Victoria homes once owned by ex-NHL playing Courtnall brothers top sales list in millions

Courtnalls once owned both estates

by Carla Wilson
Times Colonist
Thursday, June 25, 2009

Two Uplands waterfront estates once owned by former NHL players Russ and Geoff Courtnall have each sold for around $6 million, as Greater Victoria's luxury-home sales surge after being battered by the economic slowdown.
It appears that a $6.5-million private sale, shown in land-title records, of 3265 Beach Dr. to a local buyer is the highest residential price paid so far this year in Greater Victoria.

Geoff Courtnall owned the home several years ago and it subsequently changed hands. The assessed value of the 1930 home, with more than 8,000 square feet and several bedrooms, is $7.2 million, B.C. Assessment records show.
Geoff's brother Russ Courtnall, now of California, used to own a nearby home at 3120 Humber Rd., which he sold in 2007, according to land-title records. It is changing hands again, also to a local buyer, with a sale price of slightly less than $6 million, said Scott Piercy of Sotheby's International Realty Canada. That property's assessed value is $7 million.

The 9,560-square-foot home has seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a movie theatre, hand-tooled oak floors, several fireplaces, a 1,500-bottle wine cellar and a gym. Celebrity visitors have included Pamela Anderson and Kiefer Sutherland, a release said.

An undeveloped 1.55-acre waterfront lot, also in the Uplands, has been purchased for $3 million after being on the market for less than three months, said Piercy, who with business partner Jim LeBlanc also sold a Sproat Lake home for $ million.

Upper-end sales reflect "sellers' knowledge of what pricing hould be and buyers are realizing that there is value there," Piercy said.

The transactions are among 66 sales, or pending sales, through the Victoria Real Estate Board's Multiple Listing Service, of homes priced at $ million or more between April 1 and yesterday, said Randi Masters, board president-elect.

"There is a lot of confidence out there," she said, describing the market as balanced.
During the same months last year, a total of 79 sales, or pending sales, for $1-millionplus homes were recorded, she said. During 2007 --when the market was red hot and the economy roaring --numbers in that category hit 84. Properties were sold rough the Victoria board but include other locations, such as th Gulf Islands.
"There is definitely movement again in the upper-end properties." said Masters.

Although the real-estate market slowed drastically when the global finan ial crisis hit last year, sales have gradually picked up this year. May sa 879 residential sales through the Victoria board, up 14 per cent from the same month in 008.

Sales started heating up in the lower range of the market and have had a "trickle-up effect," said Masters, who recently received multiple fers for a $545,000 Saanich property, which sold for $15,000 above the asking price.
Prices have been trimmed for some luxury homes in the region, however. The highest MLS listing locally is $18.5 million, for the 27-hectare Swanwick Ranch in Metchosin.

A typical residential real estate sale generates close to $42,000 in economic output, $20,000 in gross domestic product, and $13,000 in household income, the B.C. Real Estate Association said in September.

The 102,892 residential sales in 2007 resulted in $4.3 billion in economic output, and $2 billion to the GDP, the association said.

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Carla Wilson (2009, June 25). Victoria homes once owned by ex-NHL playing Courtnall brothers top sales list in millions. The Victoria Times Colonist 2009. Retrieved from http://www.timescolonist.com/business/Victoria+homes+once+owned+playing+Courtnall+brothers+sales+list+millions/1730654/story.html