New forecast says a record-shattering 700,000 homes will sell across Canada in 2021

Sean MacKay
Livabl

Canada’s housing market was so hot in February that it forced the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) to revise its national home sales forecast for 2021 significantly higher.

In an update published today, CREA says it now expects 701,000 homes to sell across Canada this year. If this forecast plays out, that will mean nearly 150,000 more homes will have changed hands this year than the national total for 2020, the current annual home sales record-holder.

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This update represents a substantial increase to CREA’s previous 2021 forecast published at the end of 2020. At that time, the realtor association said it expected about 583,600 homes to sell in 2021.

Since then, homebuying activity across the country has continued to soar, with both January and February setting all-time records for sales. Along with its updated forecast, CREA announced today that home sales in February were up nearly 40 percent from a year ago and were 6.6 percent higher on a month-over-month basis. February 2021 beat the previous all-time sales high for the month by over 13,000 transactions.

CREA Senior Economist Shaun Cathcart speculated in a media release that accompanied the new data that there are a few factors contributing to the long streak of record-breaking monthly sales totals.

“We are right at the start of the first undisturbed (by policy or lockdown) spring housing market in years and we also have the most extreme demand-supply imbalance ever by a large margin,” Cathcart said.

“I think part of it is demand that built up as a result of regulatory changes in the years leading up to COVID that is playing out now. Part of it is demand that is being pulled forward from the future either in search of a home base to ride out the pandemic, or to lock down a purchase amid rapidly rising prices while securing a record low mortgage rate,” he added.

Another big factor, according to the CREA economist, is the increasing number of long-time homeowners with substantial equity deciding to move because of COVID-related preference changes. First-time buyers are having to compete with more of these big-budget buyers, which is only ratcheting up the competitiveness in the market.

Even as 2021 is shaping up to be another record-breaking year for Canada’s housing market, the experts at CREA don’t believe the sales numbers are sustainable through the entire year. The association is forecasting a gradual decline to more typical activity levels by the second half of the year and into 2022.

 

© 2020 BuzzBuzzHome Corp.

The new Canada: How COVID-19 pushed real estate buyers into the hinterland

Tristan Hopper
The Vancouver Sun

A promotional shot from Live for the Moment NB, a campaign by the Government of New Brunswick to lure remote workers to the province. Photo by Live for the Moment NB

It was last June when Haligonians started noticing something weird was happening. After weeks of hibernation, their real estate market had suddenly exploded into bidding wars, with some sellers reporting “30 or 40 offers on a single property.” At first, analysts brushed it off as “pent-up demand,” but then the prices just kept climbing — not just in Halifax, but across the Atlantic coast.

For years, Atlantic Canada has been a land of almost comically cheap real estate. Where Victorian mansions sold for less than a Toronto bachelor pad, and where historic churches in dying small towns could be picked up for $1. But after decades of losing people to Ontario, COVID-19 — and Atlantic Canada’s relative safety from the virus — was sending them all right back.

Charlottetown realtor Michael Poczynek summed up the view of his Ontario clients plotting a move to the Atlantic time zone: “We can’t get out of here fast enough.”

  The PEI capital currently has an average housing price of $331,760. Photo by File

   

One of the most unexpected repercussions of the latter half of the COVID-19 pandemic has been an unmitigated explosion in coast-to-coast real estate prices. What’s more, there has been an unprecedented exodus of Canadian home-buyers to so-called “secondary markets”: The East Coast, the Okanagan, even the Yukon Territory. In a post-pandemic Canada that has seen workers untethered from the traditional centres of finance and industry, the country’s real estate future is increasingly lying with the likes of Barrie, Lethbridge and Charlottetown.

In RE/MAX’s most recent report on the state of the Canadian housing market, one area stood out above nearly all others: Muskoka, Ontario. In just one year, house prices in cottage country had jumped by a dizzying 20.3 per cent. For any Muskokaites who owned a $350,000 rancher at the beginning of 2020, each day of the COVID-19 pandemic saw their home jump in value by an average of $200.

