In 20 years of work as a realtor in Kelowna Rick Hamer-Jackson has never seen anything quite like it.
"We've never seen the rapid price growth we've seen in the last two to three months," he said.
We spoke with Hamer-Jackson outside a home he has listed in the Glenmore area that probably gained a hundred thousand dollars in value since the end of February.
"It could be said that every house is up a minimum 100 grand in the last 60 to 90 days," he said. "And who knows it seems like we're still moving in that direction, so we'll see what happens the rest of the year."
Hamer-Jackson is not a fan of the overheated market.
"It's not all celebration and high fives," he said. "It can be a difficult market for people."
A sale might feel like a windfall for sellers, but they find themselves in bidding wars as they try to secure their next home.
"There's a lot of celebrating with what they're getting, but unless they're moving to a community where the prices are cheaper, they've still got to buy into this market as well," said Hamer-Jackson.
He said it's a stressful situation, especially for families with kids. And it's worrisome when you consider the homeownership prospects for the kids when they grow up.
"It's becoming the Vancouver syndrome, where some people might never be able to buy a house now. Our prices are creeping up on those types of values."
It means young people may have to look elsewhere as they become priced out of their hometown.
"There's families that are being forced out. But even that is a bit difficult. You can go over to Kamloops, the South Okanagan, even the Kootenays and the values are up everywhere in Western Canada," explained Hamer-Jackson.
At least some of the blame can be placed on 2020's biggest villain, COVID-19. Which has created a trend that has people cashing in their Vancouver real estate for Kelowna's which is still cheaper by comparison.
"The people that now can work remotely because of COVID," he said, "might not ever be going back to their office towers, so they're flooding our market with a ton of money."
And with prices leaping as quickly as they are, the traditional methods for arriving at the right listing price are out the window.
"We're almost making up the prices as we go," said Hamer-Jackson. "Because there's no such thing as a market evaluation anymore, what sold two months ago has no bearing on today's values. So we're just creating value as we go."
Hamer-Jackson said he prefers a more balanced market and he believes it will come, eventually.
