Assessment notices are in the mail, and BC Assessment says most Sunshine Coast property owners will see an increase.
Assessor Paul Borgo said the increases for residential properties (single-family detached homes) across the Sunshine Coast as a whole are in the five to 25 per cent range, while condo properties have seen increases between 10 and 25 per cent.
Those increases are not as steep as in some parts of BC Assessment’s Greater Vancouver area, which includes communities outside Metro Vancouver such as the Sunshine Coast, Squamish, Whistler, and Pemberton, although the trend of condos outpacing detached homes mirrors what’s been happening on the Lower Mainland.
Borgo describes the Sunshine Coast as a “good, stable market.”
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver’s year-end numbers show a 17.7 per cent increase in the benchmark price of a detached home on the Sunshine Coast, which now sits at $580,000. The number of homes sold, however, was down in 2017 with 725 sales compared to 952 in 2016.
The overall assessment roll for the Sunshine Coast has increased from $10.35 billion to $11.99 billion. Of that, $205 million is from new construction, subdivision and rezoning of properties.
Gibsons has seen the largest average increases in all property classes. Residential assessments are up 17.93 per cent on average, while business and commercial properties have increased by 10.01 per cent and light industrial properties are up by 8.46 per cent.
The increases in Sechelt are similar, although a little lower. Residential assessments are an average of 17.44 per cent higher, business and commercial assessments have risen by 9.38 per cent, and the average increase for light industry is 6.7 per cent.
In rural areas, the average increase for residential properties is 12.96 per cent. It’s 9.76 per cent for business and commercial and 3.16 per cent for light industry.
BC Assessment hasn’t prepared a breakdown of how waterfront properties compared to upland homes.
The most valuable industrial property on the Sunshine Coast, Howe Sound Pulp and Paper in Port Mellon, has seen its assessment drop this year from roughly $97.1 million to $95.3 million.
No Sunshine Coast properties are included on the list of the province’s 500 most valuable residential properties, but trivia buffs will be interested to know that the owner of the top home on that list, 3085 Pt. Grey Road in Vancouver, at $78.8 million, Chip Wilson of Lululemon, also owns one of the most expensive properties on the Sunshine Coast. Wilson’s Middlepoint area property, which has been in the media spotlight because of neighbours’ objections to a large dock and breakwater complex, has been assessed at $6.7 million.
You can view your assessment, and the assessments for neighbouring properties, at bcassessment.ca if you don’t want to wait for it to arrive in the mail, and Borgo recommends checking to make sure basic information like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms is correct. If it’s not, you can file a request for a change right from the website. Formal appeals of assessments need to be filed by Jan. 31.
With the release of the assessments the province has announced it’s increasing the 2018 threshold for the homeowner grant to $1.65 million.
