The short answer: Kamloops and District recorded 189 home sales in September 2026, down 14.9% from a year earlier, according to the Association of Interior REALTORS®. The single-family benchmark price fell to $659,100, the lowest it has been all year and $25,200 below June's $684,300. That takes prices back to almost exactly where they started 2026 ($660,300 in January). With 1,404 active listings, the market is balanced but drifting toward buyers: about 7.4 months of inventory, up from 5.5 in June. Year over year, single-family prices are flat (−0.1%).
This is my monthly check-in on the Kamloops market. I'm not a realtor; I'm working toward a BC real estate licence and doing the homework in public. This month the homework includes fixing some of my own earlier numbers, which I'll come to.
The benchmark price is the figure to watch. It's the MLS® Home Price Index value for a home with "typical attributes" in the area. Because it tracks a consistent kind of house, it doesn't jump around when a few expensive or cheap homes happen to sell in the same month, the way averages do.
The September numbers
All figures are for the Kamloops and District region, from AIR's monthly releases.
| September 2026 | August 2026 | September 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residential sales | 189 | 217 | 222 |
| New listings | 446 | 374 | 440 |
| Active listings | 1,404 | 1,406 | 1,436 |
| Single-family benchmark | $659,100 | $669,100 | — |
| Townhome benchmark | $510,300 | $508,400 | — |
| Condo benchmark | $366,900 | $375,900 | — |
Year over year, AIR puts single-family benchmarks down 0.1%, townhomes up 0.9% and condos down 0.8%. I've left the 2025 benchmark cells blank on purpose. The Home Price Index gets revised as new data arrives, so last September's published benchmark and this September's stated change don't line up exactly. The release's own percentages are the ones to trust.
One number in this month's release doesn't add up. It says new listings were "down 12.0% compared to September 2025". But AIR's own September 2025 release reported 440 new listings, and 446 is slightly up, not down. The exact same "down 12.0%" phrase appears in the August release, where it is correct (425 down to 374). It looks like a carry-over. I've used the counts.
Prices gave back the whole spring gain
The September figure makes more sense next to the rest of the year.
| 2026 | Sales | Active listings | Sales-to-active | Single-family benchmark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 90 | 951 | 9.5% | $660,300 |
| February | 152 | 1,037 | 14.7% | $661,000 |
| March | 202 | 1,186 | 17.0% | $675,400 |
| April | 217 | 1,313 | 16.5% | $664,400 |
| May | 250 | 1,380 | 18.1% | $671,600 |
| June | 271 | 1,481 | 18.3% | $684,300 |
| July | 254 | 1,479 | 17.2% | $684,000 |
| August | 217 | 1,406 | 15.4% | $669,100 |
| September | 189 | 1,404 | 13.5% | $659,100 |
Single-family prices climbed through spring, peaked in June and July, and have fallen for three straight months since. September's $659,100 is $1,200 below January's. In plain terms, a typical Kamloops house costs about what it did at New Year, with a summer bump in between.
That isn't a crash, and it isn't a recovery either. Year over year the benchmark is flat, which is what you'd expect from a market where sales and listings have been moving roughly together.
Buyer's market, seller's market or balanced?
AIR calls it balanced, and the ratios agree, with a lean.
The sales-to-active listings ratio divides a month's sales by the homes on the market. Greater Vancouver REALTORS® describes the usual rule of thumb: prices tend to come under downward pressure when the ratio sits below 12% for a while, and upward pressure when it stays above 20%. That's a Metro Vancouver yardstick, not a Kamloops one, but it's the clearest published threshold in BC.
Kamloops sat between roughly 15% and 18% from March to August. September dropped to 13.5%, the lowest since January. Flip it around and you get months of inventory: at September's pace, it would take about 7.4 months to sell everything listed, up from 5.5 in June. For comparison, CREA reported 4.8 months nationally at the end of August, against a long-term average of about five. Kamloops has more homes on offer relative to sales than the country as a whole.
So: balanced, but drifting toward buyers. If the ratio falls under 12% and stays there through the winter, that's when I'd expect the benchmark to keep sliding rather than flatten out.
Rates didn't move
In June I wrote that a July rate cut looked likely. It didn't happen. The Bank of Canada has held its policy rate at 2.25% at every decision this year, most recently on 2 September, its seventh hold in a row. The last cut was in October 2025. The next decision is on 28 October 2026.
With rates flat since last autumn, the softening since June probably isn't a rate story. It looks more like the usual late-summer slowdown arriving into a market with plenty of listings, plus the general uncertainty AIR's president mentions in the release.
What it costs to buy the benchmark house
Here's what the September single-family benchmark means in cash before you've paid a lender a cent.
| At $659,100 | Amount | How it's worked out |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum down payment | $40,910 | 5% of the first $500,000, plus 10% of the remaining $159,100 |
| BC property transfer tax | $11,182 | 1% of the first $200,000, plus 2% of the rest |
| Transfer tax for an eligible first-time buyer | $3,182 | No tax on the first $500,000 when the home is worth $835,000 or less |
The first-time buyers' exemption is for a home you'll live in, and it has its own eligibility rules, so check them on the province's page before counting on it. For a rental purchase, the transfer tax is a real cash cost at closing that you can't add to the mortgage. I worked through how the brackets hit an investor in what BC property transfer tax costs at closing.
