Market Insights - BC Waterfront Real Estate

Despite all the economic doom and gloom out there today, there are still some people who have managed to save their money and are now looking for good deals on waterfront and luxury homes. I spoke this week with a representative from the New York Times, who reported that a luxury Realtor in New York was extremely busy with wealthy buyers looking to get good deals on New York luxury properties. While doing some research this week myself, this was confirmed by a spike in searches on Google for terms such as "luxury homes BC" and "Vancouver luxury homes." Moreover, one of our member Realtors has reported that she just sold her "Big waterfront" and was closing on two more luxury properties in the next month or so.

All of these reports made me wonder if I should start a "Must Sell" list for any of our sellers who need to sell now and email it out to interested buyers. Due to my interactions with clients on a regular basis, I often am aware of sellers who may need to sell and are looking for offers. Unfortunately, since I can't afford to buy all of the properties, I thought it might be a good idea to make up this list of properties and create a mailing list of buyers wanting to receive it. What do you think? Good idea? We're looking for some feedback here so let us know by posting a comment or emailing us at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

One last thing, as you may have noticed, we have begun adding information on the most prestigious luxury waterfront neighbourhoods in Vancouver and Victoria. So far, we have covered luxury real estate in Oak Bay and The Uplands in Victoria and Kitsilano, Coal Harbour and Point Grey in Vancouver. As we gather new listings in these areas, we will create links to them from these pages as well. Keep your eyes open for more to come!

As of Septmeber 15th, Waterfront West has joined Interluxe Media 's Alliance of Affluence. InterLuxe is an alliance of like-minded web publications that attract a sophisticated, affluent audience. Alliance membership provides traffic growth, content and audience development. Through the alliance, Waterfront West will be attracting clients from other luxury web sites. Members of the alliance include other notable web sites such as  www.justluxe.com , www.quintessentially.com and www.luxuryindex.com.

InterLuxe Media is backed by two leading interactive media firms: JustLuxe and RGM Razavi Global Media. RGM (www.razaviglobalmedia.com) and JustLuxe (www.justluxe.com) have years of successful experience in both creating original website destinations as well as partnering with publishers to grow their interactive business. In addition to representing the site-wide (banner) advertising for www.luxuryrealestate.com, Razavi Global Media works with luxury clients including Polo Ralf Lauren, Cartier, The Ritz Carlton, Jaguar, Lexus, Grey Goose Vodka and Veuve Clicquot to name a few.

For a long time now, I have been planning to donate some of the proceeds from Waterfront West to a charity and I have finally decided to get into action and do it. Last week, we started a campaign to donate $1 for every email inquiry that goes through the site and $30 for every verified sale that happens as a direct result of the site to Canuck Place Children's Hospice.

What is Canuck Place? Canuck Place Children's Hospice helps children and teens with life-threatening illnesses and their families. Canuck Place offers world-class healthcare in a home-like environment as well as music, recreation, school, play therapy, counselling and many other benefits to these children and their families.

Why Canuck Place? Besides the obvious help they give to these children and their families, friends of ours have a daughter with a rare form of muscular distrophy. She has spent time at Canuck Place for the last few years and it has been the highlight of her summer. Her family has also appreciated the care they have given her and the support they have received there, so through them, I feel a personal connection to how Canuck Place is helping families in B.C..

We hope that the fund raising activity helps Canuck Place and  we plan to continue the fund raiser on a more permanent basis.

This morning I received a call from a private seller wishing to advertise his extensive private lakefront property near Victoria on our site. He mentioned an article in this morning's Times Colonist as his source for finding our site. Lo and behold, an article about the historic Deerlepe property in Sooke which is showcased on Waterfront West was printed on the front page of the business section today.

Due to the article, traffic has increased about 30% so far and we expect to get some more sales of large estates on the site soon so stay tuned if you are interested in these types of exquisite properties!

Every year, Chicago based real estate agent and author Mark Nash compiles a list of the top luxury housing trends from a survey of over 1, 000 industry professionals. This year, along with the continued popularity of the destination or spa bathrooms and gourmet kitchens, a few more extras showed up that might surprise you.

Building Trends:

It seems that the boomer market is looking at elevators with an eye toward their later years. Rather than buy a rancher, just install an elevator to avoid the dreaded stairs.

The ultimate in lifestyle living. Luxury buyers prefer their floating hoes to be in calm protected waters (as I'm sure everyone does).

We have referred to this emerging trend in the blog before as I noticed a higher than usual number of inquires from buyers interested in creating this type of lifestyle. Probably due to a desire to leave less of a footprint on the Earth combined with fear of fallout from dwindling oil reserves in the world and future high energy costs.

According to a variety of sources including HGTV , the decor trends for 2008 are as follows::