GREAT OUTLOOKS DRAW-LOWER MAINLANDERS TO KELOWNA
Community spirit, proximity to nature and big-city offerings among the draws of Kelowna development
Laurel Stein and Dwight Willett considered their options carefully when they first started thinking five years ago about moving from their townhouse in West Vancouver. They were looking for a new kind of lifestyle — more relaxed, closer to nature and less rushed than the Lower Mainland. They looked at the Sunshine Coast and Bowen Island, but in the end, they settled on Kelowna.
Stein has a simple explanation for their decision: “Because it’s really nice,” she says.
Following a vacation in Kelowna in 2014, when they rented a house in the Wilden neighbourhood, a picturesque hillside community north of downtown Kelowna, they decided to buy a lot and build their dream home.
“When we were in the Wilden vacation home for those three weeks, everything just felt really good,” says Stein. “One day, we drove up to the Wilden presentation centre and looked at the show homes and put our name down for a lot.”
Willett says they had considered Kelowna before, but this time it was different. They broke ground on their new 3,500-square-foot home in July last year and moved in on May 28.
“We were looking for the right feel, and we knew this was it,” he adds.
He says they could not have built the kind of home they have in Wilden anywhere in the Lower Mainland for the same price.
“We wanted to create a bit of a destination; an opportunity to have friends and family come and visit and stay with us and not be packed in. We already have people lining up to visit us, and that was part of what we hoped to achieve,” says Willett.
Being close to nature is important to Stein.
Spread over 2,000 acres, Wilden encompasses natural ponds, panoramic ridges and a wide network of trails.
“We can walk out of our front door and be in nature in about 30 seconds,” she says. “Wilden has been developed so that there are pockets of nature interspersed among the homes.”
For Willett, who needs to travel for work, proximity to the airport is important.
“I have to be in Vancouver or Toronto every couple of weeks and we have really great connections from Kelowna, including a direct flight to Toronto once a day,” he says. “On a recent trip, it took me 20 minutes to get to the airport from our home and another 10 minutes to get through security, so my transit time was probably two hours less than getting to Toronto from Vancouver.”
The couple were also pleasantly surprised by Kelowna’s cultural and entertainment offerings.
“Eating out, for example, is easy,” says Stein. “Everything is so close by.”
She was also not expecting such a diverse demographic in the city.
“We expected most people to be older, but that’s not the case. There’s a good mix of ages and interests. The vibe is really good; it’s an ‘alive’ vibe,” she adds.
They have found a much stronger community spirit in Wilden than they experienced when they lived in Vancouver.
“We’ve been in our house for only three weeks and were building it for 10 months, but we’ve already met every single one of our neighbours here,” says Stein. “When we lived in a condo in downtown Vancouver, the only people we met were those on strata council with me, and it was a similar situation at our townhouse in West Vancouver.”
Karin Eger-Blenk, director of Blenk Development Corp., the family-owned company developing Wilden, says she hears similar comments from new residents every day.
“I don’t think there are many places in the world where you can live in such a beautiful setting and still so close to a vibrant city,” she says. “Time is our most precious asset. Living in Wilden, you simply have more of it, because you never have long commutes.”
While community oriented, Kelowna is by no means a small town. With a population of approximately 123,000, it’s the larg- est city in the Okanagan Valley. The airport is the third busiest in B.C. and the economy is varied and diverse with a strong focus on tourism, the wine industry, regional agriculture and services.
The recent opening of the $35-million, 104,000-square-foot Okanagan Centre for Innovation in downtown Kelowna was hailed as a symbol of the city’s transformation into a top technology and economic hub.
Kelowna’s economic outlook was one of the factors that attracted Cameron Dodd. He recently started a new job as development and planning manager with Blenk Development Corp., the developer of Wilden.
He purchased a townhouse under construction in the neighbourhood and will move in with his wife and son this summer. He is currently commuting from his home in Port Moody.
“There are several reasons why we decided to make the move, but lifestyle is the main one,” he says. “We were really attracted by outdoor recreation activities the area provides; proximity to nature and local amenities like ski resorts, wineries, the lake and hiking. And, of course, the Okanagan is known for its good weather.”
Dodd believes that getting away from what he calls “the hustle and bustle” of Vancouver will contribute to a better work-life balance. Affordability was also a big factor.
“We were feeling a bit priced out of the Vancouver market and I didn’t feel comfortable taking on the level of debt we would have needed to buy another place in the Lower Mainland, so we started looking elsewhere,” says Dodd.
Their new townhouse is twice the square footage of their Port Moody condo and cost less than what they sold the condo for.
None of this comes as a surprise to Tom Dyas, president of the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce.
“We are hearing more and more about new residents who have moved to Kelowna to pursue their careers and maintain a lifestyle that fits their expectations – and their budgets,” he says.
Dyas points out that the Kelowna metropolitan region has been Canada’s fastest-growing metro region for the past three years.
“The city is making investments to make sure Kelowna is a place where other people want to invest,” he adds. “Investing in a healthy community makes economic sense. ”
A big chunk of that investment is in real estate. In a recent presentation to the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce, Central 1 Credit Union chief economist Helmut Pastrick said the city’s economic outlook was positive, driven partly by rising real estate prices, which he expects to keep trending upwards.
Earlier this month, the Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board reported the number of residential sales in the region in May was up 35.5 per cent compared to May last year with the average price rising to $486,636, an increase of 15 per cent over May 2015.
The board said a number of factors contributed to current market conditions, with population growth a key one for the Okanagan.
“We’ve not seen the impact that we might have expected with the drop in Albertans buying retirement and recreation properties,” said board president Anthony Bastiaanssen, who noted the void was being filled by more buyers from the Lower Mainland and other regions of B.C.
Corie Griffiths, manager of the Central Okanagan Economic Development Corporation, agrees.
“For many years, Alberta was the second highest proportion of buyers of real estate property in the Kelowna area, and now it’s Vancouverites.,” she says. “It’s driven primarily by the Lower Mainland. That’s a shift we’ve seen very suddenly.”
She believes Kelowna’s “unparalleled lifestyle”, paired with the professional and investment opportunities and development in infrastructure, are among the main attractions.
“All those variables are developing at a very fast pace at the same time, and that’s what’s positioned us well for growth,” adds Griffiths.