Persistence finally paid off for the owner of an Oak Bay mansion who put the place up for sale way, way back in 2009.
Persistence and a smart price drop, that is.
The home at 249 King George Terrace in south Oak Bay – described in the listing as a “masterpiece” – finally sold after 14 years on the Greater Victoria real estate market.
The home sold for $7.5 million, according to Scott Piercy of Engel and Volkers Vancouver Island, but a look through this listing’s history reveals a real estate price roller coaster.
The mansion, which features more than 14,000 square feet of living space, was originally listed in 2009 for $11.5 million. Then the house, which has five bedrooms, two kitchens and 10 bathrooms, sat on the market at that price until 2016, when the price was dropped to $9.7 million.
Then, a year later, the price was hiked to a whopping $13.5 million – $2 million more than the 2009 price. The price was then dropped a couple of times over the years before selling in August for $7.5 million.
Piercy and James LeBlanc took over the listing last year and pumped up the online exposure with a new price point that was more in line with the current market.
The house is known as Muir Haven and it’s a wood-lovers dream inside, including a grand staircase.
As pricey as Victoria real estate is, Piercy said that pre-COVID-19, there was only an average of three to five sales over $4 million.
READ MORE: $5.4M Oak Bay beach house with killer view sits in ‘slow’ Victoria home market
The latest numbers from the Victoria Real Estate Board show that a total of 544 properties sold in the region this August. The good news is that this is 13.8-per-cent more than the 478 properties sold in August 2022, but it’s also an 8.6-per-cent decrease from July 2023. Sales of condominiums were up 10.8 per cent from August 2022 with 164 units sold. Sales of single-family homes increased 9.6 per cent from August 2022 with 273 sold.
“Real estate activity this month reflected what we’d expect to see in an average late summer housing market,” said Victoria Real Estate Board chair Graden Sol. “The beginning of the month was reasonably slow, and sales ramped up through the last half of the month. The brisk sales pace leading up to the end of August may very well continue into September.”
The Multiple Listing Service Home Price Index benchmark value for a single-family home in the Victoria core in August 2022 was $1,327,700. The benchmark value for the same home in August 2023 decreased by 0.3 per cent to $1,323,900, which is up from July’s value of $1,318,800.
