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Survey shows shortage
of Recreation Property
Lack of supply and soaring demand, partly
driven by the threat of higher interest rates, is putting recreational
property beyond the reach of the average British Columbian.
Prices for waterfront property start at
$350,000 in the Comox Valley, $450,000 in Tofino and $700,000 on Saltspring
Island, according to a survey by Royal LePage. That's up from $140,000,
$240,000 and $500,000, respectively, in just 18 months.
But even the rich could be out of luck if
they want waterfront because there is so little available, realtors say.
High starting prices and limited sales
activity helps to explain why prices for B.C. waterfront across the board
show only an eight-per-cent increase over the year, according to Royal
LePage, compared to 21 per cent in Quebec and 17 per cent in Ontario and 17
per cent in Manitoba.
Prices for recreational chalets and
condos are up just 0.5 per cent in B.C., compared to 18 per cent in Quebec,
12 per cent in Ontario and 11 per cent in Alberta.
Realtors say the appeal of the B.C.
climate and lifestyle is blurring the line between recreational use and
year-round living.
Increasingly out-of-province residents
are buying for seasonal use today with a view to making the property their
retirement home, says Re/Max realtor Dave Procter in Comox.
In Whistler, where prices plateaued about
18 months ago after skyrocketing for a decade, wealthy buyers are attracted
from around the world for full-time residences as well as retirement or
winter or summer recreational uses, Re-Max realtor Michael d'Artois says.
"Whistler used to be connected with
trends in the Vancouver real-estate market but we are somewhat disconnected
now," d'Artois says.
"We have buyers coming from many
different places because Whistler is on the radar screen for people looking
to retire and to improve their quality of life. We are not adding supply,
and demand continues."
In another survey, Re-Max says it is not
just Canadians flooding into the Canadian cottage market "like never
before" but also Europeans and Americans.
On Saltspring, prices are up 12-16 per
cent since the start of 2003, says Royal LePage realtor Miles Wilson, with
many buyers from California. He says it is still possible to buy
"high-bank" waterfront property, where it is difficult or
impossible to access the water, for $400,000 to $500,000.
Prices are much higher for ocean-front
property on Saltspring. If you want to be able to splash into the saltchuck
from your own dock, Wilson has 12 listings under $1 million and 13 for
$1-million plus.
"We're getting buyers from all over
and there is more demand than supply," he says.
In the Okanagan, it is difficult to find
any waterfront property within two hours of Kelowna, Royal LePage realtor
Wade Webb says.
"People are hanging on to it, or
handing it down, or neighbours, friends or family will pick it up,"
Webb says.
On Okanagan Lake, prices are up 30-50 per
cent, Webb says.
"Vancouver is fuelling a lot of the
activity with people selling down there and buying for lifestyle and
semi-retirement here in Kelowna."
In the Fraser Valley, Re-Max realtor Alex
MacDonald says it is rare for any property on Harrison Lake to become
available. At Cultus Lake, leasehold cabins on 25-foot lots start at
$250,000, while freehold executive-style houses can fetch more than $1
million.
Prices for waterfront property have
doubled in the Comox Valley in one year, helped by regular Westjet flights
into the new international airport at CFB Comox.
"You've got baby boomers coming out
of the prairie provinces by the planeload looking at our climate, what we
have to offer in a ski hill, fishing, clean air and lots of good
water," Re-Max's Dave Procter says.
"We have a lot of oil money coming
in here with people in their late '40s and early '50s buying for the future
because it is so easy to get here."
Recreational property on Mount Washington
is also becoming scarce with surplus inventory eaten up over the past 18
months, Procter says.
The Re-Max survey says the threat of
higher interest rates has shifted recreational property purchasers into
overdrive in major Canadian centres.
"The level of demand we are
experiencing is unprecedented," says Kelowna-based Elton Ash, regional
director of Re-Max Western Canada.
