The Nelson & Kootenay Real Estate Report · Jericho Judson

Is Nelson Becoming a Buyer's Market?

Q2 2026  ·  April–June  ·  Nelson & the West Kootenays
Q2 Sales
68
vs 73 in Q2 2025
Inventory Supply
6.0 mo
Tipping toward buyer's
Nelson SFD Median
$754.5K
Down 4.5% YOY
Median Days on Market
30
≈ 1 month — still fast
Quarterly Sales Activity

Q2 Sales Volume — 4 Year Comparison

Spring is Nelson's busy season. Here's how this one stacks against the last three.

84
Q2 2023$54.6M
78
Q2 2024$54.0M
73
Q2 2025$53.8M
YOU ARE HERE
68
Q2 2026$51.2M
Fewer sales, but the dollars barely moved — and the forecast landed.

Sales more than doubled off the winter quarter (30 → 68), exactly the spring acceleration last quarter's report predicted from its 20 pending deals. Even so, this was the quietest spring in four years by count — while total volume held at $51.2M, within 6% of every year back to 2023. That's not a market falling apart; it's one gliding back to normal after the 2023–2025 run. Fewer homes traded, but they traded for more.

Days on Market

Median Days on Market — 4 Year Trend

How long the typical Nelson home takes to sell. Lower means faster.

36
Q2 2023
35
Q2 2024
28
Q2 2025
30
Q2 2026
Median, not average — a handful of stale high-end listings pull the mean far higher (≈57 days).
The typical home sold in about a month — but the tail is lengthening.

Median days on market held at 30 — matching last spring's 28 and running at half the winter pace (58 in Q1). Yet the board's average DOM climbed 22% year-over-year, from 64 to 79 days. Both are true, and together they're the whole story: sharply-priced homes still fly, while a growing tail of overpriced and over-$1M listings sits longer and longer, dragging the average up. That's the paradox — a "slow" market where the right homes sell fast.

Why one number lies in both directions

Overall Median vs. Nelson SFD Median

The all-types median swings with the product mix. The Nelson single-family-detached median is the truer read on core home values.

Q2 2023
All Types
$625K
Nelson SFD
$647K
Q2 2024
All Types
$675K
Nelson SFD
$685K
Q2 2025
All Types
$705K
Nelson SFD
$790K
Q2 2026 ← Current
All Types
$720K
Nelson SFD
$754.5K
The median rose because the mix changed — not because homes got pricier.

Last quarter, a wave of manufactured-home sales dragged the all-types median down to $538K and made it look like Nelson crashed. This quarter the mix normalized — manufactured sales fell from 8 to 3 — so the all-types median sprang back to $720K, up 2% year-over-year. But don't over-read the bounce: strip it down to Nelson-proper detached homes and the median actually eased about 4.5%, from $790K to $754.5K. Same lesson as Q1, mirror image — watch the mix before you trust the headline.

Negotiating Power

Sale-to-Ask Ratio — 4 Year Trend

How close final sale prices land to asking. Higher means less room to negotiate.

97.8%
Q2 2023
97.8%
Q2 2024
99.0%
Q2 2025
98.1%
Q2 2026
Scale exaggerated (95–100%) to show movement. Measured against current list price.
Sellers are still getting 98 cents on the dollar.

Negotiating room widened only slightly off the 2025 peak. The takeaway hasn't changed: price a Nelson home right and it still sells close to ask; overprice it and it sits. The leverage is in the pricing, not the haggling.

Market Conditions

Supply & Demand at a Glance

Months of supply is the cleanest single gauge of who holds leverage.

6.0 months
Seller's (<3mo)Balanced (4–6mo)Buyer's (>6mo)
🏘️
135
Active Listings
7.2 mo all-types ↑
📅
6.0
Months of Supply
Tipping buyer's
22
Pending (June)
Q2 ↓7% YoY
17
Expired (Q2)
↓15% YoY
📊
44%
Sold-to-Listed
Under half clearing
🏔️
43
Active Over $1M
The overhang ↑
The market has tipped — gently, and unevenly.

Six independent signals cooled year-over-year: pending sales (−7%), new listings (−9%), closed sales (−3.5%), sold-to-asking (97.1% → 96.0%), and average days-on-market (up 22%), while the board's all-types supply already reads 7.2 months — buyer's territory. Nelson has slipped off the peak into the early edge of a buyer's market. But it's uneven: the $600–800K mid-market still sold through at 100%, while 43 listings over $1M compete for a handful of buyers. Leverage up-market; still competitive in the middle.

The most important chart in this report

Q2 Sales vs. Active Listings — By Price Band

The sell-through rate — homes sold against homes still for sale — tells you exactly where buyer demand is concentrated right now.

Under $400K
6 sold · 7 active
86%
Active
Entry level still moving — demand nearly matches the little supply that exists.
$400K–$600K
12 sold · 34 active
35%
Slow
Inventory is piling up here — buyers in this range have real choice.
$600K–$800K
27 sold · 27 active
100%
Hot
The sweet spot — every listing has a buyer. Flipped from the coldest band in Q1 (30%) to the hottest.
$800K–$1M
14 sold · 24 active
58%
Steady
Recovered sharply from Q1's 21% — move-up buyers came back this spring.
$1M–$1.5M
6 sold · 25 active
24%
Soft
Thin demand against deep supply — sellers here are competing hard on price.
Over $1.5M
3 sold · 18 active
17%
Stalled
The clearest buyer's opportunity in Nelson — 18 listings, 3 sales. It moved off Q1's zero, but barely.
The leverage moved bands this quarter.

If you priced a Nelson home in the spring using last quarter's map, you were wrong in both directions. The $600–800K band went from ice-cold to sold-out; the over-$1M band stayed soft with a growing pile of listings. Knowing which band your home sits in — and which way it's trending — is the whole game right now.