Muskoka’s COVID-19 property rise dwarfs even the most ridiculous highs of Calgary in the grip of early 2000s oil fever. The cottage country surge is matched only by the most eye-watering days of Vancouver’s real estate surge. The West Coast metropolis needed avalanches of foreign cash to push up its real estate prices by an unprecedented 20.9 per cent in 2016. Muskoka, by contrast, did it when the borders are closed and the economy is in the toilet.

 Muskoka: The extremely quaint face of one of Canada’s hottest real estate markets. Photo by Getty

 

While Muskoka is one of the most dramatic examples, all throughout Ontario it is clear that tourist towns, retirement communities and once-flagging industrial centres are seeing their real estate gobbled up at shocking rates. Collingwood, Ont., population 21,000, saw price rises of 19.5 per cent. Homes on the Niagara peninsula spiked by 19 per cent. Even Windsor, the capital of Ontario’s oft-embattled auto sector, saw house prices shoot up by 21 per cent in 2020 to an average of $406,000. This is a city where, only five years ago, the average house cost less than $175,000.

Typically, real estate prices in secondary Canadian markets retain at least a cursory link to economic realities. An Edmonton home rides the tide of an oil boom, while a Port Renfrew home feels the pinch of a forestry collapse. But this boom is striking almost everywhere at once — particularly in smaller cities. If you live anywhere that has the occasional cougar or bear sighting, the ground beneath your feet almost certainly ranks as one of the country’s fastest earning investments.

Interior British Columbia is still riding one of the greatest real estate price explosions in its history. “Buyers snapped up homes almost as soon as they were listed,” Association of Interior Realtors president Kim Heizmann said in a statement earlier this week. Just this week, Kelowna saw the listing of something that has never before existed in the non-Vancouver parts of B.C.: A $10 million condo penthouse.

A rendering of the $10 million penthouse at Kelowna’s One Water Street.

After years of darkness brought about by oil price collapses, cancelled pipelines and government austerity, Alberta saw real estate rise 7.5 per cent over the course of 2020, with some of the most dramatic movement in smaller centres. Cochrane, Alta., saw properties snapped up at their list prices after 500 days on the market. The small Alberta town of Coaldale just reported its first-ever million-dollar-home sale.

Even the North, usually insulated from the real estate travails of southern Canada, is seeing homes bid up by a wave of newcomers. In Whitehorse, Yukon, the average house gained $73,100 in value over 2020, an increase of 13.9 per cent over pre-pandemic levels.

 

None of this was supposed to be happening. It was only in May that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation was forecasting nationwide real estate price dips of between nine and 18 per cent. Instead, 2021 is now expected to yield nationwide gains of five per cent.

RE/MAX, for its part, attributes the whole phenomenon to a trend of households “relocating to less-dense cities and neighbourhoods.” An Okanagan realtor interviewed by Global News speculated that in a world without travel or live entertainment, households were better able to stash away money for a down payment. The Brookfield Institute, a Toronto-based think-tank, has echoed the beliefs of many in a recent report pointing to a “rural boom” brought about by the popularization of remote work. Statistics Canada reports that an incredible 38 per cent of Canadian workers can plausibly work from home, representing untold millions whose only criteria for a home is whether it has an internet connection.

Collingwood, Ont., which saw real estate prices rise more than 19 per cent in 2020. Photo by Peter J. Thompson

The financial factor undergirding all this, of course, is Canada’s rock-bottom interest rates. “Interest rates have been dropping for 40 years, which means basically the only market that homebuyers have known is one where rates were lower every time they renewed their mortgage,” B.C. real estate analyst Leo  Spalteholz told the National Post by email. COVID-19 has driven Canada’s cheap-debt binge into overdrive. The Bank of Canada announced this week it is holding rates steady at 0.25 per cent — the rate it has held throughout the entire pandemic.

