The record sale of an $8.4 million property at Pemberton in September highlights a strong B.C. luxury resort and residential market with accelerating sales and prices despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since the economy has opened, we have seen unprecedented interest in properties with more land and privacy,” said John Ryan, an agent with Whistler Real Estate Co.
Ryan’s recent record-breaking sale of the 41-acre luxury property in Pemberton, located minutes from Whistler, B.C.’s top ski resort, fetched the highest residential real estate price that Pemberton has ever seen – $8.47 million – within weeks of listing. The residence features acres of lawns, gardens, a pond, an orchard, farmland, outbuildings and dirt bike courses.
“These large luxury properties are a hot commodity right now and are selling quickly and for more money,” Ryan said. “In Whistler and Pemberton alone, we have seen 13 sales over $5 million this year.”
Overall, within the Whistler and Pemberton real estate market, in the first six months of 2020, the average sale price had increased 54 per cent to $2.4 million in 2020 from $1.9 million in 2019. That resulted in a 22 per cent dollar volume increase. The unit volume has grown 52 per cent, with 32 sales in 2020 versus 19 in 2019’s first half, according to Whistler Real Estate Co. data.
In West Vancouver – considered a resort location by some well-heeled international investors – the new Sentinel, a 122-unit luxury condominium tower, pre-sold 54 condos in June alone, including a $6 million penthouse, reports Cameron McNeill, a partner at MLA Canada.
As of August, the West Vancouver composite home price was up 5.7 per cent from a year earlier to $2.17 million, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
On resort-like Bowen Island off the coast of West Vancouver, the composite home price has soared 17.8 per cent since the pandemic began in March – the highest increase in the Metro region – to more than $1 million.
Figures show that some Canadians have seen their net income increase during the pandemic, despite its recessionary affect, due to a surge in financial markets and in real estate values.
For example, according to a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ B.C. office, Canada’s top 20 billionaires amassed an average of nearly $2 billion each in wealth in the six months ending this September, for a combined total of $37 billion.
Appreciation of expensive real estate is part of the equation.
According to the Royal LePage Luxury Properties Report, released September 29, the median value of a luxury house in Metro Vancouver increased 8.6 per cent – about $352,000 – since the onset of the pandemic in mid-March, to $4.1 million. During the same period, the median price of a luxury condominium rose 10 per cent to just over $2 million
Royal LePage defines luxury property as having a value three times higher than the median price of a house or condominium in its region.
“It has only been the past few months that we have seen clear signs of improving demand and price appreciation for properties above $5 million,” noted Jason Soprovich, sales representative with Royal LePage Sussex in Vancouver.
