Good news for P.R. Not good news if you want to buy a house there, it seems the speculators have arrived, and a decent house in Rupert will set you back 400K
Oh well, that's progress.
metalman.

Metalman

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

There have only been three homes sold for over your ficticious figure since January 1, 2008.

There have been only four homes sold over $300 grand since January 1, 2008.

There are a number of homes on the market that have these high ??? prices, but they have been sitting for up to six months, and some even longer. They are priced to high and the market is saying so.


It seems to me that you are the speculator.

Gee, I am sorry runner, I only said that a decent house would set yuou back 400K, not that those homes were selling like hotcakes.
And the figure is not ficticious at all, a relative spent all of last week looking at houses for sale in P.R. and reports that the nice houses are listed at 400K, their hopes were actually in the 150K range, and there were plenty of those, but most of them were not all that nice. Detached homes in the 140-150K range were, in general, dilapidated, there are several nice 1/2 duplexes on the market for about that price, but in each case the adjoining duplex was in poor repair, dilapidated.
That's all I have to say about that.
metalman.

You guys are both right!
Prince Rupert does have a problem with good, affordable homes, as well as homes that are newer and in well maintained condition.
But it IS a bit better now than it was a few years ago.
The area out in the direction of the ferry terminal(west)has the best homes in general,but even many of these have been beat up over the years also.
This is mainly due to the high unemployment and many foreclosures over the last 5 or 10 years.
Many of these homes sat empty for a long period of time.
In 2000,we bought a house appraised at 130,000 for 93,000 dollars.
A nice home in a good area,but even it needed a lot of work after having sat empty with minimum of heating through the very damp weather.
Many of the war time houses in the east end are fast approaching the time when they need to be torn down as many have simply been allowed to deteriorate to the point of no return.
These are almost impossible to sell unless you just get lucky.
Some are only a few feet apart from their neighbours on very small lots.
6 months ago I did notice that more houses have been built up in the newer subdivisions on the east side, but these are also very pricey.
Prince Rupert is a different kind of place to live, and one needs to change their thinking when buying a home there.
Many yards a very small,there is very little topsoil and a lot of rock,and many homes do not even have driveways, although that mainly applies to the older homes.
And many driveways are VERY steep!
It is definitely a town where buyer beware applies!
The prices have always been high for anything good,even when the market was very bad.
And in actual fact, it hasn't improved all that much in spite of the hype over the Port expansion and regardless of what most realtors will tell you.
When we sold ours 2.5 years ago,we realized a profit of about 20+ thousand dollars and that was the best we could do.
It did sell quickly which is not always the case.
Considering the money we spent on it,I figure we really just broke about even.
The speculators moved in about 3 or 4 years ago and so far,I don't think it turned out as lucrative as they thought it would be!
There are a number of homes in 300-400+ thousand range or there were,but those homes sat forever without selling.

Went on mls for Rupert. Yup 3-350K for a decent home but what fool would be buying real estate at the top of a cycle. Give it a couple years. Even the hot kelowna market is slowing.

Thanks Andy. My relative also told me that there seem to be a lot of wet basements in P.R. at least in some of the homes they looked at. Apparently this has something to do with the fact there is so much rock, and some foundations are poured directly on the rock. Is that what you have found?
metalman.

Exactly metalman,the whole town is built on rock,and many houses actually have water running out from under the foundations all year round!
I have even seen some that have a basement with a floor of solid rock and a trench jackhammered in it to funnel it away.
My place had new perimiter drains that funneled the water away from the house and it ran all the time if you knew where to look out in the yard.
Fortunately,the crawl space was dry as a bone.
I like Rupert and we had planned on moving back there one day, but have since changed our minds and sold the house.
As I said,it takes a completely different mindset buy a home and live there, and I would urge anyone considering it to be VERY careful when buying home there.