Townhome Buyers Have More Leverage

The Kelowna Townhome Market Is Giving Buyers a Different Kind of Leverage

Almost half of the Central Okanagan townhomes that sold in September 2026 finished more than 5% below their original asking price. That is much higher than the 29.6% average across the previous 12 months. But the important part is where the discount happened. Buyers are gaining leverage not only at the offer table, but as sellers reduce prices over time.

September's townhome numbers caught my attention for a different reason than detached homes.

There were 46 sales.

Median days to sell reached 72.

There were about 10 months of inventory.

And almost half of the townhomes that sold finished more than 5% below where the seller originally started.

That last number sounded high.

So I went back through the previous year of Central Okanagan townhome sales to see whether September was actually unusual.

It was.

But not completely unprecedented.

What happened over the previous 12 months?

I reviewed 631 Central Okanagan townhouse sales from August 1, 2025 through July 31, 2026.

Of those, 187 sold more than 5% below their original asking price.

That works out to:

29.6% of sales.

Now narrow it to the most recent six months in the historical dataset, February through July 2026.

There were 357 sales.

97 finished more than 5% below original ask.

That is:

27.2%.

So during a normal recent month, roughly one-quarter to one-third of townhome sales were finishing more than 5% below where they started.

September was closer to one-half.

That is a noticeable difference.

September was elevated, but January tells us not to overreact

Here is how the previous 12 months looked:

January reached 46.2%.

So a month where almost half of townhomes finish more than 5% below original asking price has happened before.

That is why I would not call September a new permanent trend from one month of 46 sales.

But I also would not ignore it.

September's result is well above the 12-month average, above the prior six-month average and much higher than September 2025.

The discount is not necessarily happening at the negotiating table

This is the most important distinction.

Suppose a townhome starts at:

$700,000

It sits.

The seller eventually reduces to:

$665,000

A buyer comes along and pays:

$655,000

That buyer negotiated only $10,000 below the final asking price.

About 1.5%.

But the property ultimately sold 6.4% below the original $700,000 asking price.

Those are two completely different ways of describing the same transaction.

That is the different kind of leverage I see in this market.

Buyers do not always need to write an offer 8% below the current asking price.

Sometimes the market has already spent two months negotiating with the seller before the buyer ever writes an offer.

Seller expectations are moving before the offer arrives

This fits a pattern I have seen elsewhere in the Central Okanagan market.

A listing launches.

Buyers compare it with everything else available.

Nothing happens.

The seller adjusts.

Maybe once.

Maybe twice.

Then the eventual buyer negotiates from that new starting point.

I previously found the same basic behaviour in detached homes. Properties that had already taken a price reduction still negotiated further when they finally sold. Selling Kelowna Real Estate

The townhome numbers are measuring something slightly different.

Instead of asking only:

How much did the buyer negotiate off the final list price?

I am asking:

How far did the property have to travel from the seller's first number before a buyer finally said yes?

That is valuable information for both sides.

What changed in September?

September townhomes had several signs of softness at the same time.

The median sale price was $652,500.

Median days to sell reached 72 days.

Inventory sat around 451 listings, or roughly 10 months of supply.

And almost half of the sales finished more than 5% below original asking price.

The broader Association data also showed year-over-year townhouse benchmark-price declines across every Okanagan and Shuswap/Revelstoke subregion in September. That does not measure negotiation, but it supports the idea that townhomes were experiencing broader pricing pressure rather than this being only an oddity in my original-ask calculation. Association of Interior REALTORS®

Buyers have choice, but that does not make every townhome a deal

Ten months of inventory sounds like a buyer should be able to throw out almost any offer.

I would not use the data that way.

A townhome asking $700,000 that is genuinely worth $650,000 can sell $40,000 below asking and still not be a bargain.

The original asking price is set by the seller.

Market value is set by what comparable buyers are willing to pay.

So I would use listing history as a negotiation signal, not as the valuation.

A 7% discount sounds impressive.

The better question is:

7% off what?

I would look for sellers whose expectations have already changed

For a buyer, I think the more interesting listings are often the ones where several things line up.