A correction to this series
Going back over earlier posts for this one, I found Kamloops figures that don't match AIR's published data, and I can't trace where they came from. The biggest is a single-family benchmark of about $545,000 that appears in three spring posts. AIR's published single-family benchmark for Kamloops and District was between $660,300 and $684,300 in every month of 2026. My June snapshot and May's buyer's-market post also put inventory at three to four months. AIR's own figures for those months work out to about 5.5 to 6 months.
Those weren't the only ones. I've since gone back through every real-estate post on this blog and checked each figure against a primary source: AIR's monthly releases, CMHC's rental survey tables, the Bank of Canada's mortgage-rate data, the 2021 Census, and the Province's own pages. Where a number was wrong, it's been replaced, and the post carries a dated note saying what changed and why. Some conclusions moved with the numbers: Kelowna's rental vacancy is now far above Kamloops's, not level with it, and a federal suite loan I'd written about was cancelled before it launched.
From this month the series uses AIR's releases directly, with the numbers in a table you can check. If you're tracking the market alongside me, that's the standard to hold me to.
How to read a monthly market release yourself
Six steps keep you honest with the numbers.
- Check the region. AIR reports for "Kamloops and District" as a whole, so a single neighbourhood can behave differently from the headline figures.
- Use the benchmark, not the average. Averages swing with whatever happened to sell that month. The benchmark tracks a typical home.
- Work out sales-to-active yourself. Divide sales by active listings. Under about 12% leans to buyers, over about 20% leans to sellers, using the Metro Vancouver rule of thumb as a rough guide.
- Quote year-over-year changes from the same release. Benchmarks are revised, so comparing this year's figure with last year's published one can mislead you.
- Check the counts against the percentages. If a stated change doesn't match the raw numbers, trust the counts and note it.
- Watch three months, not one. One month is noise. Three months in the same direction, like single-family prices from July to September, is a pattern.
Common questions
Are Kamloops house prices going down? Slightly, since summer. The single-family benchmark fell from $684,300 in June 2026 to $659,100 in September, three straight monthly declines, according to the Association of Interior REALTORS®. Year over year it is essentially flat, down 0.1%, so prices are back near January's level rather than falling sharply.
Is Kamloops a buyer's or seller's market right now? Balanced, leaning toward buyers. In September 2026 Kamloops and District had 189 sales and 1,404 active listings, a 13.5% sales-to-active ratio and about 7.4 months of inventory. That sits inside the 12%–20% band often used in BC to mark a balanced market, but at the buyer's end of it.
What is the benchmark home price in Kamloops? In September 2026 the Kamloops and District benchmark was $659,100 for a single-family home, $510,300 for a townhome and $366,900 for a condo, according to the Association of Interior REALTORS®. The benchmark represents a home with typical attributes, so it moves less erratically than an average sale price.
How many homes sold in Kamloops in September 2026? 189 residential sales in the Kamloops and District region, down from 217 in August and 222 in September 2025, a 14.9% year-over-year drop. Across the whole Association of Interior REALTORS® region, sales were 1,141, the same as August and down 8% from a year earlier.
How much do I need to buy a typical house in Kamloops? At the September 2026 benchmark of $659,100, the minimum down payment is $40,910 and BC property transfer tax is $11,182. An eligible first-time buyer would pay $3,182 in transfer tax instead. Lender fees, legal costs and inspections come on top.
When is the next Bank of Canada interest rate decision? 28 October 2026. The Bank held its policy rate at 2.25% on 2 September 2026, its seventh straight hold, and has not changed it since October 2025. A rate change would be one of the biggest outside factors to watch heading into the winter market.
The honest summary
Kamloops had a quiet September. Sales slowed, listings held steady, and the single-family benchmark slipped for a third month to $659,100, which is where the year started. Nothing about it looks like a crash, and nothing looks like a rebound. The market is balanced, with buyers gaining a little room.
For buyers, that's mildly good news. More inventory relative to sales means more time to underwrite properly and a bit more room to negotiate. The two things I'm watching into winter are the sales-to-active ratio and the 28 October rate decision. I'll post October's numbers when AIR releases them in early November, from the source, with the table.
If you want the whole journey rather than the monthly numbers, it's all on the real estate page, including how a secondary suite changes the maths and what the 2027 rent cap means for rental income.
Sources: AIR — Kamloops market, September 2026 (5 October 2026) · AIR — Kamloops market, September 2025 · Greater Vancouver REALTORS® — 1 September 2026 release · CREA — August 2026 national release · Bank of Canada — policy interest rate · Government of Canada — minimum down payment · Government of BC — first-time home buyers' exemption
Written by Jagatjeet — Jagatjeet (jagatjeet.com) is a web design, local SEO and AI automation studio in Kamloops, British Columbia, and this post is part of a public BC Interior real estate investing journey. Published 5 October 2026. Last updated 5 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. Market figures are from the Association of Interior REALTORS® and can be revised; confirm current numbers and rules before making any decision.