Nevertheless, the data also shows that a seismic cultural shift is underway as Canadians flee the cities for lives in the country. Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal all saw record population losses under COVID-19 as residents filtered out into surrounding low-density municipalities. Statistics Canada chalked some of this up to “personal health” reasons as Canadians ditched “large urban centres hardest hit by the pandemic.”

Canada is essentially experiencing a micro version of what’s happened in pandemics throughout history. The Black Death in Europe spurred its own exodus to the countryside, most famously sending Isaac Newton into the rural isolation where he invented calculus. In the great smallpox outbreaks that battered Indigenous North America in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, groups in what is now B.C. abandoned sprawling coastal villages and moved to impromptu doomsday shelters on small islands or remote coves.

The effects on Canada’s 21^st century urban centres won’t be nearly as dramatic, but within months of the first COVID-19 lockdowns, an entire generation that had planned to spend their days living in condos and riding the subway were suddenly buying cars and moving to the hinterlands.

The private car market, by the way, is undergoing its own curious renaissance. In September 2020, just as the rural boom began hitting its stride, Canadians bought $7.6 billion worth of automobiles, making it the 13^th most car-buying month in Canadian history — not bad for a time when unemployment stood at nine per cent.

 

© 2021 Vancouver Sun

Mount Pleasant commercial building project launches with own playlist

Joanne Lee -Young
The Vancouver Sun

Brian Roche, president of Rendition Developments, with a record and a brochure of the Fifth + Columbia building in Vancouver, on March 9. Roche worked with Rob Edmonds to produce a vinyl music album and Spotify list of nine songs by local artists. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

One developer of a Mount Pleasant commercial building is taking a different tack to attract tenants.

Instead of just another glossy brochure with stock images, Brian Roche, president of Rendition Developments, worked with Rob Edmonds to produce a vinyl music album and Spotify list of nine songs by local artists.

It’s very Vancouver, and why shouldn’t a real estate property come to market with its own playlist of eclectic tunes? Listeners can shuffle-play Fifth + Columbia’s A New Kind of You to get a sense of the planned four-storey building and its location.

“Mushroom Studios was down the street. It was the big one, but there’s a few other smaller (music) studios around,” said Roche. “There’s a lot of artists that rent space for practising so there’s a big kind of art scene in this general area.”

Edmonds is a founding partner at design firm Evoke. He also sings and plays bass for The Wivez, which has the album and playlist’s title track, Off and On.

“I wanted to have bands that had recorded in this neighbourhood,” said Edmonds.

They were able to “walk that tightrope” with the artists, offering exposure for their work and the chance to be on vinyl to balance that line of promoting a “commercial venture-like development.”

“It wasn’t like we were commissioning (the songs),” said Edmonds.

Developers are “absolutely” doing more to get the attention of brokers and tenants, said Vancouver-based Ross Moore, senior vice-president at Cresa, who advises companies on leasing.

“No trips to Hawaii,” he said jokingly of the pandemic brouhaha over executives and politicians travelling to sunny places against public health advice. “But (there are) bonus commissions, Visa (gift) cards and the like.”

The incentives vary depending on location and type of building, he said.

Some developers may more creatively court potential tenants because they need to make leasing targets to qualify for construction financing.

In the case of Fifth + Columbia, however, Roche said, because of the project’s smaller size, he’s able to build first and then get tenants as it’s completed in two years.

The combined vacancy rate for office and industrial, for lease and for sale, for the Mount Pleasant area is currently quite high at 12.4 per cent, “but it’s not in the stratosphere,” said Moore.

There’s not a lot of sublease space on offer, meaning tenants aren’t wanting to get out of their agreements, which has been seen in some areas. However, there is construction of new office space that is adding inventory, said Moore.

