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Vancouver Island residents looking for
recreational property are quickly becoming aware
of the cost of a piece of paradise. But it's no
different across the province, where costs are
soaring as well.
"Today is the hottest recreational market it
40 years," says Rudy Nielsen, the fit
64-year-old founder of Niho Land & Cattle Co,
Ltd., a recreational 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."
"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, commerical 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.
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.
(One exception is the 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.)
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, declined to 48
properties from 65, while the average price
increased slightly for $56,179 from $55,226.
Prices actually dropped in two other regions:
the Kootenays had sales of 466 properties in
2004 up from 352, whereas the average value of
496,916 represented a drop from $108,363; the
Cariboo had 292 sales, up from 200, but a
decline in average values to $42,565 from
$45,429. |
