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Vander Zalm selling quiet retreat to top bidder

Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun,  December 6. 2005

Former premier Bill Vander Zalm owns a lakefront acreage near 100 Mile House that boasts peace and quiet, water views, forest shade and riding trails. Thursday, he’ll hand it over to the highest bidder.

Vander Zalm, in an interview, said he took over the 34-hectare parcel on Tatton Lake, north of 100 Mile House, in the late 1970s as partial payment for a business deal,

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Here, There and Nowhere

Timothy Taylor, Enroute Magazine, October 2005

The curling rink in the abandoned mining town of Kitsault, uninhabited for almost a quarter-century now, offers a very particular variety of isolation, of aloneness. An hour north of Prince Rupert by air, up the tendril end of Alice Arm, there is manifestly nobody around. Here inside, the Maple Leaf Pub is dark. In through the lobby, pas the “Sunny Kitsault 2nd Annual Mixed Bonspiel” sign,

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Rediscovering the Thompson

Peter Mitham, Western Investor– September 2005

A quiet night on the Thompson River after several trips back and forth to Kamloops clinched Toronto developer Ted Snider’s decision to make the move to B.C.’s Interior.

“I would leave Kamloops and I’d be sitting on the flight back to Toronto and I noticed I was really relaxed,” said Snider, who was born and raised in Toronto and never thought he would consider living anywhere else.

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Ghost town eyed as upscale retreat

Paul Harris, Western Investor, July, 2005

A business plan is taking shape to transform a B.C. mining ghost town into a magnet for corporate retreats and ecotourism.
Kitsault in northwestern B.C. was recently purchased for a reported $7 million in cash by Indian-born entrepreneur Krish Suthanthiran. The deal includes approximately 90 houses and duplexes, seven apartment buildings, an equipped hospital, a large works yard, a local dock, a 22,000 square foot shopping centre and two recreation centres.

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Angels increasingly active in B.C. property market

Peter Mitham, Business in Vancouver, June 21-27, 2005

Some consider them the lenders of last resort, other the drivers of the current real estate boom.

But regardless of who you speak to, the angel investors are active in B.C.’s property market are a low-key lot who would rather keep quiet about their dealings.

Angel real estate investors, like the angel financiers to whom the startups of the information economy turned to in the late 1990s are typically experienced hands in the market with cash to invest in the next new project with promise.

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Paradise is Pricey All Over Province

CanWest News Services, Victoria Times Colonist, June 16, 2005

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.

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The Cottage Life: Paradise Lost

Joanne Hatherly, Victoria Times Colonist, June 16, 2005

A lone adirondack chair sits at the end of a dew-flecked wooden dock. An early morning mist wafts over the lake, its feathery fingers vanishing in the evergreen forest on the far shore.

Got the picture?

It’s the classic cottage scene, portrayed in art, magazine ads, television commercials and cottage shows with such regularity that it has take on icon status.

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Canadian Ghost Towns

P.J. Wade, Realty Times, June 14, 2005

Residential real estate is hot stuff these days, but it represents only a fraction of available Canadian acreage. Home and cottage owners sometimes forget that there’s a lot more real estate out there to consider if they are looking for good investments. Here’s an example that may inspire some buyers to think as big as this country is.

One Canadian has earned a reputation for buying towns.

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Seeking Solace Within 4 Hours of City

Larry Pynn, The Vancouver Sun, June 15, 2005

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.,

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These houses are worth more than $1,000,000 and there are 12,200 more like them in B.C.

Nicholas Read, Vancouver Sun, June 11, 2005

Ah, the good life. Sailing, golf, a good wine as the sun hits the yardarm and money in the bank when ennui settles in and Paris beckons.

For most people, it’s a fantasy. Something to dream about after handing over a toonie on a 6/49 ticket.

But for an increasing number of lucky people — people like Ben and Jean Hartman of Kelowna —

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