Sorrell Downer,Financial Times of London September 22, 2006
“You wouldn’t believe how many people want to buy a town.” When Rudy Nielson says this, you can’t help but doubt him. Given the money one must need to acquire a thriving settlement and the hassles that would certainly come with rescuing a declining one, town ownership seems like an option for only the most foolhardy investor.
But for romantics and visionaries – those people who see dusty streets,
Shawn Ohler, Calgary Herald, August 27, 2006
Cash-flush Albertans are taking advantage of their province’s recent oil boom by snatching secondary properties from their westerly neighbours at unprecedented rates, according to a real estate research firm.
Albertans have purchased 2,219 properties in B.C. worth more than $650 million in the first six months of 2006, ahead of the 2005 pace, and drastically more than buyers from elsewhere in Canada and the United States,
Shawn Ohler, Victoria Times-Colonist, August, 27, 2006
Cash-flush Albertans are taking advantage of their province’s recent oil boom by snatching secondary properties from their westerly neighbours at unprecedented rates, according to a real estate research firm.
Albertans have purchased 2,219 properties in B.C. worth more than $650 million in the first six months of 2006, ahead of the 2005 pace, and drastically more than buyers from elsewhere in Canada and the United States,
Shawn Ohler, Edmonton Journal, August, 27, 2006
Jay Champigny rattles off the numbers — “7,000-square-foot lot, 2,350-square-foot house, $1.75 million” — like a blase shopper reciting a short grocery list.
Yet the most remarkable thing about the Edmonton businessman’s new property on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast is not its gaudy pricetag — or its stunning ocean view, or its secluded locale in relatively undeveloped Pender Harbour — but the fact he’s never actually seen it.
Ashley Ford, Vancouver Province, August, 20, 2006
They are the new force in the B.C. housing market.
Armed with assets and better health than their mothers and fathers, retirees are leaving the urban jungle for the fresher climes of smaller towns and communities across the province.
In the process, they are helping create a heated housing market rivaling that of the Lower Mainland and blurring the lines between recreation and conventional housing.
Ashley Ford, Vancouver Province, August, 20, 2006
So just who is buying up B.C. property?
The simple answer is British Columbians, the bulk of them retirees from the Lower Mainland.
But there are plenty of outsiders who also want their piece of spectacular B.C.
Cash-rich Albertans may be a small percentage of buyers, but they are coming in droves and so are foreign buyers to a much lesser degree.
Ashley Ford, Vancouver Province, August, 20, 2006
B.C.’s recreation market is as searing as the urban residential sector.
While much of it is being propelled by “aging baby boomers,” there’s plenty of action coming from younger buyers and so-called “lifestyle” buyers intent on grabbing their piece of paradise.
According to RE/MAX of Western Canada, “never before have those aged 50-plus been such a strong segment of the recreational property market.”
Ashley Ford, Vancouver Province, August, 20, 2006
The Lower Mainland remains basking in the glow of the hottest residential market in living memory — but the rest of the province is hardly in the shade.
“Smalltown B.C.” is running just as hot and as hard. Double-digit price increases in small towns that once were struggling are now the norm, not the exception.
The robust economy, smart buyers,
Darryl Greer, Globe & Mail, August,18, 2006
Big city life can be taxing at times, to say the least. But summertime affords people opportunities to cast off their urban shackles to search for leisure, recreation, or in more direct terms, places to go fishing and drink beer. In British Columbia, however, pristine recreational property comes at a price that many can’t afford, unless one happens to be a Hollywood movie star or perhaps an oil company executive.
Andrew Findlay, BC Business August, 2006
It’s Friday afternoon and a convoy of sparkling sport-utes with Alberta plates, many of them towing trailers and powerboats, is squeezing through the ochre-coloured walls of Sinclair Canyon at the western portal of Kootenay National Park near Radium Hot Springs. The fuel pumps are on constant rotation in Radium on this sweltering summer weekend, the last pit stop for Calgarians making the weekly pilgrimage to their summer cottage on B.C.’s Lake Windermere.