Wendy Stueck, Globe & Mail, February 2, 2007
VANCOUVER — With the removal of some of its privately owned lands from provincial tree-farm licences, Duncan-based Western Forest Products Inc. now has the right to subdivide and sell wooded properties that in some cases are within an hour’s drive of Victoria.
And although those parcels account for a small portion of the lands freed up under an agreement with the province this week,
Derrick Penner, CanWest News Services – Victoria Times-Colonist, January 4, 2007
The number of real-estate millionaires in British Columbia’s skyrocketing real estate market nearly doubled in 2006.
Data from the 2007 B.C. property assessments, crunched by Landcor Data Corp., shows that B.C. is home to 51,059 properties valued at over $1 million.
That figure was 26,557 in 2006.
The biggest group of new paper millionaires were homeowners.
Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun, January 4, 2007
The number of real-estate millionaires in B.C.’s real estate market nearly doubled in 2006.
Data from the 2007 property assessments, crunched by Landcor Data Corp., shows that B.C. is home to 51,059 residential properties valued at more than $1 million.
That figure was 26,557 in 2006.
Most new paper millionaires own single-family houses. There are 38,027 such homes worth more than $1 million according to 2007 property assessments —
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.”