Vancouver home lists for $48m in buoyant market

VANCOUVER

A waterfront mansion on a Vancouver street known as Billionaires’ Row is on the market for C$63 million ($48 million) — a record listing in a market where rapid home-price gains are seemingly unstoppable.

Perched above a popular beach, the manor features expansive views of downtown Vancouver and snow-capped mountains across the bay. It’s owned by local business titan Joseph Segal and his wife, Rosalie, who are well-known as philanthropists in the city. The asking price is the highest ever for a residential single-family home listed in Greater Vancouver, according to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, which represents the sellers.

The lofty price tag underscores the ever-escalating home values in Canada’s most expensive city, which has defied a succession of government efforts to cool gains, as well as concerns about the near-collapse of alternative-mortgage lender Home Capital Group Inc. The price of the average detached house in Vancouver climbed 5 per cent to a record C$1.8 million in May, while the number of properties sold was the third-highest ever for that month.

Christa Frosch, the Sotheby’s listing agent, declined to say how long it might take to find a buyer. But a 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers introduced last August, that would add more than C$9 million to the listed price, is unlikely to dissuade any deep-pocketed overseas investors who would consider the property, she said.