High-flying prices for recreational properties likely to continue to soar
EDMONTON The average value of Alberta recreational properties is the highest in Canada and prices should continue to rise this year, a Royal LePage report released Wednesday says.
Prices are expected to rise by 8.2 per cent to an average of $770,100, about $235,000 more than secondplace Ontario, according to estimates provided in late May by 200 of the company ’s recreational real estate advisers.
The increase will be led by a 14.5 per cent jump in Canmore houses backing on the Bow River to an astonishing $3.2 million, almost twice the cost of the country ’s next most expensive recreational housing in Ontario’s Muskoka region.
“Canmore benefits from a limited amount of (competing) recreational property,” says Tom Shearer, owner of Edmonton’s Royal LePage Noralta Real Estate.
“The next thing that makes it special is that there isn’t really much opportunity for it to grow. There’s a limited amount of land there to develop.”
The market will likely be much more quiet in the Edmonton area by the end of the holiday season in September.
The bill for property on Wabamun Lake and Lac Ste. Anne is projected to increase this year by 1.9 per cent to $629,000, while Pigeon Lake properties are seen rising by 1.1 per cent to $565,000.
Values on Pine Lake southeast of Red Deer are expected to see a 2.5 per cent drop to $585,000, while Sylvan Lake prices are forecast to decrease five per cent to $950,000.
Places on Sylvan remain near $1 million because there aren’t many other good swimming holes in the region, Shearer says.
“Guys from Ontario and B.C., when they see it, say ‘What makes this so great?’ … It’s simply the only place we can go.”
People in their mid-30s to early50s looking for somewhere to take their families will be the biggest purchasers of Alberta recreational housing, he says.
Shearer thinks the best chance for investment profits around Edmonton is Pigeon Lake, which he feels is likely to resolve concerns about water quality that have led to negative publicity over the years.
Values in the Okanagan Valley, a popular destination for Albertans, are projected to rise by as much as 7.8 per cent, with lakefront real estate worth an anticipated $1.3 million.
But the report anticipates the country’s biggest price change will involve a 25 per cent increase for lakefront homes near 100 Mile House, 200 kilometres northwest of Kamloops. They’ll be worth an estimated $394,000.
However, a new land speculation tax is expected to help push down average prices across B.C. by almost three per cent in 2018 as Albertans look more in their own province for getaway locations, the report says.