Sometimes it's best to just ignore the talk and just follow the money.
It's not what people say they do, it's what they do with their hard-earned cash that reveals their true beliefs.
Folks in southern B.C. and the Lower Mainland love knocking us country bumpkins up north, trapped in the cold and snow and the bush, our brains as small as our pickups are large. They are better because their weather is gentler, their scenery is nicer, there is more to do at night and there's more of them to confirm they're right.
But their money tells a different story.
Barbara Yaffe's column in the Vancouver Sun this week shows how Vancouver residents, the ones serious about making money, are laying their bets down in Dawson Creek, Fort St. John and Kitimat, instead of Nanaimo, Kelowna and Kamloops.
The bargains Lower Mainland investors are finding in real estate, in particular, has opened up a flood of city money coming to the rural hinterland.
Even in the red-hot markets in Dawson Creek and Fort St. John, housing is still cheap compared to the Lower Mainland and the return on investment available once these properties are rented make them far more attractive for far less risk than the options available anywhere in Greater Vancouver.
Although Yaffe doesn't mention Prince George in her column, many local real estate agents have southern B.C. clients always on the lookout for investment opportunities. What they see in Prince George is a regional hub for education, transportation, business, social services and retail whose real estate market is one of the cheapest in the province to buy into.
Wisely, Yaffe ends her column pointing out that there's no such thing as guaranteed money and resource booms and busts are part of this region's history.
What she doesn't mention is why the past may have no bearing on the future. History repeating itself is a lazy and ignorant view of history. As the regional economy continues to diversify, not just in the resource development sector with forestry, minerals, oil and gas, but with education, health services, tourism and shipping, the economic roller-coaster ride shouldn't be quite so rough going forward. There will always be winners and losers in certain sectors but the overall economy of central and northern B.C., particularly in the larger centres, is showing signs of being more resilient than ever before.
That resiliency and those attractive real estate prices are getting more than a few Vancouver residents to ignore the negative chatter and see the financial opportunities available beyond Hope.
That's good for them and it's good for us, too.
