 20%. Between the two is balanced. It's a Metro Vancouver yardstick, but it's the clearest published threshold in the province.
At 16.5%, Kamloops is in the middle of the balanced band. A year earlier, in April 2025, the ratio was almost identical: 215 sales against 1,283 listings, or 16.8%.
Months of inventory
Flip the same numbers over and you get months of inventory: how long it would take to sell everything listed at the current pace. In April 2026 that was about six months (1,313 ÷ 217). For comparison, CREA's national long-term average is about five months, so Kamloops carried a little more inventory relative to sales than the country as a whole.
The price trend
The single-family benchmark was $664,400 in April 2026, down 0.1% on the year. Over six months it barely moved: $664,800 in October 2025, $655,700 in December, $675,400 in March, $664,400 in April. Townhomes were down 3.6% year over year and condos down 2.6%.
| AIR, Kamloops and District | April 2026 | April 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Residential sales | 217 | 215 |
| Active listings | 1,313 | 1,283 |
| Sales-to-active ratio | 16.5% | 16.8% |
| Months of inventory | 6.1 | 6.0 |
| Single-family benchmark | $664,400 | $670,900 |
Translation: a balanced market with flat prices. Not a buyer's market, not a seller's market.
What about days on market and list-to-sale?
Both are genuinely useful, and both are worth asking a realtor to pull for the specific neighbourhood and price band you're looking at. Neither is in AIR's public monthly releases for Kamloops, so I'm not going to put a city-wide number on them. If someone quotes you one, ask where it came from.
What this means depending on which side you're on
If you're buying
You have time and normal leverage. In a balanced market:
- Inspections get accepted rather than waived
- Financing conditions are standard rather than exceptional
- A first offer below asking isn't an insult, and a seller is more likely to counter than to walk away
Don't anchor on the asking price. Ask for recent comparable sales in the specific neighbourhood. The property asking $750K may have two close comparables that sold for a fair bit less. That's the real range.
The caution: in the most popular neighbourhoods, a move-in-ready property at the right price still gets attention. Balanced doesn't mean every listing is negotiable.
If you're selling
Pricing is the leverage you control. In a balanced market, a well-priced property in good condition sells. An overpriced one sits, accumulates days on market, and often ends up selling below what accurate pricing would have achieved from day one.
Accurate pricing matters more in a balanced market than in a seller's market. In a seller's market, overpricing gets corrected by competition. In a balanced market, it gets corrected by patience — the buyer's patience, not yours.
The rate environment
The Bank of Canada has held its policy rate at 2.25% since October 2025, most recently on 29 April 2026. The Bank's own figures put the average rate on new uninsured 5-year-plus fixed mortgages at 4.17% in April 2026. That's the environment buyers are transacting in: not the near-zero rates of 2021, and not the peaks of 2023.
If you're a buyer waiting for a significant rate drop before purchasing, the risk is that you wait and other buyers make the same move at the same time.
The data sources worth following
The most reliable public data for Kamloops:
- AIR's monthly Kamloops release for sales, listings and benchmark prices (published in the first week of each month at interiorrealtors.ca)
- BC Assessment for assessed values (updated annually, not real-time)
- CMHC's Rental Market Survey for vacancy and rents, if you're investing
For a feel of individual listings, Realtor.ca is the most complete public source. Filter to Kamloops, sort by date listed, and watch which listings sit. That's a useful real-time signal alongside the published numbers.
Sources: AIR — Kamloops market, April 2026 (5 May 2026) · AIR — Kamloops market, April 2025 (5 May 2025) · Greater Vancouver REALTORS® — sales-to-active thresholds · Bank of Canada — policy interest rate
Written by Jagatjeet, as part of a public BC Interior real estate learning journey. Published 27 May 2026. Corrected 6 October 2026. Updated 7 October 2026. Jagatjeet is working toward a BC real estate licence and is not a licensed realtor. Nothing here is financial, legal or tax advice.