LOUISE LOIK
Editor
If you are looking for a vacation rental on Bowen, you are bound to find the perfect fit with 50 or more short-term rentals on the island with prices starting at $85/night. If, however, you are looking for long term, you could be out of luck. There is one long-term rental listings on Craigslist for Bowen Island. That’s it. The two-bedroom home is $2200. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation states housing in Canada is considered affordable if costs account for less than 30% of the household income, before tax.
Mayor Murray Skeels is very familiar with the problem. “Municipal Council doesn’t have access to anything like the kind of money required to provide subsidized housing. What we can do is enact policies to facilitate more appropriate construction.” He continues, “Rental apartments are the greatest challenge. Other than making it requirement of a major commercial project like the pub we have very opportunities. Our solution is to allow secondary suites and probably very soon allow rental units in freestanding secondary buildings on residential lots.”
One family faced by the housing crunch has been living in Bowen Bay for five years. They moved here from overseas, had a child, and a couple dogs and a good life self-employed. After years of making friends, volunteering for causes, building a business, their rental home sold, with a fall closing date. Wanting to maintain their semi-rural way of life, but with no rental options on Bowen, the family may be forced to find another island, perhaps Saltspring. That island, however, is also short on rental housing, but their lowest priced home is also half the price of one on Bowen.
This one family isn’t alone in looking for a rental home. At one offering, 26 people showed up, with one unsuccessful offer to pay higher than asking price. Some say that rental homes are being put up for sale due to the hot re-sale market, thereby reducing the rental pool, but it’s more complicated than that. Summer is a bad time to find rentals on Bowen, as rental cottages are reclaimed by the homeowners. Secondary suites are running as successful short-term rentals in many cases, and city folks are being forced to see refuge from the mainland market by looking for a home on Bowen. Some tenants are finding that homes are being sold without warning, and they are forced to scramble for a new location with little lead-time. The market on the mainland means that locals wanting to buy or rent are, more than ever, competing with people who can’t afford city prices.
One of the municipality’s early solutions meant to ease the rental market was to allow secondary units, taking water, parking, and ferry overloads and other transportation issues into consideration. Some of the secondary suites became rentals, but many have been built to accommodate friends, family home businesses and hobbies. The hope was that one house and one secondary suite on a property would allow a family to offset the cost of a new home by renting out the secondary suite.
As for less expensive home prices, Bowen ‘s Belterra co-housing, helped with affordability to some degree, with smaller homes and five below market price homes for qualified buyers. Six townhouses built below municipal hall have had no turnover from tenants for years. The reality is that with any home for rent or sale, buyers and renters from the mainland are competing with locals. Belterra has attracted homeowners from the mainland as well as locals, as has every other home for sale or rent.
Base prices for homes on Bowen are still less expensive than anywhere else within Greater Vancouver which is leading some locals to complain that people are arriving here to get away from mainland prices, instead of coming to Bowen because this is where they want to live.
“I’ve seem this happen before,” says Dennis Vetter, an island local. “We saw this happen in a number of mountain communities. It got to the point in some areas where people joked that the billionaires pushed the millionaires out and people who worked in those communities had to be bussed in from 70 miles away”” He says, “I don’t want to live in a community without an economic blend.” Vetter is disappointed that some of his friends are having to leave the island due to a rental shortage. “We're losing people who work on-island doing small to medium scale jobs. -The "mom and pop" businesses that charge modest prices for their services,” says Vetter. “So the cost of getting stuff done on the island is going up as the supply of lower cost providers is going down.” He adds, “ if you're a landlord and you want someone to help you maintain your property, for instance, your costs will go up, and you'll pass it along to your tenants, furthering the upward spiral of rents and loss of residents who rent.” With little to no rental availability in the Vancouver market and on island, businesses are running short of island-based staff.
Looking ahead, there is also a very large cohort of 40-50 year olds on the island. According to Stats Can, this is the largest demographic group on the island. In 10-20 years, many in this group may be looking for an option to downsize and stay on island but their choices will be slim without some creative problem solving.
Currently, the new Bowen Island Pub is zoned to include staff housing as well and condos and townhouses in an adjacent building. Owner Glenn Cormier says he’s already had requests to be put on the waiting list for a unit in his development. Evergreen Development at Grafton Lake also has affordable accommodation in it’s neighbourhood plans and site preparation is underway.
The good news is that for sellers and real estate agents who went through some rough years, homes are selling fast and above asking price.
Dee Elliott, realtor with MacDonald Realty says that young families are getting priced out of Vancouver and coming to Bowen. There are 21 homes on the market, as of Monday night, three have offers, and 15 are priced over $1 million. ”Most buyers are looking for something between half a million to $800,000. Below a million, it’s going crazy.” Elliott advises sellers to use Multiple Listings Service (MLS) to get the best deal. This way it gives more people the chance to see all the homes and make the best choice, and gives the buyers the biggest audience and ultimately the highest price. Every house in this market is going over asking price. One house went for $120,000 over asking.
Dee says that there aren’t more homes to sell, just that they are selling faster and at higher prices. “The frenzy from town has spilled over here.” Last year was actually a bigger year for real estate sales on Bowen. Another difference this year, says son and partner, Frazer Elliott, is that undeveloped lots are also selling quickly. Three lots sold last year, and already 12 have sold this year and builders are booked up.
Dee isn’t happy seeing the challenge facing the young people trying to break into the market, or hearing about panicky buyers who buy without inspections or conditions. “People from the city don’t get that you need to check the septic system;” says Frazer, “or that it’s risky to skip an inspection.” Dee says she is also concerned that “kids who grew up here, went away and now want to come back to raise their own families are finding that prices are going up faster than they can save.” She mentions a mom with two kids who would like to own a home, who is moving back to Halifax, where for her, the cost of a home is affordable.
