I track the Kamloops real estate market numbers every month. Not because I expect something dramatic to happen month-over-month, but because the patterns only become legible over time — and by the time you read about a market shift in a headline, it's already priced in.
Here's what the data looks like in May 2026, and what I'm taking from it as someone actively looking to buy.
Benchmark Prices: Stabilized, Not Recovering
The Kamloops benchmark single-family home price is currently sitting around $545,000. That's a significant number to understand in context: it represents a drop of roughly $137,000 from the peak of approximately $682,000 reached in spring 2022, but it's been essentially flat for six months — down less than 1% from November 2025 to now.
Stabilization is different from recovery. Recovery would mean prices climbing. Stabilization means the correction that followed the Bank of Canada's rate hiking cycle has found its floor. Whether that floor holds or whether there's another leg down depends largely on whether employment in the region holds up and whether rate cut expectations materialize.
For buyers, this is a more useful market than either the peak or the bottom of the crash. At peak, you were bidding against 12 other offers on a property that was listed at $620k. At the bottom, uncertainty kept many properties sitting because sellers refused to adjust and buyers didn't want to catch a falling knife. Right now, prices are knowable, comparable sales are recent and relevant, and the emotional temperature is lower.
Inventory: Up Year-Over-Year, Still Historically Low
Active listings in Kamloops are running approximately 18% higher than the same month a year ago. That sounds meaningful until you put it in historical context: even at 18% above last year, we're still roughly 30-35% below the inventory levels that were typical in 2018-2019.
The practical implication is that there are more listings to look at than there were in 2024, but we are not in a buyer's market where you have the luxury of taking weeks to decide on a property and then lowballing aggressively. Well-priced properties in desirable areas still move.
What has changed is that the tail of overpriced listings has grown. More sellers are listing with optimistic price expectations, sitting for 50-70 days, and then either reducing or withdrawing. That creates opportunity — particularly for buyers who can identify listings that are overpriced by $20-30k and wait for the correction.
Days on Market: The Return of Due Diligence Time
Days on market for well-priced properties is running 35 to 45 days right now. That's almost unimaginable compared to the 2021-22 market, when 12 to 14 days was normal and offers without subjects were routine.
Forty days is enough time to do meaningful due diligence. You can get a home inspection done. You can properly review strata documents if applicable. You can run the rental income numbers through a proper underwriting model. You can talk to a mortgage broker and get a financing conditional that isn't just a formality.
For investors specifically, this matters enormously. In the 2021-22 frenzy, buying a rental property without a proper inspection or without reviewing the strata financials was unfortunately common. People paid $600k for condos with underfunded depreciation reports and pending special levies, and some of them found out later. The current pace of the market gives you time to not make that kind of mistake.
Sales-to-Actives Ratio: Balanced, Tilting Slightly Toward Sellers
The sales-to-actives ratio — the number of sales in a month divided by total active listings — is sitting around 22% in Kamloops right now. BCREA defines a balanced market as 12-20% and a seller's market as above 20%.
At 22%, we're just above the balanced threshold. This tells you that sellers aren't desperate, but they also aren't in a position to run multiple-offer processes on typical listings. The power dynamic is relatively even, which means negotiation is back — you can make a below-list offer on a property that's been sitting for 40+ days without it being seen as insulting.
Neighborhood Breakdown
The market isn't uniform across Kamloops, and if you're investing for rental income, the sub-market matters more than the city average.
North Shore is the tightest sub-market for rentals. Proximity to TRU creates persistent rental demand, and vacancy rates in the North Shore are stubbornly low. Cap rates are compressed here because everyone knows this — you're not getting the numbers an investor would want, but the vacancy risk is minimal.
Sahali and Aberdeen are the most active neighborhoods for income property listings right now. More duplexes and suited houses hitting the market here than anywhere else in the city. Rents are strong due to the mix of healthcare workers (Royal Inland Hospital is close) and TRU adjacency. This is where I'm spending most of my search time.
Westsyde is underappreciated. It's farther from TRU and doesn't have the downtown cachet, but it has newer stock, more freehold duplexes, lower price points, and a working-family demographic that tends to produce stable long-term tenants. If you're cash-flow focused and willing to accept slightly longer vacancy periods between tenancies, Westsyde is worth looking at seriously. I've seen freehold duplexes in the $495-535k range there in the last 60 days.
Two Specific Opportunities I'm Tracking
I don't share active listings here because situations change fast, but I'll describe what I'm watching.
The first is a suited house in Sahali that came to market at $569k in mid-March, sat through April without selling, and dropped to $549k last week. The list-to-drop timeline and the price reduction magnitude suggests a motivated seller. At $549k with a suite renting at $1,500/month, the numbers start to work. I'm watching whether it drops again or receives an offer.
The second is a property in Westsyde — a side-by-side duplex, freehold, listed at $519k. It's been on market for 47 days. No price reduction yet, but 47 days without an offer on a freehold duplex in the current market suggests the price is the issue or there's a condition issue (I'm waiting to learn more about the building). This one's on my list to tour.
What the May 2026 Data Means for Buyers
The window to do careful, analytical investing in Kamloops is open right now in a way it wasn't in 2021 and 2022. Prices are knowable, due diligence time exists, sellers are negotiating, and the properties sitting on market are not all lemons — some of them are just overpriced by 3-5% and will adjust.
The risk to the long thesis isn't dramatic. It's the slow grind of staying too cautious while good properties get picked off by less cautious buyers, or moving too fast on something with a problem that 45 days of due diligence would have caught.
The market is giving you time. Use it, but don't mistake time for safety — you still need to know what you're underwriting.