British Columbia

For less than $1 million – about the price of a tear down house on the West Side of Vancouver – you can buy a private island with a nice cottage and dock in the southern Gulf Islands.

Powell River residents and current and pensioned mill employees are waiting to hear the fate of the town's largest employer as Catalyst Paper Corp. seeks a $395 million restructuring plan.

The proposed and long-debated $1 billion Jumbo Alpine Ski Resort development 57 kilometres west of Invermere in the West Kootenays has won approval from the province, confirms Steve Thompson, minister of forests, lands and natural resource operations

Interest rates may be low, cash readily available and buyers lined up, but owners of Victoria rental apartment buildings are not eager to sell in a city with a tight 2 per cent vacancy rate.

Forty-six per cent of consumers in the Lower Mainland think this spring is a good time to buy a home, according to a recent REW.ca consumer confidence survey done by Mustel Research Group.

While Griffiths acknowledges Kelowna's median housing prices may appear high, she stresses there's a significant difference in the cost of owning a home in the Central Okanagan versus an equivalent dwelling in Vancouver.

At an average price of $280,000, Campbell River house prices are lower than in the Comox Valley ($344,000) or Nanaimo ($349,800) and are down about 20 per cent from the peak three years ago.

Metro Vancouver condominium developers are apparently brushing off warnings of overbuilding, with a series of new towers beginning pre-sales this month. Many of the new high-rise projects appear aimed squarely at real estate investors.

A new web page (BCjustice.

Powell River residents and current and pensioned mill employees are waiting to hear the fate of the town's largest employer as Catalyst Paper Corporation seeks a $395 million restructuring plan.