By Frank O’Brien, Business in Vancouver, Aug. 9, 2017
The benchmark price of a detached house in Metro Vancouver is now $1.3 million and a typical condominium apartment is $600,000, so $50,000 will buy less than 80 square feet of housing in the city.
But it is much different in the recreational market of vast British Columbia, where a day’s drive can lead to lakefront acreages for less than $40,000,
Peter Mitham, Business in Vancouver, Sept 20, 2016
Tax crackdown
This year’s federal budget gives the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) extra clout when it comes to chasing down tax cheats, including those trying to evade taxes on real estate.
The topic surged into the national spotlight last week amid reports of lax oversight by the CRA and the practices of offshore investors seeking to sink money into local properties.
Frank O’Brien, Business in Vancouver, June 7, 2016
Rain and thousands of hectares of verdant farmland have sparked a new multimillion-dollar industry in the outback of northern British Columbia: harvesting hay and shipping it to drought-stricken livestock producers in China and Korea.
From a standing start four years ago, nearly 10,000 tonnes of hay per year is now being baled and shipped in containers to Asia out of the Port of Prince Rupert.
Frank O’Brien, Business In Vancouver, May 4, 2016
The blast radius from Vancouver’s real estate boom now extends as far north as 100 Mile House in B.C’s Cariboo region, according to Rudy Nielsen, co-founder and president of LandQuest Realty Corp. of New Westminster.
“We have buyers from the Vancouver area looking at lakefront property up there,” said Nielsen.
An influx of homebuyers who have cashed out of Canada’s most expensive housing market is also being seen on the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island,
Frank O’Brien, Business in Vancouver, March 10, 2015
Buying raw land on the fringe of Prince George is among the best real estate buys in British Columbia, according to Rudy Nielsen, president of Niho Land & Cattle Co. and the largest private landowner in the province.
“Prince George has it all. It is a hub city for the province,” Nielsen said following an address to the annual Jurock Land Rush conference in Vancouver February 28.
Glen Korstrom , Business in Vancouver, Sept 11-17, 2012
Recreational real estate sales across B.C. are rebounding from an anemic 2011 while the Greater Vancouver residential property market continues to cool and is poised for one of the slowest years for sales in the past decade.
Landcor Data Corp. statistics for the first half of 2012 show a 22% jump in recreational property sales across B.C. to 1,079, compared with 883 in the first half of last year.
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.
Business in Vancouver, Paul Harris, June 7-15, 2005
Ambitious and potentially far-reaching, a business plan is taking shape to transform a B.C. mining ghost town into a magnet for corporate retreats and eco-tourism.
Having been listed for $7 million, Kitsault in northwestern B.C. was recently purchased for cash by Indian-born entrepreneur Krish Suthanthiran.
The deal includes approximately 90 houses and duplexes, seven apartment buildings, an equipped hospital,
Janet Collins, Business in Vancouver, May 27 – June 2, 2003
There’s a new kind of gold being produced by abandoned mining towns around British Columbia. Some enterprising individuals and companies have seen the potential of the sites, many of which come with services (power, water, etc.) installed and ready. There is often no need to go through the complicated process of rezoning or surveying and the lots are often inexpensive alternatives for recreational sites and a myriad other uses.
Peter Mitham, Business in Vancouver, July 15, 2002
The market for B.C. recreational properties is beginning to follow the broader residential market upwards, with realtors noting more interest and higher prices across the province.
The market swung upwards last October after three slack years, said Rudy Nielsen of Landquest Realty Corp. in New Westminster.
“People weren’t buying any recreational lands. The American and the German markets were kind of quiet,”