 

© 2021 Vancouver Sun

Extended rental freeze ‘a tipping point’ for smaller landlords

Frank O’Brien
Western Investor

 Demonizing landlords, extending a rental increase freeze for a full year, capping rent increases at the rate of inflation and restricting renovations in a market where most apartment buildings are more than 50 years old are all now the policy of the B.C. provincial government, based its recent legislation and statements.

“This marks a tipping point for some landlords,” said Robert Greer, a principal and multi-family specialist with Avison Young in Vancouver. “Some will throw in the towel.”

“The changes mean no more tenants will face eviction notices for phoney renovations that were never going to happen,” said Spencer Chandra Herbert, MLA for Vancouver West-End, on behalf of David Eby, Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing, in announcing the most restrictive rental rules in Canada.

The legislative changes, announced March 1, will “stop illegal renovictions” and make changes to the tenant/landlord resolution process, tilting the process to favour tenants.

“All this will have the unintended consequences of reducing the amount of rental housing available,” said Zac Killam, CEO of the Landlord Credit Bureau, who said “hundreds of small landlords” offering the least expensive rentals – basement suites, for example – are bailing out of the rental business. “The [government] has essentially taken the financial impact that tenants are facing and placed it on the back of small landlords.”

The math appears brutal, whether one is trying to rent a single suite or an entire apartment building.

Mark Goodman, managing partner of Goodman Commercial Inc., which deals almost exclusively in Metro Vancouver multi-family buildings, provided an actual example of the expense increases paid by the owner of a 20-unit rental apartment building in Vancouver between 2019 and 2020:

• Property taxes: up 24 per cent;

• Insurance costs: up 36 per cent;

• Hydro costs (heat/electricity): up 16 per cent;

• Water and sewer costs: up 10 per cent; and

• Cleaning and sanitation: a 6 per cent increase.

The landlord, however, remains under an 18-month long rental freeze and can only increase rents in 2022 by 2 per cent.

As of July 1, 2021, B.C. legislation will require property owners to apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch before they can terminate a tenancy agreement for a renovation, but landlords will likely have a hard time getting substantial work done, based on official government statements.

“By putting an end to this kind of bullying behaviour, meant to drive out long-term tenants and jack up the rent, we’re protecting renters and supporting rental housing providers who do proactive maintenance of their rental homes,” said Spencer Chandra Herbert

Buyers still bullish

Despite the government’s anti-landlord hyperbole and the rental and renovation restrictions, hardy investors still appear willing to buy B.C. apartment buildings.

Metro Vancouver saw a total of 78 multi-family rental properties sell in 2020, just one less than in 2019, according to Goodman Commercial. The dollar volume increased by 2.7 per cent year-to-year to $1.13 billion and the average per-door price rose 8 per cent to $403,000.

The January CBRE-brokered sale of a 15-building Vancouver portfolio for $292 million, to a Toronto-based real estate investment trust (REIT), shows the appetite for B.C. rentals remains keen.

In March, Greer’s Avison Young team sold a $45.5 million four-building rental portfolio in New Westminster and Burnaby. The sale was split into three parcels with local investors outbidding institutional players.

“We had an even number of what I would call institutional purchasers and private purchaser looking at them — so REITs, pension funds, groups like that were interested, as well as a lot of interest from private individual investors,” Greer told RENX.

Long-horizon, deep-pocket buyers, Greer said, are confident in the post-pandemic rental market, and are able to finance at the lowest mortgage rates ever seen.

Bob Dhillon, CEO of Calgary-based Mainstreet Equities Inc., a publicly-traded company and one of the largest landlords in Western Canada – with 14,000 rental units – told Western Investor he will launch an acquisition binge in the eastern Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island this year. Dhillon brushes off the current angst about the pandemic-chilled economy. “Real estate is a long-term play; you can’t make decisions based on a quarter-to-quarter basis,” he said.

James Blair, senior vice-president, investment with the Vancouver multi-family team at Marcus & Millichap, said his purchasing clients appear willing to deal with short-term pain for long-term gain.

