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We've talked about it for months.
And finally, in December, the benchmark selling price of a typical single-family home in Kelowna broke the $1M barrier for the first time ever.
It's $1,004,900 to be exact, an astounding 32% more than the typical price of $761,000 just a year ago and the $978,500 it was in November.
It was just a few years ago that a cool $1M could buy you a mansion in Kelowna, likely with swimming pool and a view of Okanagan Lake.
Heck, it was only a decade ago that a million bucks could have landed you a beautiful lakefront home.
But the Kelowna real estate market has changed drastically in the past couple of years.
$1M is no longer the magic number it was in housing.
In fact, as the most recent Association of Interior Realtors numbers indicate, $1M gets you just a nice, average, typical home in a nice, average, typical neighbourhood, nothing too fancy and most likely not a pool or a lake view.
Of course, the $1M milestone is exciting if you're already a homeowner because it means your house is valuable and your net worth has skyrocketed.
But, $1M can also be a depressing breakthrough for potential first-time homebuyers who increasingly see themselves priced out of the market.
The city has always been a desirable place to live, work, play and invest.
But that allure was only amplified during the pandemic, attracting Vancouverites and Torontonians who sold their $1.6M homes and moved to Kelowna thinking $1M was a deal, driving up prices along the way.
Also playing into the supply-and-demand, higher-prices scenario is the lack of inventory.
There simply aren't enough homes on the market for the number of people itching to buy, which drives prices even further.
"The number of active listings continues to fall short of buyers' demand at historical levels," says Association of Interior Realtors president Kim Heizmann, a realtor with Century 21 Vernon.
"It makes it unlikely for buyers to see a softening on prices as we head into the new year."
In addition to record-high prices, sales are also at an all-time high.
In 2021, there were more than 7,000 residential sales totallying more than $5.5 billion, beating the previous sales record set in 2016.
The benchmark selling prices of typical townhouses and condominiums also ended the year at record highs.
For a townhouse that was $687,600, a 26% jump over the year, and for a condo, $511,700, a 28% hike.
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