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Albertans love British Columbia's
waterfront cabins, ski chalets and resort
condominiums.
And with oil wealth filling their
coffers, our neighbours went on a real estate
shopping spree in 2005, snapping up 4,320 B.C.
properties worth almost $1.2 billion, making
them the biggest out-of-province influence on
many markets.
The real estate research firm
Landcor compiled the data on who is buying
in B.C., and company president Rudy Nielsen
found that Albertans purchased more than twice
the amount of B.C. real estate than the next
three out-of-province groups combined.
And Nielsen added that these
aren't people relocating to B.C., they're buyers
who remain residents of Alberta.
"They've got tonnes of cash, and
B.C. is getting to be their playground," Nielsen
said. "Albertans are driving up prices
everywhere."
B.C. towns within what Nielsen
refers to as the "golden circles" --
destinations that are a four-, six- or
eight-hour drive from Calgary -- have always
been popular.
The economic and demographic
forecaster Urban Futures Institute compiled data
showing that, by property value, Albertans owned
some 46 per cent of all real estate in the
Radium and Fairmont hotsprings region near
Invermere in the Rockies.
And realtor Bob Cliffe, with
Re/Max Shuswap Realty, said the area round
Shuswap Lake has been an Alberta market since he
got into the business in 1988, with Albertans
accounting for some 60 per cent of the activity.
However, Nielsen said that with
increasing numbers of direct flights between
Alberta locations and B.C. destinations, such as
the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island and
Kamloops in the Interior, Albertans have come to
view the entire province as their recreational
backyard.
The real estate firm NIHO Land
and Cattle Co. is another one of Nielsen's
businesses, and he said Albertans make up about
30 per cent of his clients.
Recreational properties "usually
touching water -- fresh water or oceanfront,"
are what his clients are looking for. "And
they've got cash."
Sharleen Whiteside just launched
an advertising website for waterfront property
and found a similar response. Close to a third
of the 801 unique visitors that visited the
site, Waterfront West Real Estate, came from
Alberta.
Claudia Lajeunesse, a realtor
with Royal LePage Desert Oasis Realty in Osoyoos
said the Alberta segment of their south Okanagan
market has exploded in the last five years to
now account for 60 per cent of all activity.
"It's driving [prices] up,
definitely," Lajeunesse said.
Lajeunesse added that the Alberta
buyers are not just wealthy professionals.
Working-class buyers, people who have done well
working in skilled trades, are also among her
clients.
However, prices are on the
upswing with even a dated home on coveted
waterfront lot fetching $998,000 in one recent
sale.
Property values around the
Okanagan and Kootenays have also risen
dramatically.
Paul Fabri, a Canada Mortgage and
Housing Corp. analyst for the southern Interior,
said the median price for a detached home in
Kelowna has spiked 22 per cent to $354,450 in
the last year. In Vernon the median price is up
26 per cent too $277,000.
Kamloops is still cheaper, but
Fabri said its median house price is up by an
even steeper 37-per-cent increase to $257,000.
However, he added that it is difficult to
attribute the price spikes to any one segment of
buyers because demand in the overall market is
so strong with builders having a difficult time
keeping up with adding new supplies of housing.
Ian Mason, executive officer of
the Kootenay Real Estate Board said average
prices inside the village of Invermere spiked 26
per cent to $339,000 in the past year. Rural
Invermere, however, shot up 48 per cent to
$482,000.
"Certainly [Alberta buyers] are a
piece [of the market]," Mason said. "[But] I
wouldn't want to cast the blame on any one buyer
group for current market conditions."
Mason added that the region in
general are seeing large numbers of baby boomers
cashing in their real estate gains in many other
places to make a lifestyle jump to the Kootenays.
Nelson saw its average prices rise 39 per cent
to $316,000 within the last 12 months.
"We're subject to the global
economic trends," Mason said. "British Columbia
is healthy as well."
David Baxter, a forecaster for
the Urban Futures Institute said the arrival of
a big group of outside buyers in a market can
breed resentment among locals who feel like they
are being priced out of it.
It is also harder to build a
strong sense of community in a place with large
numbers of part time residents.
However, Baxter said there is
also an upside. More well-heeled Alberta buyers
inject a lot of new money into the economy,
usually in higher-end luxury pursuits that help
provide jobs. They also pay property taxes
without demanding as many municipal services as
permanent residents.
"There's no question [Alberta] is
a significant market [for B.C. real estate] and
it's going to continue to be a significant
market."
BEAUTIFUL B.C. LAKEFRONTS INVITE
ALBERTA BUYERS
Well-off Albertans love their
lakefront property, especially if it's in B.C.
Lake Osoyoos and Shuswap Lake, are among their
favourites.
Top 4 out-of-province buyers of
B.C. real estate, 2005
Alberta: $1,156,799,183
Ontario: $294,394,513
California: $239,311,929
Washington state: $146,501,673 |
