The startling sales success - and price increases - at one of the most expensive oceanfront projects in B.C. suggests that reports on the death of the high-end west coast recreational market may be exaggerated.
In the last three years, more than $20 million worth of lots have been purchased at the Cape on Bowen Island. The Cape covers 618 acres and more than two miles of oceanfront on the southwestern tip of Bowen, a bucolic island community just off the coast of West Vancouver in Howe Sound.
The land was purchased from an extended Bowen Island family in 2004 for $16 million by Vancouver developers Don Ho and Edwin Lee.
Ho, president of Trans City Group of Companies and Lee, who heads the Leeda Development Group, are developing 59 10-acre waterfront and oceanview estate lots. The oceanfront lots, with a minimum of 190 feet of waterfrontage, sell for from $1.7 million to $3.68 million, with one recent sale at $4.38 million. Inland lots start at $685,000.
The first 14-lot phase of the development has nearly sold out, with 10 waterfront lots and one inland lot purchased, said Ho, who hosted a tour of The Cape in mid-June.
According to BC Assessments, the lift on the property has already been substantial: it was assessed at $27.7 million in 2010 as lot sales began, or $11.1 million more than it was bought for.
Candy Ho, the Cape sales and marketing manager, said the Cape on Bowen's 2012 assessment values appreciated by almost 200 per cent. A forest home site assessed at $470,000 in 2011 is now valued at $919,000, representing an increase in value of 196 per cent. An oceanfront home site assessed at $1,083,000 is now assessed at $2,010,000, an increase in value of 186 per cent. Bowen Island is accessed by BC Ferries from West Vancouver, or by a 35-minute water taxi from downtown Vancouver.