"Finding the ideal property may
prove to be a challenge in 2004. Waterfront listings, in particular, have
become a scarce yet highly sought-after commodity."
The survey says baby boomers are leading
the charge for recreational properties. -
by Michael Kane Vancouver
Sun
20 May 2004
SOCIAL
SCENE MALCOLM
PARRY
Michael Budman, the 200-store Roots
clothing-chain founder and head, spent Tuesday morning with 1998
snowboarding gold-medallist Ross Rebagliati and other Olympic athletes at
Robson and Burrard Street. That's the locale he's called Roots'
"best-dollar store on the best shopping street in Canada," and
where he and store manager Rich Patterson showed the apparel Canadian, U.S.,
British and Barbadian athletes will wear at the Athens Olympics this summer.
Rather than take indoor nourishment at
his nearby lodgings, the Sutton Place hotel, Budman opted for Bud Kanke's
Joe Fortes, a block's stroll away at Thurlow-off-Robson.
Catching rays on a wide-open roof deck,
Budman shared a dozen Stellar Bay, Gorge Inlet and Kusshi oysters, and
tucked into grilled sockeye salmon, ahi tuna and arctic char with a pint of
Granville Island pale ale on the side.
"How can you beat it here?" he
asked, waving to the empty plates, blue sky and overstuffed flower baskets.
This from a chap who shares a 10-lot estate in Toronto's exclusive Forest
Hill district with architect-wife Diane Bald. Not to mention a
5,000-square-foot loft downtown and a private lodge in Algonquin Park where
the likes of Michael Douglas, Lorne Michaels, Dan Ackroyd and perennial pal
Jason Priestley come a'visiting.
Budman said he's down to a choice of two
3,000-square-foot spaces to open a Pacific Centre Roots in October. By then,
the Whistler store will have doubled to 3,000-square-feet, and he'll have a
deal for a 13,000-square-foot city store to match Toronto's flagship
operation.
No word on the locale or his firm's
dollar volume, but Budman said: "When you're private, you take a
longer-term view." Reflecting Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry
Page's recent admonishment to investors, he added: "When you're public,
you have to answer to your shareholders. When you're private, you have to
answer to your customers."
That means hotel customers, too, since
Budman says he'll open a 100-or-so-room hotel here before the 2010 Olympics,
in which he expects Roots to play a large part. That should provide a gig
for Bald, who joined Parisian architect Andre Putman to start the
boutique-hotel movement with Manhattan's 1984 Morgan's.
Not that Budman will stay at the hotel. A
Shaughnessy mansion close to that owned by friends Goldie Hawn and Kurt
Russell is more his speed.
"I'm going to buy a house
here," he cell-phoned his spouse from Joe Fortes' roof.
"Fine," she replied.
-by Malcolm Parry Vancouver
Sun 20 May 2004
Average cottage price hits $200,000
Cottaging increasingly becomes pastime for elite: Can't meet demand
High atop the red clay cliffs of Prince
Edward Island's north shore, George Campbell is fighting a losing battle
against his summertime pests.
Like blackflies in flip-flops, cottagers
are an annual annoyance, he says. So Mr. Campbell, the outgoing chairman of
the Lucy Maud Montgomery Land Trust, has been gathering donations to buy up
waterfront land and ensure it remains dotted with cows and the odd
farmhouse, just as Anne of Green Gables knew it.
But in P.E.I. and across Canada, Baby
Boomer cottagers have other plans, and the money to make them happen.
Demand for cottages and recreational
condos outstrips supply seven to two, a ratio clearly reflected in
skyrocketing prices, according to a new analysis by real estate company
Royal LePage.
From Ucluelet on the West Coast, through
Canmore and Lake of the Woods, to Haliburton, the Laurentians and Shediac
Bay, prices for waterfront cottages have risen by 10% over last year to a
national average of $200,000. Asking prices over $500,000, which were a
noteworthy extravagance in the 1990s, are now common across Canada. In some
areas, prices have doubled since two years ago, so now $100,000 barely buys
you a boathouse. On British Columbia's Salt Spring Island, for example, five
acre plots without so much as an outhouse have risen in price by 40% over
two years to $250,000 today.
