Town for sale, ocean front, all amenities, asking 7 million

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040922/323/f32yc.html




VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) - Why buy a house when you could purchase an entire town for a few bucks more?

In a real estate market gone mad, where home prices and sales in the Pacific coast are the highest in Canada and construction is booming in advance of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, investors can now bid on a whole town.

The asking price for the remote mining town of Kitsault is a mere seven million dollars (5.4 million US dollars), only slightly more than some condominiums in downtown Vancouver, 800 kilometers south.

The 322-acre ghost town with 2.5 kilometers of waterfront boasts 90 houses and seven apartment buildings with ocean and mountain views, two recreation centers with a pool, a library and a curling rink, a mall with coolers and shopping carts intact, a post office, and even a small hospital equipped with an X-ray machine and operating equipment still wrapped in plastic for storage.

"You can drive along paved streets with all the lighting and signs intact, go into any house, some are still furnished, but there are no people. You can walk through the 20,000 square-foot recreation centre, the pool is filled with water, badminton nets are still set up in the gym. In the shopping centre, the vault doors at the bank are open like it had just been robbed, and the grocery store shelves are empty. You get an eerie feeling being here," said real estate marketer Rudy Nielsen of Niho Land and Cattle Company.

"But, the setting is unbelievable, one of the most spectacular places in British Columbia."

US-based Phelps Dodge built the town in the early 1980s to support a nearby mine, but was forced to close it two years later when prices fell for molybdenum, an ore used to make steel. The current owner Climax Canada held onto the property hoping the mine could be reopened, but prices never rebounded.

A caretaker and his wife have up kept the town since, keeping the buildings heated and lawns trimmed, but it does require some renovating, Nielson said.

Kitsault is the third town in British Columbia to be offered for sale in recent years. In 2000, Tumbler Ridge was sold one house at a time, netting sellers over 25 million dollars (19,2 million US dollars).

The town of Gold River was sold piecemeal too the same year. Other unusual real estate deals here have included islands, a former prison and the historic 500,000-acre Douglas Lake ranch, the largest working cattle ranch in Canada.

Nielsen said he envisioned turning the town of Kitsault into a ski, hiking and fishing resort with daily float plane service. There is an abundance of fish in local streams and rivers fed by nearby glaciers. Surrounding snow-capped mountains are untouched and ideal for helicopter skiing, and there is a lot of wildlife for nature-watching, he said.

And the channel is deep enough to accommodate cruise ships on their way to Alaska.

"You could be the mayor or the police chief or whatever you want. The town offers untold opportunities," he said.

Bidders so far include a church wanting to turn it into a monastery, a group wanting to open a university there, and a resort operator who hopes to rent out the homes at weekly rates.