Rural real estate jumps

Aug 5, 2020 | 2:43 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unusual condition for the real estate sector.

“In my conversations all over Canada and BC, we’re starting to see there’s a pretty big uptick on recreational property, residential property and agricultural property,” says Brian Frenkel, Councillor with the District of Vanderhoof. “And a lot of those inquiries are coming from urban centres.”

COVID-19 has proven to urbanites that one doesn’t necessarily need an office in the Big City to get the job done and it is far easier to manage social distancing outside a large centre. in communities like Vanderhoof, the shift is noticeable.

But the pandemic has also created another conundrum in real estate.

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“I have been getting calls on my rural land listings, people would like to go off-grid and they’d like to homestead. But, yeah, inventories down 40 percent,” says Shawna Kinsley, President of the Northern Real Estate Board. “Sellers didn’t want strangers in their home. We were just at an impasse. We had protocols in place to protect sellers. But, really, for three months, people didn’t want to leave their house.”

She suspects that may change as we move into the fall.

But Brian Frenkel worries about what this trend will do for the existing markets.

“If more and more people are trying to get out to a place where they can escape or get out to, that does drive prices up.”

He says the proof will be in the property values in the next couple of years.

by Cheryl Jahn

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Rural real estate jumps

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