Salmon Arm, Shuswap compared to rest of BC's demand for luxury homes

Sales of luxury homes in B.C. are hot. So far this year 59 homes have sold for more than $3 million in West Vancouver, and 64 on Vancouver's west side.

(*year-to-date, 20 homes in the Shuswap have sold for more than $1mil. 2/20 sold just over $2mil of which both were lakeshore homes.)

In all of 2006, just 50 sold for more than $3 million in West Vancouver, and 64 on the west side.

(*12 homes in the Shuswap sold for more than $1mil of which 1/12 sold just a titch over $2mil.)

There's more demand than supply, top-end realtor Allan Mark Angell, who usually has 35 to 50 luxury listings, said yesterday.

"I have 17 to 18 right now," said Angell, who specializes in luxury sales in West Vancouver and the west side.

"I'm knocking on doors to find expensive houses.

"The reason it's kept going is lack of product. If you want oceanfront in close, good luck in trying to find one. After one that's $14.8 million, that's it."

B.C. leads Canada in asking prices, with 124 properties listed on MLS.ca at $5 million or more. Ontario has 45 properties at that level and Alberta 22.

Topping the list of B.C.'s most expensive homes is a $28.5-million waterfront home in the Uplands neighbourhood of Oak Bay. Others among Canada's top 10 include a $25-million Shaughnessy estate in Vancouver; an oceanfront home in Metchosin for $24 million; two Whistler homes valued at $22 million and $20 million; and one in Saanich at $18.5 million.

Angell said he knows a property in West Vancouver that closed in March for $5.3 million. Two months later he brought the owner an offer for $7.2 million that he rejected.

In Whistler, Ann Chiasson of Sea to Sky Premier Properties said: "The big picture on the luxury market is it's good."

Angell, a realtor when prices crashed in 1981, saw lots of product and interest rates at 18 per cent.

"Now our rates are still good and we don't have a big increase in product," he said. "So what's going to change the market?

"I don't see anything on the horizon that's going to change it. Yet everybody is saying it's about to."

Senior market analyst Robyn Adamache of the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corp. said population growth and jobs are driving B.C.'s strong housing market.

"We're still seeing very high demand for housing and that's being fuelled mainly by strong levels of migration coming into the region, as well as a vibrant economy that's creating a lot of jobs," said Adamache.

"We've had about 35,000 jobs created this year in Greater Vancouver."

(prepared by Frank Luba/Vancouver Province)

*mls sales from Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board