“The policies introduced by various levels of government have a way of tempering the market, but it will not dictate demand,” Blair said “The multi-family market is off to a strong start in 2021 – larger portfolios have sold and others are coming to market – and there are suitors for them all. We expect a strong [first quarter 2021] in B.C., and for this to continue through the year.”

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

Five-building office portfolio in Yellowknife, NWT, sells for $2.1 million

Avison Young
Western Investor

— Avison Young, Vancouver, for Western Investor

Property type: Office building portfolio

Location: 5004-5018 50^th Avenue, Yellowknife, NWT

Number of buildings: 5

Size of property: 55,879 square feet (combined)

Size of land: 30,171 square feet (total)

Size of land in acres: 0.69 acres (total)

Zoning: DT (Downtown)

Sale price: $2.14 million

Date of sale:February 25, 2021

Brokerage: Avison Young, Vancouver

Brokers: Reed Newnham and James Robertson

 

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

Vaughn Palmer: Finance minister promises 3 times – no cuts to homeowners’ grant

Vaughn Palmer
The Vancouver Sun

 Finance Minister Selina Robinson. Photo by Submitted /Government of B.C.

VICTORIA — Finance Minister Selina Robinson insisted this week that the New Democrats have no plan to reduce the homeowner grant, even as the province takes control of the application process. 

“I can confirm that there is no intent to change the homeowner grant,” she said during debate on legislation switching applications for the grant to the province from local government, effective this year.

She was responding to the Opposition B.C. Liberals, who asked if the New Democrats were taking control of applications as a prelude to reducing the size of the grant or access to it.

“The grant amount will not be changing,” Robinson told Liberal finance critic Mike Bernier during clause-by-clause debate on the enabling legislation.

The finance minister also said the  New Democrats are “committed to” ensuring that “90 per cent of homeowners are eligible for the grant.”

She paid tribute to the historic nature of the grant, a mainstay of tax relief for homeowners since it was created by Premier W.A.C. Bennett in 1957.

“What’s before us is a grant that has existed for decades,” Robinson acknowledged.

Far from regarding the grant as a thing of the past, she says it fits the goals of the NDP housing affordability plan, which she launched as housing minister in the previous term of NDP government.

“The homeowner grant, for sure, is part of affordability,” she said. “Again, this legislation before us is not about changing the grant. It’s just about where it’s going to be administered. There is no intent to change the grant.”

The basic grant is $570 for homeowners in Vancouver, Victoria, their suburbs and the Fraser Valley. Outside those regions, it rises to $770 annually. Plus there’s a $275 top-up for seniors and persons with disabilities.

The eligibility threshold is property assessments of $1.625 million. Above that, partial grants are available.

The grant is not without its critics, some of whom refer to it as HOG — pronounced “hog” of course — to underscore how the grant scoops up such a huge share of provincial revenues. (This year’s drain is estimated at $850 million.)

Three years ago, an NDP-government appointed panel on tax reform disparaged the grant as “a regressive and unfair element of the tax system that could be significantly improved by making it income-tested and extending it to renters.”

Green Leader Sonia Furstenau referred to that recommendation this week in asking if it were “fair to assume that the government is not contemplating restructuring the homeowner grant to make it income-based and more targeted?”

In reply, Robinson reiterated for the third time: “We are not contemplating any changes to the homeowner grant.”

Rather, the main point of changing the application process was to take municipalities off the hook from having to administer the grant and vetting applications.

“I have to say that local governments really are thrilled at this,” said the minister. “It’s one less piece of work that they need to do.”

Municipalities will advise local homeowners of the need to apply to the province for the grant when the property tax notices go out in May.

But the province is already preparing an advertising campaign to let people know directly.

Robinson also promised a phone line and online registration at gov.bc.ca/homeownergrant on the government website.

For those wishing to avoid the inevitable rush and predictable crash of the site when official notices go out in May, applications are being accepted now.

