It has been a record-breaking year in real estate and, according to St. Albert realtor Shandrie Lewis, acreage inventory is low.
“The good properties are selling quickly, and I would say that's even with acreages. Anything under ($500,000) is pretty hard to find, and then anything from ($500,000) to $1 million is selling pretty quickly,” said Lewis.
Acreage living is attractive to many people for many different reasons, including more space for growing families, more independence, and living a quieter life; however, there are things one needs to be aware of before looking toward living a life in the country.
The first: acreages are really tough to find right now.
“I think a lot of people that own acreages, they just, they don't want to sell, they don't want to put them on the market right now,” said Lewis.
Lewis said people need to be ready to buy something immediately after they find it. They need to be a qualified buyer; they need to be pre-approved; and their existing house needs to already be sold. They need to be ready to write an offer subject to financing and inspection only.
“Gone are the days that you can just go and look at a bunch of different homes, take your time to think about it, and get your house on the market. … Buyers have to be prepared to move,” explained Lewis.
Buyers should also be aware of what acreage life entails. Jenna Bartman of PrairieTree Manor, a homestead in Westlock, has been living on an acreage for the last three years after giving up city life.
Although it has been a welcome transition for her family, there has been a steep learning curve.
“Being in charge of your own utilities is a massive change … being in charge of your own garbage … in charge of your water," said Bartman.
“I am in a battle with our energy company right now because we are one of the last co-ops for that. We are one of the one per cent of Alberta that can't choose where we get our energy from, and that was not told to me before I was blindly put into a contract and there's nothing we can do,” she said.
Bartman said they also initially ran into some issues with water. There are three wells on their property, and it took them a year to find out which well was which.
“Our first month we knew that we needed a whole filtering system for the house, because you walked into our house and just smelled sulfur, like that’s how bad the water was from our well. So, we got a whole system,” she said.
Someone came out to do a chlorine treatment on their well.
“Well, we thought it was the well. It wasn't. It was our septic tank. We didn’t find out until like a year later. We had no idea. It was frustrating at the time, but now I can look at it and go, ‘Oh man,’” she laughed.
Bartman raises chickens and sold many last year during the boom for hens.
“People bought chickens and wanted to get into it and everything else and then they (went) back to work and left the chickens behind. And there was a whole bunch of people trying to re-home chickens because they got into it, and then went immediately back to, you know, 'This isn't for me,'” she said.
Bartman said she has seen a lot of younger families move into the area since COVID.
“I think I've seen a lot more young families move out – people with young children and, like, a lot of people in the area that weren't here before, who really want the lifestyle change and I think COVID was kind of a wake-up call,” she said.
Lewis would agree. The last year-and-a-half of COVID has been a year-and-a-half of reflection, she said.
“People are really just figuring out what they want and what their goals are, and a lot of people have said, ‘You know, we've always wanted to live on an acreage,’ or ‘I've always pictured myself being on an acreage, but now we've actually had the time to get our current home ready to sell,’” she said.
Lewis said most buyers would consider an acreage to be an upgrade.
“It's a good time to upgrade because interest rates are so low. A lot of people have done well over the last year-and-a-half of COVID and so now they're choosing to spend their money here, rather than even buying recreational property or vacation property in other places of the world. So, yeah, this is kind of sticking close to home.”
