Fernie Looks Stable — So What Should You Be Watching for the Next 10 Years?

Fernie’s real estate market doesn’t feel broken. Prices are holding, demand is steady, and inventory feels tight — so why are economists warning that this is exactly how affordability problems begin?

In this episode of The Property Mindset Podcast, Phil Gadd is joined by BC’s Chief Economist, Brendon Ogmundson, to unpack what’s really happening beneath the surface in supply-constrained mountain towns like Fernie. We dig into housing supply, inventory, policy pressures, and the long-term risks that don’t show up in monthly stats.

If you live in Fernie — or plan to over the next decade — this is a conversation worth paying attention to.

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Transcript

Phil Gadd 0:00

Fernie doesn't feel slow. Prices are high. Demand feels steady. Yet, BC's chief economist, Brendon Ogmundson, is warning that this is exactly how the last housing affordability crisis started. Today we unpack why a healthy market can still be quietly at risk.

0:17

Welcome to the Property Mindset Podcast, where we explore everything real estate, from market trends to practical strategies for success. Whether you're a buyer or seller, or an inspiring investor, a seasoned professional, or simply someone who loves real estate, this podcast is for you. Today I am joined by BC's, chief Economist, Brendon Ogmundson. I wanted to start the conversation by what we're actually seeing locally. Here in Fernie the market doesn't feel slow. Activity has been steady, and inventory is tight in key segments, and demand hasn't disappeared. At the same time, his Q1 2026 forecast is calling for a modest rebound in sales across BC and relatively balanced conditions this year, which on the surface sounds reassuring, but alongside that, his market intelligence report is warning that BC could be setting itself up for another serious supply and affordability problem later this decade. So I wanted to explore how these two things can be true at the same time and what it means for small supply constrained markets. Like here in Fernie. Hopefully, this conversation will help understand how these two messages can sit together. So a short break from our show sponsor exp Luxury at first TrackX Real Estate Group. Imagine a real estate experience where your luxury property isn't just seen but showcased both locally and globally. Exp luxury is about more than transactions. It's about transforming how high end properties reach the market with a blend of unparalleled global exposure, cutting edge marketing strategies, and an elite network of professionals. E exp Luxury ensures your property stands out in the luxury market. Phil Gad and the First Tracks real estate group leverages platform to elevate your listings, ensuring it reaches its full potential. Welcome to the new standard in Luxury real estate.

Phil Gadd 2:27

Brendan thanks for joining us today. So just gonna get straight into it. Your Q1 2026 forecast points to a modest rebound in sales and a relatively balanced conditions for this year in bc. At the same time, the market Intelligence report warns about serious supply risks later this decade. How should people understand these two messages together?

Brendon 2:51

Yeah, it's a good point, right? I mean it's looking at short term conditions and then what those mean, especially on the supply side. Like what kind of a risk that, that kind of implies for the end of the decade. And that's really about supply. if we look at the resale market, we have a level of listings across the province. That is, is where we want listings to be long term. Like we want plentiful choice for buyers. We don't want a situation like most markets over the past decade. The ney, especially where you just don't have turnover in the housing stock. We had very low listings for a decade all across bc so where we're at right now is good. If we have sales come back to normal, we'll have markets, what we think is imbalance and that means prices aren't really massively accelerating like we've seen over the past decade. So that's like what we want in the short term. And the long term rather, to, for that to be true though, you need to constantly be adding new housing stock. Otherwise, what we've seen through past cycles is if developers aren't building then. Housing, just the, yeah, the level of active listings starts to get a little stagnant and then starts to decline, especially if there's any kind of demand shock and inventory runs down very quickly, and there's not a lot of new choice for potential buyers, so that, like new demand can't get absorbed. And then you get big accelerations in prices. There's this idea in the economics literature, like housing economics called vacancy chains, which is essentially like. Every time you add a new unit of housing, it frees up the existing housing stock, which is generally more affordable. So more, higher income households can move into new housing. Frees up more affordable housing generates listings too, which is really important. So if you're not, if you don't have those vacancy chains. Sit and then listings fall. You get a lot of competition for only a few homes that are avail, available for sale, and prices start to massively accelerate. That's what we wanna avoid over the, by the end of this decade do we need developers to keep building and they're not gonna keep building when we have the highest levels of inventory since the 1990s.

Phil Gadd 4:54

Interesting from a ferny perspective at the moment the market doesn't feel like it's struggling through any excess inventory. Probably quite the opposite. Or Where supply is, we're, we're limited to geography, infrastructure, and approvals from building permits all over the place. Does steady demand actually increase long-term risk if construction slows down in all segments?

Brendon 5:26

Yeah. Like the Kuni in, in general has been. A very different market than the rest of bc. So most of BC in 2025 had very weak demand. We had sales in the metro Vancouver area that, that were the lowest in 25 years. It's really just the north and the Kuney that totally outperformed with this massive uncertainty shock. And I always joke the ney was like, what? What uncertainty, right? Like it was actually a pretty good year in the Kuni. It was very close to a normal. Sticking pretty close to the 10 year average. The problem in your area over the past decade is exactly what I was, the risk that I was talking about. This is a microcosm, the kuti, if you don't build you don't get turnover in the housing stock. So if you look at the East Kuni in particular, that region has grown by about 5,000 households since 2015. It's added 300 new units of housing, right? That's so no surprise. Then that prices, I think in Ferny in particular have more than doubled since 2015. Because there just isn't even for it's not like the K's growing at some exponential rate, but it can't keep up with even a small increase in demand because there just isn't the supply. If you look at active listings across the entire Ks in 2010, there were about 3000 active listings on average through the, through that area, and that kept prices flat for years. There's about 1500 active listings now across the entire ney. About half like half where it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago. It's just not enough. And so prices are, have been really accelerated. I'm sure. You've seen it like a single family home in Ferny now is like close to a million dollars,

Phil Gadd 7:11

Yeah. Yeah. I mean Across is 900. That's across the board. I would say a single family home is closer to 1.5.

Brendon 7:20

Yeah. And a, I dunno if you were selling in that market a decade ago, but it was probably closer to half a million,

Phil Gadd 7:27

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I wasn't, but I am, very much focused on, on numbers. I'm a big numbers person and yeah, the average price in 2015 is, yeah like you say, was half it that probably less than, Yeah,

Brendon 7:45

and it's, and you can point pretty directly to just an inability to add new supply and there was a big, obviously the pandemic spread a lot of people out, as I'm, I tried to make in that the point I started making in that report. There's inevitably going to be some shift in demand over the next 10 years, right? Like we can't predict demand shocks that happen for whatever reason. Usually ones that we can't foresee. So we really need to have like consistent and plentiful supply to absorb those demand shocks so we don't get these really harmful accelerations in prices.

Phil Gadd 8:19

Yeah. No. Okay, cool. Yeah, I asked, answered my next question, a town like us, obviously, new supply can't always ramp up quickly. Lots of things. Infrastructure, there's a big thing about at the moment we need to, completely revamp our sewer system. Does how can that potentially damage or, mask future pressure? What would be an ideal number of new homes that we would need in a market like Ferny to ease kind of affordability problems?

Brendon 8:50

You would at least, like to be able to catch up or like to, or to keep pace with household. It's a weird thing, like it's a bit chicken in the egg. Like you can't have household formation without housing. No one can move there. But like those demand pressures it does mean maybe I was gonna move to Cranbrook or furney or like that kind of area. But you're making those choices based on where you can actually find a place to live. But that that kinda latent demand just puts pressure on, on, on the entire area, right? There's, there are people who would like to move there if there were housing. That just means the people that can afford to live there just, means higher incomes, more wealth, whatever, and just puts extra pressure on the housing stock. Like in infer by 2035 BC stats, I think there's gonna be about 400 new households. So you probably need in the next 10 years to add units of housing to accommodate that, right? That's more than the entire East Kies added in the past decade. So can confer any, add 400 units of housing or does this mean. Not everyone's gonna be, no, not there, there isn't going to be 400 new households in Fernie because there's not the housing stock and whatever, whatever households are successful in moving to Fernie means it's gonna drive up the price of the existing stock even more. So I. If you would need to, if you want to like accom, accommodate projected demand without prices rising, like you need to build a lot more housing. But I don't know. I don't, the farthest east I've been, I think in the KS is Creston. So I haven't unfortunately been to Ferney. I understand it's gorgeous, but I'm sure I don't know with the geographic constraints necessarily are like how difficult I imagine it's difficult to add that much new housing, and especially like. Developers, I'm not sure how big the development community is there, how much, how much capital they want to invest in that area. So it's, it's going to be a challenge.

Phil Gadd 10:36

Yeah. And it's an, and it's a, it poses an interesting conversation, or at least a conversation. To start to have we a building behind me is going up five stories, which is unprecedented in Ferny, and Gonna be all rentals. So do you projects like that having any effect, easing anything here? Or do rentals give a different dynamic problem

Brendon 11:06

My sense of a lot of the markets like Ferney and the Kni are for, either for retirees or, people with, obviously at a million dollars you're attracting people with money. So it are those rental units being built because prices have gone up so much. A lot of that from migration, from either Alberta or other parts of bc. Are those rentals being built for? Like the sort of, like just the, for the, for people who've grown up in that community who have maybe not necessarily had the same economic opportunities or had the same, level of incomes. Is that like most communities where it's you're your migration has pushed prices up so much that the people that were have been there since before 2015, can't keep up and now they're being pushed into the rental market. Is that like why like that where the demand for rental in, because I don't imagine like someone who sells a home to lower mainland to move to the kunis. And now I'm gonna rent.

Phil Gadd 12:02

No I think absolutely you alluded. To the problem. For sure it's being built by HO Housing Association. So a large percentage of the units will probably be below market So the, i that's being built to ease Another issue that we have here with affordability rising people like you say, can't To buy here.

Brendon 12:23

yeah.

Phil Gadd 12:24

I was just wondering if, those sort of projects will help ease

Brendon 12:29

i, I, yeah, I think there are like different segments, right? There's still gonna be like the ownership stock, still gonna have a bunch of pressure on it. And this is this is a really good illustration of a point I bring up a lot. When I'm presenting about like the need for supply, we talk about so we talk in aggregates for BC a lot of the time, and I'll say if we don't build X amount of housing, that means that. The average price in BC keeps growing at like a 6% rate, and that means doubling every decade, like the way Bernie has. I don't mean that like Vancouver's gonna double right in the next decade. what I, what implies is that market. starts to look like Vancouver, with the same affordability issues. That's exactly what's been happening, like since 2015. All of a sudden you have these markets, kelowna's over a million dollars, Surrey over a million dollars. Fernie is over a million. These used to be places that where there was like a refuge for affordability, right? There's still some, but even like Prince George is like approaching, half a million dollars. My, my old hometown where I grew up, up, up chillowak to, an hour and a half outside of Vancouver, pretty close to a million dollars if you want a single family home. And the average price is like over eight, right? So like where do you go? Where do you go for affordability?

Phil Gadd 13:40

yeah. no, it's interesting. I sometimes I have to frame it when people say, oh my God, Fern's just crazy. I'm like you should look at Canmore, or you should look at Squamish, or you should. Look at Whistler, we are affordable if you look at those kind of communities. So it's how you frame it. But I agree. The affordability question is, this is a big question, but if you had a magic wand and you could fix it tomorrow, what would be the number that you would do?

Brendon 14:08

Yeah. So I usually frame this not as a magic wand, but a time machine. Yeah. And then joke. You should have if you had a time machine. There are other priorities through time that maybe you wanna fix first, once you to get all, check all those things off your list just convince everyone in about 2010 that we need to build way more housing all, all over the province, right? Like it's. People make housing complicated, and it's just not, it's very simple supply and demand, like you're, and again, Ferney and the companies in general are a perfect, encapsulation of that idea. There's been not even huge amounts of demand, just a moderate increase in demand over the past decade. And prices have skyrocketed because there just isn't supply.

Phil Gadd 14:52

It's interesting and curious que curiosity so is this in all segments? So for example, let's build more single family homes so people can move to Ferny. Let's build more recreational properties so people can come to the ski hill or to the lakes. Is it we just build more of everything? Or is there specific that we need to focus on?

Brendon 15:16

This is again, where it's very market based. So if we're talking about the lower mainland, then obviously you have to build density. Are people moving? If you can get a place on a lake, then yeah, maybe a condo in Ferny makes sense. But are, again, are you moving the type of buyer who's moving to Ferny? Are they moving there to live in 600 square feet? I know. Probably not. I like, they probably want a front house or, place the ski resort or whatever, right? Like it's so I don't know. And you want to preserve a little bit. gorgeous about that area is it's. The natural beauty and it's, so it's, do you want a bunch of density? You can do it like a gentle density kinda way. Like maybe you can do like nice fourplexes and that kind of thing with single stare egress, you can have lots of light and everything else. But I don't know, I, in markets like that, I would, I probably wouldn't want to build up too much, but maybe you can do density in a better way with, some. Nice row houses some fourplexes that are, that have like decent layouts and that kind of stuff that can maximize the area, but people move there because of the space and the beauty, right? Not to see more towers. Suzanne, I just talk so much. I'll just talk and talk until I've answered every question before you ask.

Phil Gadd 16:26

It's great. I love it. Yeah, no, you answered this one, but I'll answer it anyway. I'll ask it anyway. Are there well-intended policies that may have unintentionally worsened long-term affordability in BC particularly Ferny.

Brendon 16:42

I, I think the thing that stands out, and I doubt fer has this problem, it's a bigger city issue. Is, although maybe you guys are running into it as well, I mean in the municipality. But just the need, if we're gonna have growth and supply who pays for the infrastructure, right? So in, in smaller communities and generally the, I the, I think the trend across Canada and most places is just. Property taxes like you, you spread. You spread the cost of new infrastructure across the entire community.'cause the entire community benefits from new infrastructure in metro Vancouver and Victoria and Kelowna and some other places they've adopted this idea that growth should pay for growth and they've put the, almost the entire burden new infrastructure spending on development. So that means they, they charge these development charges that are set to triple in metro Vancouver. It used to be, I think about$7,000 per door for an apartment building and it's going up to like over$20,000 a door and that those are upfront costs. Debt, the developer that needs to finance most of the time, so they have to add debt to pay these development charges. And what that does is just, it's okay, you can pay for new water systems and sewage and everything else, but. You're also making all these projects totally uneconomical and they're just not gonna happen. And if they don't happen, that means we don't replenish supply. And you put upward pressure on prices. So I think it's well-meaning. And again, like you have to pay for infrastructure somehow. And in most communities, if you propose increasing property taxes, that's a pretty sure bet to not get reelected next time around. So there's a real incentive, like not to do that. So people assume developers have endless supply of capital and they can just pay for these costs and just isn't the case. And it adds to prices, right? Like all those taxes, guess who ends up paying all of those fees? It's the end user. Like home buyers not the developer. They pass it on when they can.

Phil Gadd 18:39

I was just thinking when you were saying that it's, it happens a lot. I used to run a restaurant and in the last few years of running it. thing, price is just the end essentially paying for that cost.

Brendon 18:51

Yeah, you can only eat so much of that rising cost as a business owner before you're out of business.

Phil Gadd 18:56

I've got one more for you. If you live in Fernie and plan to be here for the next 10 years what would you be paying attention to right now? Even if the market does feel stable today?

Brendon 19:07

That's a really good question. I would guess, if I was a la if I owned a home there I'd be pretty, probably pretty happy about my prospects for capital appreciation over the next 10 years, given I have no, no confidence that. That area is going to build enough housing to accommodate projected, demand. Yeah, I don't know what I'd be keeping an eye on though. It'd be interesting if the like the swings in like interprovincial migration be interesting as a source of demand. Like I think a lot of what the BC stats, projections assume is you because. Ney gets a lot of demand from Alberta, especially for the rec market, but. Over a million dollars. Now infer is, are those flows going to be there? Are Alberta buyers going to come to the Kuni anymore? Especially given, we've also now increased the speculation of vacancy tax for non BC residents to 1%. Like we don't, we're basically saying, please do not come to BC to buy property if you're in other parts of Canada. So I'd be curious like. Is that, are tho are those sources of demand for like household formation that are being assumed, are those actually or realistic given affordability challenges and and tax policy?

Phil Gadd 20:22

Yeah, no, it's interesting. And then just my some thoughts I was having while you were talking, the last three questions. Unfortunately we experienced quite a lot of. Bottlenecks in, in trying to increase, building here, like you talking about development charges. The current timeframe for getting a building permit through the city is, very high here.

Brendon 20:43

Yeah, what is, what, do you know what the average like time it takes to get a permit or, I'm sure it's variable, but.

Phil Gadd 20:49

I'm not. an expert. I haven't actually got a project going in Ferny,

Brendon 20:53

okay.

Phil Gadd 20:55

I don't, I might, I could be wrong if I quote this number, but I'm thinking four to six months as an Whi, which I know

Brendon 21:03

And.

Phil Gadd 21:04

From a lot of people that, that's a problem.

Brendon 21:07

And then are those mostly for single family projects or are those for

Phil Gadd 21:11

for single family, but like I say, the project behind me here that, 40 units, I believe over five stories that, that just I'm assuming that was Bill 44. That,

Brendon 21:23

how difficult is it to attract like labor for some of those projects? Is there like a pretty decent base of like construction kinda labor in the area, or do you find you have to have a lot flying aid?

Phil Gadd 21:34

local guys don't have a problem attracting staff. I think is because of the waits are so long for the permit, I don't think it's a problem of getting them, it's a problem because of the delays. It's actually

Brendon 21:49

yeah that's really interesting. Makes a lot of sense.

Phil Gadd 21:52

Cool. That's awesome. That's really great. I'll got some good stuff there, so thank you.

Brendon 21:58

You bet. You bet. Happy to to come on the show.