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Cavernous mansion with 3 kitchens selling for $10M as Victoria real estate craters

But will foreign buyer rules hurt the sale of a home with 4,000 square feet of garage space?
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The house is at 3355 Midland Rd. and it’s more than 14,000 square feet. (Photo contributed)

The latest numbers from the Victoria Real Estate Board paint a bleak picture for sales right now, but that hasn’t stopped some people from asking for the moon for property.

Sales have dropped nearly 27 per cent from a year ago, but one house in Oak Bay is on sale for nearly $10 million.

The house is at 3355 Midland Rd. and it’s more than 14,000 square feet.

“This extraordinary estate is perfectly situated on a prized .99-acre property in the coveted community, the Uplands,” reads the listing.

The house is so big the garage itself is nearly 4,000 square feet.

It has five bedrooms and 12 bathrooms, and has been on the market for 12 days.

Oh, it also has three different kitchens.

But the property faces an uphill battle to get $10 million because the local real estate market is rough right now.

A total of 320 properties sold in the Victoria Real Estate Board region in December 2022, 26.9 per cent fewer than the 438 properties sold in December 2021 and a 16.7 per cent decrease from November 2022. Sales of condominiums were down 38.2 per cent from December 2021 with 94 units sold. Sales of single-family homes decreased 24.6 per cent from December 2021 with 156 sold.

A grand total of 6,804 properties sold over the course of 2022, 32.3 per cent fewer than the 10,052 that sold in 2021. The 2022 sales came closest to 2014’s sales year when 6,698 properties were sold.

“We began the year with record low inventory, and with higher than average sales,” said 2022 Victoria Real Estate Board president Karen Dinnie-Smyth. “And then the market changed on a dime. Interest rate increases through the remainder of 2022 signalled the end of low-cost borrowing and pushed buyers to the sidelines. Each time interest rates went up, market activity slowed. As we head into 2023, we continue to see the cost of moving and borrowing money undermine demand. Slower sale activity has resulted in inventory levels rebounding from historic lows, which means there are more opportunities for buyers in our market this year than in recent years.”

There were 1,688 active listings for sale on the Victoria Real Estate Board Multiple Listing Service at the end of December 2022, a decrease of 20 per cent compared to the previous month of November but a 158.9 per cent increase from the 652 active listings for sale at the end of December 2021.

What could complicate this $10-million sale are rule changes for B.C. real estate.

“The new year begins with the federal government’s ban on foreign buyers,” added Dinnie-Smyth. “This is a disappointing politically motivated action in the theme of government trying to slow demand, rather than addressing the more lengthy and less politically popular process of building more housing supply. The cost of housing is unlikely to be affected by this ban because we know from the government’s own data that foreign buyers represent only a handful of transactions in our region in recent years.”

RELATED: Buyers’ remorse high in real estate

Do you have a story tip? Email: chris.campbell@blackpress.ca.

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