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Media Coverage
The National Post, October 26, 2007 Island Retreat; Baby Boomers will put pressure on Vancouver Island real estate By Robert Remington Please scroll down for the article
Island Retreat Albertans Randy and Maggie Komar were hesitant to make the move to Vancouver Island four years ago. Islands, after all, are by their very nature isolated. Would they be too dependent on the B.C. ferry system? Could they cope with the West Coast's infamous rain? Would they get bored? Today, they wonder why it took them so long to make the move. "I have a palm tree in a pot that actually has hope of growing," says Ms. Komar. "There really are people here with palm trees. One of our neighbours has a banana tree. They have to wrap it up in winter, but they have a banana tree." Consistently rated the top island in North America by Conde Naste Traveler, Vancouver Island is 460 kilometres long and up to 80 kilometres wide, about the size of Israel. "I was skeptical about moving here because of the ferry situation, but we have absolutely everything," Mr. Komar says. The Komars are among the leading edge of a generation that analysts say will put upward pressure on the still relatively affordable Vancouver Island real estate market for years to come. "With our climate being so nice, I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg of the Baby Boomers coming this way," says Jennifer Lynch, president of the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board, which represents the island market north of Victoria. Despite a record-setting summer, Vancouver Island still has comparative affordability. The Vancouver Island Real Estate Board reported that after its sixth consecutive month of increases in August, September prices were off 1%, to an average single family home price of $337,772 -- compared to $470,888 in Calgary and $737,927 in Greater Vancouver. The Greater Victoria area reached a record average high of $576,632 in August, fuelled by 23 sales of more than $1-million, including one $5-million sale in the neighbourhood of Oak Bay. With rugged, unspoiled beauty and a Mediterranean climate to draw the wave of Baby Boomers, developers are staking claim up and down the island -- from Victoria in the south to Port Hardy in the north, and from the Comox Valley on the east side of the island to the Ucluelet-Long Beach-Tofino corridor on the west. "If you are going to retire anywhere in Canada, there's a good chance you are heading to southern Vancouver Island, Victoria or the Okanagan," says Robert Quigg, developer of Capella, a $1.4-billion "high-end lifestyle" community at Bear Mountain Golf Resort near Victoria. Quigg's 20-acre development will feature condominiums beginning in the $500,000 range with breathtaking ocean views overlooking vineyards, as well as a 150-seat restaurant and spa. Mr. Quigg says the island will benefit from a number of "push-and-pull" factors over the next 10 years. "You are going to see a lot of buyers attracted here by climate," he says. "There will also be a push factor from growth cities like Calgary with people seeking a quieter lifestyle. As a retirement destination, it also offers the security of the Canadian heath-care system." Victoria, says Mr. Quigg, is shedding its reputation as a charming but rather sleepy city. "I grew up here and it was the 'newlyweds and the nearly-deads,' but now I don't see that at all. It has changed a lot. There is a lot of growth. It's not New York or Boston, for sure, but Victoria is a very desirable place to live." Vancouver Island and the nearby Sunshine Coast on the mainland northwest of Vancouver are at the centre of a perfect real estate storm, according to James Askew, president of rareEarth Project Marketing. The area offers beauty, good value, temperate weather and he agrees that there's an emerging Baby Boom demographic that will drive values in the region for the next 10 to 20 years. "What's happening with Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast is that people in their 40s and early 50s on up are seeing it as an area that has been relatively untapped. It is a big island with great opportunities." For Calgary real estate developer Peter Ruben, it was a no-brainer to seek opportunities on the Sunshine Coast. Three years ago, he bought the Lord Jim's Resort Hotel northwest of Sechelt and turned it into Rockwater Secret Cove Resort, an idyllic getaway that is receiving notice from international travel magazines. Mr. Ruben then began developing Whittakers, a waterfront community of 25 single-family homes, ranging from $700,000 to $1.7-million, at Pender Harbour, which has a low-bank waterfront with a private deepwater marina. Mr. Ruben was immediately attracted to the Pender Harbour area, a yachting paradise known as "Billionaire's Bay" for its summer influx of boats and where the Vancouver and Seattle Yacht Clubs have northern chapters. "Growing up in Calgary, I can't explain my love of the sea," says Mr. Ruben, 60, who spent 3.5 years sailing around the world while in his early 20s. "Pender is so beautiful. It is one of the great harbours of the world." B.J. Turner, sales director with S&P Destination Properties, agents for Wyndansea Oceanfront Golf Resort on Vancouver Island's west coast, says "all the stars have aligned" for the region. "It is one of the most temperate climates in the nation, if not the most temperate climate. It offers a diversity of experience you can't find anywhere else in Canada -- fishing, surfing, whale watching, sea kayaking, storm watching. It's those kinds of recreation, adventure, lifestyle and active retirement opportunities that people are looking for," he says. Wyndansea Oceanfront Golf Resort is a 370-acre development on 5.6 kilometres of coastline that will feature a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course and an enclave of 30 home sites. It also plans oceanfront hotel-condominium suites in what is being billed as the most environmentally sustainable five-star hotel in Canada, using renewable energy systems including seawater geo-thermal exchange, tidal power and solar energy. James Askew says Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast have a special magic that epitomizes a growing emotional need to live in a special place. "The psychology has always been there, along with the desire, to own recreational property," he says. "In a previous generation it would be a little cabin on the lake or the ocean but it was not bought with an economic end in mind. It was mostly emotional, a place to spend time away with family. If you bought a place in the 1950s it was still basically the same in value until about 1970. "Once people realized there was an economic as well as an emotional advantage to it, that's when this market really took off, and it was the Baby Boomers that drove it. Suddenly, there was a real need, rather than just a want, to get away. In the sensory overload of today's time-starved world, people wanted to spend more time with children and parents, and that ramped up demand for these prime locations. "What we are seeing now in the recreational and retirement property world is that people won't buy just on good price. It has to be place where they really want to be. They need to have an emotional attachment to it, and if they find it, they will almost pay whatever it takes." For Mr. Ruben, nothing could be more true. When the show home at Whittakers was built, he couldn't bring himself to sell it. "It is stunning. It is soul moving. This is where I want to die," he says. "Put me there, wrap me up, and let me go."
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Reprinted from The National Post |
