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Clarice Perkins wanted weekend recreational
property that would eventually transform into
the perfect retirement home. Ed Witzke sought an
investment alternative to leaky condos that
would also enhance his quality of life. And
Minnesotan Charles Hanson wanted an affordable
escape from an America that had lost its way.
Meet the modern faces behind the current boom in
recreational property in B.C., a trend fuelled
by low interest rates, by baby-boomers,
Albertans, and Americans with cash to burn, and
by a simple desire for peace of mind.
PRICE SQUEEZE
"Today is the hottest recreational
real-estate market in 40 years," says Rudy
Nielsen, the fit 64-year-old founder of
Niho Land and Cattle Co. Ltd., a New
Westminster-based firm specializing in B.C.
recreational property. "I've been through ups
and downs, but I've never seen this much demand
for recreational land."
Problem is, rising prices are making it more
difficult for working-class buyers to locate
affordable property within the desirable
four-hour driving radius of the Lower Mainland.
For them, options include teaming up with
friends, families or other investors to buy
property or swallowing their pride and looking
farther afield where the forces of supply and
demand are less extreme.
(One exception is Sunshine Valley, just east
of Hope, where, just down the road from the Hope
slide, prices remain affordable: as little as
$40,000 for a building lot, $80,000 for a small
cabin.)
"Nobody realizes that 95 per cent of B.C. is
owned by the government," Nielsen says from a
rustic office adorned with cattle hides and
snowshoes. Take away residential, commercial,
and industrial lands and what have you got, he
asks -- just 250,000 to 300,000 recreational
properties in B.C.
Ontario has its definable cottage country:
lake-studded landscapes that include the
Muskokas, north of Toronto; the Haliburton
Highlands, farther east; the Lake Huron shore,
known as Ontario's West Coast; and, closer to
Toronto, Georgian Bay; and in eastern Ontario,
the Land o' Lakes.
In B.C., it's not that easy. Recreational
property might be located at a ski resort or
golf course, on a coastal island or stretch of
waterfront, or perhaps a remote mountain-fed
river or lake.
ECOSYSTEM OPTIONS
The options span the range of ecosystems,
too, from semi-arid grasslands to coastal
rainforests to sub-alpine mountain meadows. B.C.
would seem to have it all: it's just a matter of
finding what buyers want and what they can
afford.
Statistics on raw land sales for recreational
property, calculated by Nielsen's Landcor Data
Corporation, reflect the market trends
regionally across the province:
- Vancouver Island: sales increased to 1,722
properties in 2004 from 931 in 2003; the average
value increased to $124,941 from $108,717.
- Okanagan: 1,357 sales, up from 799; average
value of $89,725 up from $75,707.
- Omineca (Prince George): 237 sales, up from
112; average value of $43,001, up from $34,777.
- Peace River: 171 sales, up from 114;
average value of $48,304, up from $41,826.
In the Northwest region, land sales declined
to 48 properties from 65, while the average
price increased slightly to $56,179 from
$55,226.
Prices dropped in two other regions: the
Kootenays had sales of 466 properties in 2004,
up from 352 in 2003, whereas the average value
of $96,916 represented a drop from $108,363; the
Cariboo had 292 sales, up from 200, but a
decline in average values to $42,565 from
$45,249.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
For people who already own property, rising
prices are good news.
Recreational property may be a lifestyle
move, but owners also expect a return on their
investment -- the sort of appreciation that
justifies a property they may use only a few
weeks each year yet imposes additional new costs
such as taxes, maintenance and, no small-ticket
item, provisioning.
Because it's impractical to lug basic items
between your main home and recreational
property, that typically means buying two of
everything, from furnishings to appliances to
kitchenware.
And it also raises the spectre that because
your recreational property is not lived in
full-time, there is a real risk of break-in when
you're away.
The Bush Man of the Shuswap, John Bjornstrom,
garnered national headlines when he escaped from
jail in 2000 and spent almost two years hiding
in the woods around Shuswap Lake, east of
Kamloops, plundering cabins to survive, before
RCMP captured him.
While break-ins are rarely so newsworthy,
they are repeated in recreational properties
around B.C.
Homeowners at Hemlock Valley ski resort east
of Mission have (despite ownership problems that
could lead to the sale of the resort soon, and
better times) have watched values increase
dramatically.
