Asian offshore buyers already own at least two other units in Coal Harbour area, realtor says
Derrick Penner
Sun
The penthouse of the luxe, yet-to-be-built Two Harbour Green project has been sold for $7.75 million to an Asian offshore buyer, a record for high-end condo properties that provides more evidence the top of Vancouver’s market is in a rarefied air all its own.
Realtor George Wong, with Platimum Project Marketing Group, Macdonald Realty, said it tops the $6.02 million paid in a pre-sale for the penthouse of Two Harbour Green’s sister building, One Harbour Green.
The $7.75 million for the new 5,950-square-foot penthouse suite works out to just over $1,300 per square foot, compared to the $1,100 per square foot paid for the penthouse of Yaletown’s Pomaria building.
“Vancouver is definitely attracting the super-wealthy, world-travelling, want-the-best kind of a set,” Wong said.
Grace Sartori, marketing coordinator for Platinum Project Marketing, said the city has been attracting a lot of attention because of surveys, such as the Economist’s magazine’s ranking of Vancouver both as the world’s most livable city and best destination for business travellers.
Wong said the buyers for Two Harbour Green’s penthouse are familiar with the Coal Harbour neighbourhood. They already own property in the area, and took a suite in the One Harbour Green building.
He added the buyers aren’t sure if the penthouse will be their primary home, or an alternate residence, but many of his sales have been made to buyers purchasing second, third or fourth homes.
And the $7.75 million price for the penthouse did not surprise Wong. Pre-sales for Two Harbour Green’s suites opened in June, and virtually sold out in a matter of weeks at an average price over $2.5 million.
“There’s a lot of money pouring in from around the world and the rest of Canada, especially Alberta,” Wong said.
Alberta buyers, he said, are “recreational purchasers.”
The New York Times, in June, linked Vancouver to a world real estate boom fuelled by cheap credit and globalization that has seen prices spike in cities that urban economists call “primate cities” — cosmopolitan places where the very wealthy like to visit and play.
Georges Pahud, president of the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board, said a significant group of influential people are recognizing Vancouver as desirable, so “it’s not surprising that we’re coming up close to what is reasonably close to top-class prices with our world-class real estate.”
Pahud added that the top-end of the world’s market in places such as Manhattan in New York are likely higher, but the above-average New York price is probably in the $1,000 US per square foot range.
“A lot of very wealthy people are choosing Vancouver as a place to live or for their second or third home,” he said.
Bob Rennie, a Vancouver realtor specializing in condominiums and high-end projects, sold the penthouse suite at the as-yet unbuilt Shangri-La for $7.4 million some months ago.
Rennie, who is now marketing the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel project, said a lack of waterfront property is driving up prices.
“We’re an international city and it seems that downtown moves … on world attention,” Rennie said. “The rest of our market moves on wage and job stability.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