Robinson was also asked why the province is requiring applicants to provide social insurance numbers, something homeowners never had to do in the decades when they applied through local government?

“The social insurance number is a common identifier for many tax programs,” explained Robinson.

“This is not an unusual component of making sure of eligibility for programs and using it to identify which citizens or permanent residents are making applications. What’s different is that we didn’t have that information (tied) to the homeowner grant.”

The Finance Ministry will use the completed applications to identify seniors and other homeowners who have not been getting their full entitlement to the grant.

SIN numbers should make it easier to prevent fraud, estimated at about three per cent or 33,000 of the 1.1 million claims filed annually.

“We’re reducing fraud and making sure that people get their full entitlements so we can, sort of, cross reference,” said Robinson.

“We need to have the tools in order to do that — to make sure that seniors are getting their full eligibility. But also making sure that people aren’t getting homeowner grants in two or three different municipalities. You’re only entitled to one homeowner grant.”

But as Robinson also conceded to Bernier: “The reality is — and the member knows this full well — that governments can use whatever information they have to help inform public policy. … That is how all governments operate.”

Her answer provided an opening for one more question from the Liberal finance critic: “This information gathered, does the minister, then, look at maybe any new housing taxes that could be applied now that she’ll have that information?

“No,” replied Robinson.

“I guess we’ll see if that answer means tomorrow or years down the road,” replied Bernier.

He thereby put down a marker against the hypothetical day when this finance minister —  or some future one — has an inclination to use the information gathered today to raise housing taxes.

 

© 2021 Vancouver Sun

Langley 1.1-acre residential land assembly sells for $8.6 million

Momentum Reality Ltd.
Western Investor

Momentum Realty Ltd., Langley, B.C., for Western Investor

Property type: Development land

Location: 200 Street at 53^rd Avenue, Langley, B.C.

Land size: 50,094 square feet

Land size in acres: 1.15 acres

Zoning: RM 3; FSR2 (floor-space ratio)

Potential: Multi-family rental building

Sale price: $8.63 million

Brokerage: Momentum Realty Ltd., Langley, B.C.

Brokers:  Josiah Cockrill and Wells Macey

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

David Rosenberg says Canada’s housing market in a ‘huge bubble’

Derek Decloet
other

Home price gains don’t make sense when the labour market is so damaged from the COVID-19 pandemic, David Rosenberg says. Photo by Getty Images/iStockphoto

Canada’s housing market is in a “huge bubble” after months of runaway price gains, according to economist David Rosenberg, who was bearish on U.S. real estate before it crashed nearly 15 years ago.

Homes sold in the Toronto region topped $1 million (US$792,000) on average for the first time last month, with some suburbs and smaller cities recording price increases of 20 per cent or more from February 2020. On Vancouver’s west side, detached homes sold for a median price of $3.3 million in the first two months of the year.

“This might be one of the biggest bubbles of all time,” Rosenberg, founder of Rosenberg Research & Associates in Toronto, said in an interview on BNN Bloomberg Television. “Of course it’s been predicated on where mortgage rates are.”

The price gains don’t make sense when the labour market is so damaged from the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. “We have a situation where home prices are up 18 per cent year-over-year with practically no wage growth,” Rosenberg said.

 

Canada did not experience a widespread housing slump similar to the one the U.S. endured in the 2007-2008 period — a slump Rosenberg predicted when he was at Merrill Lynch. Today, Canadian home prices are about 40 per cent higher than in the U.S., adjusted for currency, according to Bank of Montreal.

The recent gain caught the attention of policy makers, including the Bank of Canada, which said housing activity “has been much stronger than expected” in a rate policy statement Wednesday. It held its key short-term rate at 0.25 per cent.

With an unemployment rate of 9.4 per cent in January, the central bank is right not to worry about inflation, Rosenberg said. Statistics Canada reports February jobs data on Friday.

