The property was bought by an Alberta businessman as a gift to his wife
Brian Morton
Sun
The Whittakers development at Pender Harbour is attracting interest from Alberta and elsewhere.
Sleepy little Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast has gone upscale.
Very upscale, it seems, after the sale of a new 2,300-square-foot waterfront home to an Edmonton businessman for $1.75 million. He bought the property as a gift for his wife.
But the sale of the house at the Whittakers development to Jay Champigny is not just a reflection of the seaside delights of Pender Harbour. It’s the latest example of a growing trend that is seeing much of B.C.’s best waterfront properties snatched up by wealthy outsiders — especially Albertans cashing in on their province’s oil bonanza.
“I noted an interest immediately from Albertans,” said Sharleen K. Whiteside, who started a website in May devoted to advertising waterfront and waterview properties for sale in B.C. “The majority [of interest] is from B.C., but Alberta is definitely number two.”
Whiteside’s website, called WaterfrontWest.com, gets about 200 hits a day, about 17 per cent from Alberta. The majority are still from B.C., but there is also sizeable interest from other parts of Canada, the U.S. and Europe, mainly Britain and Germany.
“Vancouver Island is number one [on Albertans’ list], but the Kootenays is also growing,” she said in an interview. “The overwhelming number of people buy [waterfront homes] as a vacation place that they can retire to later.”
Whittakers, a luxury oceanfront community on the Sunshine Coast, started sales two weeks ago and is already 50-per-cent sold. Ocean view strata lots start at $300,000 and homes at $875,000.
The development on six hectares features low bank, south-facing views in a protected bay, with each home having its own slip at a private marina.
Strict architectural design guidelines are also part of the package, as well as an optional concierge service that includes property management, rental management, security and service checks, house cleaning, and grocery, laundry, and catering services.
“We’ve been selling recreational real estate for five or six years and we’ve focused on the B.C. area for the last three,” said James Askew, president of rareEarth Project Marketing, the sales and marketing agent for Whittakers, which is being developed by Rockwater Properties.
“Between 1999 and 2003 there were few Alberta buyers. Since then, there’s been a huge change. On the Sunshine Coast, we’ve had about 35 per cent of our buyers from Alberta. In the Okanagan, if it’s prime location, we’re looking at 50 to 60 per cent of our buyers from Alberta, with an increasing number from Edmonton. It’s a huge, growing market.”
Askew believes the $1.75 million paid for their Whittakers home is the most paid on the Sunshine Coast for a similar home. “This is the most expensive one that I know of that’s been part of a new resort community.”
Askew said in an interview that their Watermark Beach Resort in Osoyoos is also getting a huge response from Albertans. “Geographically, it’s far away [from Alberta], but they’ve discovered it.”
But he said there’s far less interest from American buyers these days. “Alberta has replaced Washington as a really strong B.C. market.”
Champigny said that he purchased his Whittakers home as a present for his wife.
“This is a gift of love for my wife and our family,” said Champigny in a statement. “We were looking for a site with low banks and a view of the water. My wife is a writer and scuba diver and this place will inspire her.”
It’s his second waterfront home in B.C., the other is in Vernon.
Despite Askew’s observation that U.S. interest is dwindling, Whiteside said that’s not the case on her website. She said that despite the rising Canadian dollar, more than nine per cent of the traffic to the site is from the U.S., primarily from California, Washington and Texas. Seventy three per cent were from B.C. and 17 per cent from Alberta, she said.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006