Category: Kamloops Real Estate News

This article appeared on the Kamloops Daily News on December 23rd, 2011.

Multi-family housing and home renovations kept builders busy in 2011, says the president of the Canadian Home Builders Association-Central Interior. But new house construction took a hit, a one-two punch from the global economy and uncertainty around B.C.’s Harmonized Sales Tax, Brian Hayashi said Friday.

“New homes were significantly down. We think it’s a combination of things: the bad news of the global economy. A number of realtors and homebuilders have said sales stopped when the HST vote happened,” he said.

Of course, new home sales also turned sluggish when the HST was first created, but they did pick up after about six months, he said. “This time around, we don’t know.”

His group is working on a campaign for the new year to let buyers know it’s an ideal time to purchase a new house, Hayashi said. “Costs are going down. There is no advantage in waiting for the GST/PST to come off,” he said.

While new house sales are slow — with the exception of a flurry of selling in late November — there also isn’t a lot out on the Kamloops market, he said. “The other concern is when sales do pick up, there’s going to be a shortage. And whenever there’s a shortage, prices start to go up.”

Hayashi said his company, Nexbuild, has stayed busy with commercial work and home renovations. There are also energy-savings grants that homeowners should be aware of. “We’re looking forward to things picking up in new energy retrofits, some grants and incentives out there,” he said. “The renovation market continues to be strong. The energy retrofits, people staying put and upsizing or downsizing or even just maintaining. That’s a good opportunity for local builders.”

Despite the single-family home slowdown, Kamloops’ construction demand has been fairly stable going into 2012, he said. “So I’m hoping it’ll pick up. We’re not looking at a big boom or anything, the world is going to affect us, but I would say we’re doing really well. We’re really fortunate here.”

Brian Ledoux, president of the Kamloops and District Real Estate Association, agreed with Hayashi’s observations about multi-family housing doing better than new single-family homes. “New construction and residential sales were low, just based on the way the HST rules bounced around, nobody knew what to do,” he said. “Information didn’t get out well enough for the public to understand what was happening, so they decided not to do anything.”

But used houses sold well, in fact by year’s end, the total number of homes sold was close to matching last year’s, said Ledoux. The count taken a few weeks before 2011 ended was 1,980 homes sold, compared with around 2,100 or 2,200 at the end of 2010, he said.

He knew of only one house that sold that was priced over $1 million this year, but there were several in the $700,000 to $800,000 range. Interest rates attracted first-time home buyers, he said.

House prices in Kamloops have actually been declining since 2007, but are now leveling off, said Ledoux. He predicted the housing market in 2012 will see a slow and steady increase in sales.

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This article appeared on the Kamloops Daily News on December 12th, 2011 and was written by Cam Fortems.

Sun Peaks celebrates its 50th anniversary this season. This is the second in a two-part series highlighting some of the history of the development of the ski resort.

There is no bigger or better example of the power of globalization on the economy of the Thompson region than Nippon Cable Co.’s investment at Tod Mountain.

The purchase by the privately held Japanese company of a historical ski hill in B.C.’s Interior — a hill that struggled financially through a succession of owners — ignited what would become $750 million worth of development a mere 45 minutes from downtown Kamloops.

That investment, starting with Nippon’s purchase of mountain tenure and development rights in 1992, 31 years after it opened, came at a key time for the region’s economy.

Seed capital to build lifts and create a master plan would encourage hoteliers and housing developers to put money into the resort, creating million-dollar homes, jobs and result in thousands of new tourists from Europe and Asia coming here each year.

Resort spending diversified Kamloops’ economy, helping shield the city from the shock of closure of Weyerhaeuser’s Kamloops sawmill, shut down of Teck’s original Afton project and the Convergys call centre, to name a few of the biggest that would fall in the intervening years.

While investment at New Afton and Highland Valley Copper dwarfs Nippon Cable’s investment, those companies are
Canadian.

“The biggest reason (for investment) was the potential,” said Sun Peaks Corp. vice-president and general manager Darcy Alexander.

“The Coquihalla was just built in ’87 and it opened up the Interior. The population in the Interior was growing. It had good economic prospects. The attraction of Tod was its ability to serve everyone, from beginners to experts.”

At its peak, the mountain sees about 1,300 people working on the hill, including part-timers, seasonal workers and volunteers.

The mountain is dominated by the corporation, which has a statutory seat on the resort municipality’s council. Its master plan sets out the future of development in a detailed way that municipalities typically lack.

The “corporation,” as its known on the hill, remains dominant. But Christopher Nicolson, president of Tourism Sun Peaks and one of the original key staffers on the mountain, noted there are now 83 businesses registered with the association. Most of those owners are resident.

Those businesses range from construction firms to hotels, cafes and property management companies.

“It’s diversified,” Nicolson said. “There’s been a shift in the past five or 10 years. You might have had a similar number of services with construction before, but they were based elsewhere.”

Among the original small businesses now part of the 18-year-old Sun Peaks is Bolacco Café, which set up in the Coast
Sundance Lodge in 1996.

“There was nothing here,” said Konrad Glowczynski, who co-owns the lodge along with his wife, Elizabeth.

Konrad, originally from Poland, lived in Italy and Vancouver before coming to what was largely an unknown mountain in the B.C. Interior. And like many who move to a ski resort, it was about lifestyle rather than money.

“It was a struggle in 1996,” he acknowledged.

Today, winters are busy in the peak season and August is also a good month. But Glowczynski said he and other restaurateurs would like to see more business during non-peak times, particularly during week days.

“I don’t downhill anymore,” said Glowczynski, who raised three children on the mountain. “I cross-country. I came here, not for the business, but the lifestyle.”

Alexander’s goal to increase and spread out traffic is the same, something he is confident will occur in time.

Today the resort has about 7,500 beds — a remarkable growth story considering it started from just a handful of residences on Tod Mountain.

Veteran Kamloops hotelier Tim Rodgers said the resort has undoubtedly been good for the city, but not for its hotel industry.

Before there was nightly accommodation on Tod Mountain, Kamloops hotels offered packages to out-of-town skiers. Skier visits at one hotel reached about 1,200 a year.

“Now I’m lucky if I get 10 a year,” said the Best Western Plus manager.

Sun Peaks also draws tourists who would otherwise stop in the city.

“They’re definitely a competitor,” Rodgers said. “In summer they have low rates and we lose buses. (But) for the city, it’s a huge economic gain.”

One of the biggest benefits citywide is service by WestJet from Calgary and Vancouver, something Rodgers said wouldn’t be here without the skiers that Sun Peaks attracts.

The resort is part way through phase 2 of its master plan, which anticipates 24,000 beds at build out. That will be accompanied by a second village site and more lifts on the mountain.

“For the first 15 to 18 years it rolled along just as we thought,” said Alexander, who managed the resort from Day 1, after starting with Nippon Cable at a Kelowna golf resort several years earlier.

“The recent downturn has really slowed things from a timing perspective.”

Despite that slowdown and shaken faith from the United States market in real estate investments, Alexander said the resort has grown to a place where it is sustainable.

As it is, Sun Peaks can brag on several fronts, including status of Delta Sun Peaks as the only four-diamond hotel in the area, creation of a resort municipality and presence of 11 lifts accessing 1,500 hectares of terrain.

“We have one of the bigger ski resorts in B.C. and Canada in terrain,” Alexander said. “Are we at a critical mass? Yes…. We don’t need to grow to be successful at this stage.”

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This article appeared on the Kamloops Daily News on December 12th, 2011 and was written by Catherine Litt.

A couple of weeks ago, Daily News reader Aileen Adams asked our Readers’ Reporter to track down the status of three empty lots on Tranquille Road.

The properties, all deep in the heart of the North Shore’s business district, have been vacant for years and Adams was curious to know if anything would ever come of them.

As it turns out, one of the properties has already begun a major transformation since Adams inquired.

It’s at the corner of Tranquille Road and Wood Street and is owned by Missagh Manshadi, a Kamloops pharmacist who also holds a smaller corner property at Tranquille and Elm.

“It’s going to be the jewel of the North Shore,” Manshadi said on Monday, as he described his plans for a mixed-use development called Carmel Place, now under construction at Tranquille and Wood.

When it’s finished in 15 months, Carmel Place will have commercial/office/retail space on the bottom and 38 units of affordable rental housing on top, managed by the non-profit Door to Roof Society.

The project is expected to cost Manshadi up to $8 million, but it’s money he’s convinced is a good investment.

“My plan was to somehow give back to the city in two ways,” said Manshadi, “by helping the North Shore community but also helping to provide reasonable apartments for rent.”

The Carmel Place development comes at a time of renewed interest in the North Shore core. Across the street from Manshadi’s project, the owners of the former Village Hotel are in the midst of transforming their building into the new Northbridge Hotel and Suites, which will market itself to visiting sports teams.

Just a few blocks north, the latest phase of the Library Square development is underway.

“We’re ready to go,” North Shore Business Improvement Area manager Peter Mutrie said of the increased activity.

“Now’s the time to buy in, because when it goes, it’s going to go fast — and in five years, you’re going to wish to hell you had bought in.”

Manshadi bought in at time when the Tranquille strip was considered a risky investment and the so-called smart money was on projects in Sahali and Aberdeen.

But Manshadi, who drives through the North Shore every day from his home in Westsyde to his pharmacy on St. Paul Street, believes the smart money should be on Tranquille’s future.

“I see the potential in the North Shore,” he said. “It’s a growing community.”

To that end, Manshadi hopes his investment through Carmel Place proves successful.

If it does, he wants to create a similar mixed-use development on his other vacant property at Tranquille and Elm.

As for the third vacant lot our reader inquired about, the future is less clear.

The property at Tranquille and Clapperton is actually two separate lots — both former gas stations. One used to be a Super Save and is for lease. The other is a former Mohawk owned by Husky Oil.

The Daily News has yet to hear back from Husky Oil as to its plans for the property.

Meanwhile, the North Shore BIA said it could be years before that side of the property sees any action.

“These oil companies own a lot of property across the country and it just sits in their real estate portfolio,” said Mutrie.

“There’s no particular big rush to move these things. They’re in the oil business and they own some real estate and pay some taxes (on the properties) and, 40 years later, they still own property.”

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This article appeared in the Kamloops This Week on November 24th, 2011 and was written by Jeremy Deutsch.

It’s been nearly five months since Tobiano resort went into receivership, but there are still no takers for the financially struggling development.

The resort was put on the market in September, with a deadline for offers by the end of that month, but there were no significant bids.

Douglas Chivers, a representative with the Bowra Group, which was appointed receiver of Tobiano by the court, said despite the lack of interest, the resort will continue to run business as usual.

“We intend to continue to develop the resort and sell off the lots and the other properties and see what interest can be generated,” he said, adding the award-winning golf course will be open next season.

Chivers said it isn’t a surprise interest in the resort has been minimal given the current real-estate market, noting several other troubled developments in Interior have also received little attention from buyers.

Word of the resort’s financial woes broke in June, after the real-estate side of the resort and golf course was ordered into receivership by a B.C. Supreme Court.

Pagebrook Inc. and Kamlands Holdings Ltd., companies owned by developer Mike Grenier, owe the Bank of Montreal debts totalling roughly $26 million.

In August, a representative with the Jim Pattison Group, which owns a 13-acre parcel of land within Tobiano, where it hopes to one day build townhomes, told KTW it’s unlikely such a project will get started any time soon.

Since the summer, the receiver has managed to sell five lots at Tobiano and continues work on trying to get some form of a marina in place.

The financial downfall of the resort was in part blamed on the inability by the developer to secure funding to build a marina.

Chivers said the Bowra Group has no intention to stop marketing Tobiano, but said getting some type of building activity at the resort is key to a sale.

“The more activity up there, the more people come to it, the more attractive it is,” he said.

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