“We have an unemployment level in this country that’s higher than it was at the peak of the last two recessions,” he said. “So we still have a very deep, I would say, deflationary hole in the labor market. You can have all the commodity strength in the world. If you don’t have strength in the labor market, you’re not going to get any inflationary impulse.”

 

© 2021 The Province

Kelowna penthouse sets a $10 million milestone

Mariam Halpenny
Western Investor

— Lakeview condo most expensive in Okanagan history. | Sotheby’s.

High above Okanagan Lake on the 36th storey of One Water Street’s east tower, the penthouse worth $10 million is the highest-priced condo listing in the history of Okanagan real estate.

“It’s a 4,500 square-foot residential unit. It is the tallest residential unit in Kelowna and the tallest residential unit in British Columbia, outside of Vancouver,” said Henry Bereznicki with North American Development Group. “The penthouse unit is situated on the entire top floor of our 36-storey tower.”

Once complete, the luxury three-bedroom home will be complemented by an additional 2,600 square-feet of balcony space.

Developed by North American Development Group and Kerkhoff Construction, the penthouse is priced at nearly three times the highest valued condo previously sold on Multiple Listing Service in the Okanagan.

“This is a world class tower. There’s nothing like this in Kelowna. I think it really puts downtown Kelowna on the map in comparison to downtown Vancouver or downtown Calgary or Edmonton. There’s a strong urban vibe here in Kelowna now. People do want to live in the core,” Bereznicki said.

The unit features floor-to-ceiling windows and gives people a 360-degree view of Kelowna’s downtown, Lake Okanagan and surrounding mountains.

The interior space is designed by Toronto-based Gluckstein Design and the penthouse is part of One Water Street’s Reserve Collection, a selection of two-bedroom and penthouse residences.

“Our goal with the One Water Street Reserve Collection is to provide an elevated living experience for discerning buyers” said Bereznicki.

Residents of One Water Street will also get access to The Bench — a 1.3-acre area on the fourth floor with a variety of resort style amenities including two outdoor swimming pools, a hot tub, fire pits, yoga and Pilates studio, kitchen area, entertainment area and pickleball court.

“There has been a surge in demand for luxury properties outside of major metropolitan areas since the start of the pandemic, launching cities like Kelowna onto the national and global map,” said president and CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada Don Kottick.

One Water Street’s east tower features 427 condo units and is located on the corner of Water Street and Sunset Blvd, in the north-end of downtown’s cultural district.

“Half of our buyers came from Kelowna which surprised us. We thought there would be a large influx of people from other cities but basically, it’s about half Kelowna residents, about 40 per cent from the rest of British Columbia — a lot of Lower Mainland buyers and the balance would be Alberta with a handful of people from the United States.”

One Water Street is expected to be complete in 2021. The penthouse unit will be custom finished to the buyer’s requirements.

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

Prince George building permits soar 300 per cent

Arthur Williams
Western Investor

— New homes under construction in Prince George. | Citizen

The value of building permits in Prince George, B.C., continued strong, with a more than 300 per cent increase in the value of permits issued in February, compared to February 2020.

The city issued a total of 26 building permits in February, worth an estimated $6.36 million according to a report to city council March 8.. In February last year, the city issued 17 permits with a combined value of $1.83 million.

Coun. Garth Frizzell said that the city had expected a slowdown in development during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It really was a blip, and we’re coming back strong,” he said. “We’re still seeing really high dollar (values).”

Over the first two months of the year, the city issued a total of 58 permits worth a combined $17.88 million. That compares to 56 permits worth an estimated $9.53 million in the same period in 2020 and 64 permits worth a combined $16.13 million in the first two months of 2019.

Residential projects made up the bulk of the permit value in February, with permits issued for seven new single-family homes contributing $4.32 million, and two permits for new mobile homes adding $305,000.

City acting deputy manager Ian Wells said he anticipates development to continue at a brisk pace this year.

“We’re seeing a good uptake for subdivision applications and building permit application coming up,” Wells said.

 

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor