After five years, two buyers and nearly $100,000 difference, a lot in the Whitehorse Copper subdivision may finally have an owner.
The 1.44-hectare, unserviced lot has been put up for sale four times since 2007 and has been marked up 100 per cent from its original lottery price.
What was once $101,000 was appraised at more than $200,000 only four years later.
“Initially, lots come on at development cost,” said John Cole, the territory’s lands branch manager of client services. “The Lands Act requires surveyed Crown land to be valued every year. It’s simply impossible for government to incur that expense every year. So, in terms of lots that are in active areas, if they come back and they’re over a year, we will have a market evaluation done on them, as required by the Lands Act.”
And that’s exactly what happened for Lot 30 of the subdivision, near Mount Sima.
After the first land-lottery winner backed out of the deal in 2007, the lot, then priced at $101,000, was put out for lottery one year later. No one bid.
In 2009, the lot was sold over the counter, but the buyer returned the country-residential property in 2011.
That’s when it was reappraised to the tune of more than $200,000.
In March, it was listed at a minimum bid of $200,000, and a new buyer is now entering into an agreement for sale right now, said Cole. He wouldn’t offer details about the buyer.
The Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce blasted the territory’s lands branch for pricing the lot so high, warning it would only make the city’s housing crisis worse. Government officials counter that they’re merely trying to match soaring real estate values.