Serviced building lots that sold in the
$20,000 to $30,000 range in the fall of 2001 now
fetch $94,000 to $138,000, says Hemlock Valley
realtor Stewart Green, while $35,000 condos now
sell for $100,000 to $160,000. One cabin reached
a new sales high of $360,000.
But the community is not immune from crime.
In May, 10 homes sustained break-ins. In one
fourplex building, two doors were kicked in,
while a third unit was empty and for sale. The
fourth unit had a posted alarm and was left
alone, suggesting alarms can pose a deterrent.
Agassiz RCMP Staff Sgt. Emil Spitkoski said
the break-ins, while not the norm at Hemlock
Valley, emphasize the importance of all cabin
owners to secure their properties, to avoid
leaving valuables behind during long periods and
to get to know your neighbours.
A FAMILY RETREAT
Two Mounties who haven't let the risk of
break-ins spoil their fun are Joanne and Barry
Cooke of White Rock, who, discouraged by high
land prices in the Okanagan, paid $48,000 three
years ago for rights to a Crown lease on
one-fifth of a hectare with 45 metres of
waterfront on East Barriere Lake, an hour's
drive northeast of Kamloops.
Then they bought the property outright from
the B.C. government for $108,000, tore down the
old cabin, and put up a small log home built by
a Kamloops manufacturer. The only downsides have
been an unexpected $13,000 for an engineered
septic system, and a series of break-ins that
included the homes on both sides of them in
October.
The upsides are a warm lake ideal for
water-skiing with their two sons, aged 10 and
11, and Sun Peaks ski resort less than an hour's
drive away.
So satisfied are residents that no properties
have come up for sale at East Barriere Lake for
two years.
"Ever dream of a cosy warm log cabin as a
child?" asks Joanne, who plans to use the cabin
this summer to recover from breast cancer.
"Well, we have it."
ULTIMATE, WATERFRONT
Waterfront tends to be the ultimate goal for
people seeking recreational property.
Clarice and Bob Perkins, a registered nurse
and college instructor living in North Delta,
spent at least six years scouring the province
for property, taking advantage of the Internet
multiple-listing service. They finally paid
$195,000 in 1995 for a half-hectare lot with 30
metres of waterfront on Sproat Lake, close to
Port Alberni, the Vancouver Island pulp town
where she was raised.
The plan is to retire within a decade, sell
their North Delta property, and build a new home
on the lake. "Clear, clean warm waterfront,
fabulous water and mountain views, and close to
ocean beaches," she says. "What more could you
ask for?"
That is the sort of enthusiasm recreational
property owners tend to generate about their
investments. It makes Ed Witzke, the Abbotsford
owner of a building inspection company, wonder
why anyone would pour their disposal investment
money into a "rotted-out, mould-infested,
stinking strata" or time-share property.
LEAVE CITY'S RACE
"It's a quick and easy way to leave the rat
race of the city behind," says Witzke, who
purchased a log cabin on a small waterfront lot
on the Cariboo's Bridge Lake a decade ago for
$220,000. Still, he admits to keeping a "shotgun
behind the door" in case crime does finds a way
to his home.
Of course, not all buyers of recreational
properties are homespun British Columbians.
Oil-rich Albertans are big investors in areas
such as the Kootenays and Vancouver Island
(thanks largely to regular WestJet flights
between Calgary and Comox).
Americans have also been buying up what
Nielsen calls the province's "jewel properties,"
including the best coastal waterfront properties
and Interior ranches.
"Americans are coming up in waves, and
they're buying. B.C. has the best-priced land in
North America; you can ski, golf, and fish for
salmon all in the same day."
Minnesota's Charles Hanson, a neuro-scientist
who made his profits in the high-tech boom of
the 1990s, bought 13-hectare Battleship Island
-- named for its shape -- which rises from the
waters of Stuart Lake at Fort St. James for
$180,000 in 2001.
In Minnesota, he couldn't find anything even
close to that price. "It was incredible," he
said of the buy. "And I'd been to B.C. before
and was impressed by the nature and quality of
the land."
Today he wouldn't sell the island for less
than $300,000.
There is more at stake than value for money.
Hanson, his wife and two children hope to move
here in a few years and settle on the island, a
piece of paradise far from everything that is
wrong with today's America.
"We want to quiet down, slow down, a
less-connected lifestyle. It's Canada in
general. It's quieter. There's peace there, the
quality of life is different."
Ignoring the irony of his wilderness
investment, he concludes: "It's a more civil
society right now." |
