{"id":130658,"date":"2025-09-09T07:32:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T07:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/130658\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T07:32:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T07:32:15","slug":"kelownas-saturated-condo-market-being-blamed-in-part-to-short-term-rental-restrictions-okanagan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/130658\/","title":{"rendered":"Kelowna\u2019s saturated condo market being blamed in part to short-term rental restrictions – Okanagan"},"content":{"rendered":"

When James\u00a0 Milacic bought a condo unit at the Playa Del Sol building in Kelowna<\/a>, B.C., two years ago, he bought it for one reason and one reason only.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI bought it strictly to do short-term rental to make a profit,\u201d Milacic said.<\/p>\n

However, several months in, the B.C. government restricted\u00a0 short-term rentals, even in buildings like Playa that were built and zoned for that purpose.<\/p>\n

Milacic decided to list the property and sell but with a flood of condos up for sale, it went nowhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the time of me listing it, which was for six months, my realtor told me there was not a single phone call of interest,\u201d Milacic said.<\/p>\n

Milacic is far from alone.\u00a0 In fact, his is one of nearly 20 units currently listed for sale at the Playa building.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re not even getting showings right now,\u201d said Leanne Weintz, who owns Okanagan Vacation Rentals Management and is a licensed realtor with two of the listings in the building.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe price point,\u00a0 the owners continue to drop them but with such a flood in this building of units available and no draw, it sounds terrible, there\u2019s no draw to purchase in this building.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The units for sale at the Playa building units are contributing to an increasingly saturated condo market in the Kelowna area.<\/p>\n

According to the Association of Interior Realtors, the Central Okanagan boasted a condo inventory of 893 units in August 2025 compared to 755 in the same time period last year.<\/p>\n

The increase is blamed on several factors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the impact of short term rentals or the ban on them, that\u2019s part of it, \u201csaid Kelowna realtor Tamara Stone. \u201cI think during COVID, everybody wanted to be here and there were so many new buildings that were built that are now completing and people are not renting them out. They\u2019re trying to sell them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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But selling condos isn\u2019t the only challenge. So is renting them.<\/p>\n

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With many new rental buildings now completed, the vacancy rate has soared and landlords are struggling to secure tenants, offering all kinds of incentives, such as reduced rents.<\/p>\n

Milacic finally managed to find a renter, at least for the next few months but the rent, he said, barely allows him to break even.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt covers my mortgage and my strata fees and that is it,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I am still technically under. I\u2019m still losing money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milacic is pleading for the province to take a hard look at the restrictions in the purpose-built short-term rental buildings and the negative impact.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know if they thought about it but this is definitely a consequence of their action,\u201d Milacic said.<\/p>\n

Last month B.C. Minister of Housing Christine Boyle said the restrictions are having the desired effect in creating more long-term housing as vacancy rates rise across the province.<\/p>\n

In Kelowna, the vacancy rate increased from 1.7 per cent at the end of 2024 to 4.5 per cent as of June 2025.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When James\u00a0 Milacic bought a condo unit at the Playa Del Sol building in Kelowna, B.C., two years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,15222,2081,71479,65002],"class_list":{"0":"post-130658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-central-okanagan","12":"tag-kelowna","13":"tag-kelowna-condo-market","14":"tag-kelowna-vacancy-rate"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}