The property has been available for a while.

There has already been at least one meaningful reduction.

Comparable sales support a number below the current ask.

There are competing townhomes available.

And the seller's actions suggest they actually want to get the property sold.

That does not guarantee another reduction.

But it is a much better starting point for a negotiation than simply searching for the biggest percentage discount.

Sellers should read the same data differently

If I owned a townhome and planned to sell, I would take almost the opposite lesson.

The risk is not simply accepting a low offer.

The bigger risk may be spending 60 or 90 days proving that the original price was too high.

Across the previous 12 months, the median townhome sold about 3.3% below its original asking price.

But nearly 30% finished more than 5% below.

September suggests that the weaker side of that distribution became much more common.

That does not mean every seller should price below market.

It means the first number matters.

If buyers already have 10 months of supply to choose from, giving them an obvious reason to wait is expensive.

Townhomes are not all competing with each other

This is also where the broad numbers stop helping.

A newer three-bedroom townhome with a double garage in Lake Country is not necessarily competing with a 30-year-old two-bedroom unit in West Kelowna.

Strata fees matter.

Age matters.

Garage and parking matter.

Outdoor space matters.

Location matters.

Restrictions matter.

Leasehold versus freehold matters.

And the competing inventory at the exact price point matters.

So I would not tell a seller:

Almost half sold 5% below original ask, therefore reduce your home by 5%.

That is not what this analysis says.

It says seller expectations are being tested harder.

Is September the start of something?

Too early to know.

The previous year shows how quickly this measure can move.

It climbed from 25.9% in August 2025 to 46.2% by January, then fell back to 20.8% in May before rising again through June and July.

September's almost-half reading could be another short spike.

Or it could be the next step in the softer townhome conditions we have already been watching.

I would want another one or two months before calling it a trend.

But there is enough here that I would change how I approach the segment right now.

What I would do if I were buying a Kelowna townhome

I would not start by asking how low I can offer.

I would start by rebuilding the listing history.

Where did the seller start?

How long did they stay there?

What reductions have already happened?

What actually sold nearby?

What failed to sell?

What else can I buy for the same money?

Then I would decide whether the current asking price still leaves room.

That is the leverage.

It is not simply that buyers can make low offers.

It is that sellers now have to compete for a buyer who has alternatives.

The bigger takeaway

September's townhome number really was unusual.

Across 631 Central Okanagan townhouse sales during the previous 12 months, only 29.6% finished more than 5% below their original asking price.

During the prior six months, it was 27.2%.

In September 2026, it was almost half.

That does not mean buyers suddenly negotiated 5% or 10% off every listing.

Some of that negotiating happened before the eventual buyer ever arrived.

The seller started high.

The market waited.

The price changed.

Then the home sold.

For buyers, that means the current asking price is only part of the story.

For sellers, it means the market may be much less forgiving of where you start.

Methodology

I analyzed the Central Okanagan townhouse records in my MLS master dataset.

For the historical comparison, I filtered for completed Townhouse sales only from August 1, 2025 through July 31, 2026 and removed half-duplex records from the analysis.

The sample contained 631 unique townhouse sales with usable original-list and final-sale prices.

A sale was classified as more than 5% below original ask when:

(original list price - sale price) ÷ original list price > 5%

The six-month comparison covers February 1 through July 31, 2026 and contains 357 sales.

The September 2026 result comes from my separate September MLS review. That transaction-level September export is not yet included in the historical master file, so I have intentionally kept the September description as “almost half” rather than inventing a more precise percentage.

Original asking price is not the same as final asking price. A property may have experienced one or more price reductions before selling, so this study measures the full distance from the seller's original starting point to the final sale price.

Looking at a Kelowna townhome?

Send me the address.

I can pull the original asking price, price-change history, market time, competing listings and comparable sales.

Sometimes the current price is already good.

Sometimes the listing history says there may still be another conversation to have.

Mark Coons Personal Real Estate Corporation
Mark Coons, BBA, CE
REALTOR® | eXp Realty Kelowna
Team Lead, Selling Okanagan Group
778-946-6454
[email protected]