Although there are $50,000 shorefront
bargains to be had in Newfoundland, and many popular cottage countries have
properties for sale in the low $100,000s, the conclusion is clear: Cottaging
is an increasingly elite pastime.
"I think we're at the beginning of a
fundamental change in the way people view recreational property," said
Phil Soper, president and CEO of Royal LePage.
High prices are changing both the people
who buy cottages and the way they use them, he said. If this trend
continues, he believes the quintessential Canadian cottage will no longer be
a rustic getaway with hand-me-down furniture, a mice problem, some battered
board games and a collection of romance and spy novels.
Instead, he thinks the cottage is
becoming a comfortable extension of the city home, complete with all the
technology needed to fulfill one's professional duties dockside. Where once
a floating dock was a selling point for a cottage, today it is cellphone
reception.
"Summertimes in Canada are going to
be a very different place in the future than they are today, where people
truly do look at four-day work weeks," Mr. Soper said. "People who
have never considered becoming mobile workers will become mobile
workers."
Peter Bardon, a veteran real estate agent
on Salt Spring Island, agrees that work requirements -- especially Internet
access -- are key points of negotiation.
"Twenty years ago, lots of people
wanted Coleman lamps and the like, and they didn't want phones. Nowadays, it
seems that the greater percentage of them want to be able to use their
cellphone and their laptop," he said.
This trend is leaving its mark on the
architecture of cottage country, too, said Al Zikovitz, publisher of Cottage
Life magazine.
"If you're going to buy a piece of
property that's $250,000, you're not going to put a $50,000 building on
it," he said.
And with such a deep investment, there is
a stronger temptation to retire at the cottage, rather than hand it down to
one's children and grandchildren. This, in turn, marks a demographic shift
for cottage country's population.
"These are people who want easy
access right to the front door of their cottage, they want hospitals nearby,
they want paved roads, they want garbage pick-up ... and that is going to
change cottaging," Mr. Zikovitz said.
Another major real estate organization,
RE/MAX, said it is not just Canadians flooding into the Canadian cottage
market "like never before" but also Americans and Europeans.
"Canadian residential real estate
represents great value to American and European purchasers," it said.
"Given current property values in prime international recreational
destinations such as Cape Cod, Nantucket, the Hamptons, Aspen, and Vail,
many of these Canadian markets are undervalued."
"The level of demand we are
experiencing is unprecedented," said RE/MAX vice-president Elton Ash.
The current low level of interest rates
combined with the threat of rising rates has pushed the search for cottage
properties into overdrive, RE/MAX said in its 2004 recreational property
report.
The greatest price increases have been
for "quality" waterfront properties, it said, noting that only
one-third of markets surveyed have waterfront properties available for
$200,000 or less and only one -- Newfoundland East -- for under $100,000.
"By far the most expensive
waterfront markets were found in Salt Spring Island, Vernon, Muskoka,
Penticton and the Sunshine Coast -- where starting prices exceeded $500,000
-- and Wasaga Beach [Ont.]," it said.
"The waterfront is becoming an
exclusive retreat for affluent purchasers," said Michael Polzler,
another RE/MAX vice-president. "Purchasers of more modest means will
have to compromise to realize their goal of ownership."
As for P.E.I. and the campaign to ban the
north shore cottages, Mr. Soper of Royal LePage calls it "a classic
case study in changing land use." Rising demand and the 13% increase in
waterfront prices are a boon for farmers looking to take advantage of their
land's value, he said.
But Mr. Campbell
is adamant that the proper industry for Charlottetown to promote is tourism,
not cottaging. "Why would people keep coming to Prince Edward Island to
see cottages?" he said.
- by Joseph Brean
National
Post
18 May 2004
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