Six Bedrooms on the Coast of Prince Edward Island
$1.67 MILLION (2.35 MILLION CANADIAN DOLLARS)
This six-bedroom, 6,500-square-foot house sits on the eastern edge of rural Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province. Built in 2008, the cedar-shingled home overlooks the Northumberland Strait near Basin Head Provincial Park, known for its white-sand beaches.
The grassy nine-acre lot is framed by mature trees, with water on two sides and conservation land in back, all visible from the house’s ground-floor wraparound deck and second-tier deck.
The design came from a book that the owner, Dan W. Lufkin, picked up at a hardware store — “a $7.95 architectural book,” he said from his home in Connecticut. “We made a few changes, including adding a third floor, and that was it.”
A small mudroom inside the front door opens into the heart of the house, a pine-paneled great room with 24-foot vaulted ceilings, a floor-to-ceiling, two-sided sandstone fireplace and a staircase that climbs one wall to a mezzanine landing.
Doors on either side of the fireplace open to a sitting room with three windows facing the water. An adjacent TV room is equipped with surround sound.
An archway in the great room leads to the kitchen, which has white cabinets, granite counters, a center island and stainless steel appliances. Built-in seating against a wall of windows forms a breakfast nook. Also off the great room is a bedroom with an en suite bath.
Four bedrooms are on the second floor. The master suite is at the back of the house, with a curved wall of windows facing the water and double doors opening onto a wide deck, as well as a fireplace and dual walk-in closets. The bathroom has a double vanity, a walk-in shower and an air-jet tub.
The third-floor turret room has a nook built under the eaves for another bed. Windows around the room provide a 180-degree view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the distance.
The finished lower level has a large rec room, full bath and laundry. The detached double garage includes a 660-square-foot apartment with a kitchenette, sauna and fitness room.
The property is in Kings County, which has about 17,000 residents and is renowned for its lobster fishing, said Phil Muise, an agent with Exit Realty PEI, which has the listing. It is about a 15-minute drive from Souris, the nearest town with supermarkets, gas stations and restaurants.
The popular beaches at Basin Head are said to have singing sand, because of the way the silica sand squeaks underfoot. The park also has washrooms, food and a fisheries museum. The closest international airport is in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island’s capital city, about an hour’s drive west.
Market Overview
Prince Edward Island, known for its fertile farmland and dramatic coastline, is Canada’s smallest but most densely populated province, with about 150,000 residents. It is also one of the most affordable.
The median sale price for a single-family home in 2019 was 236,700 Canadian dollars ($168,000), about half of the national median, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. For that price, you could typically get a 2,400-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, Mr. Muise said.
Before the coronavirus pandemic forced the island’s closure, the housing market had been on a steady ascent, with a 57 percent increase in the average sale price from early 2015 to early 2020, according to the Prince Edward Island Real Estate Association.
Greg Lipton, the association’s president and the broker-owner of Blue Ocean Real Estate, said that was due, in part, to an inventory shortage over the past four years, the result of an influx of retiring baby boomers and immigrants. “For immigrants to get into Prince Edward Island is easier access than across the rest of Canada,” he said.
The 227 home sales on the island during the first quarter of 2020 reflected a 12 percent increase from the same period last year. Residential sales during March totaled 27.3 million Canadian dollars ($19.4 million), a 14 percent increase from March 2019, with the average sale price climbing 20 percent, to 273,206 Canadian dollars ($194,000).
“Obviously, these were deals that had pretty much started in the fourth quarter of 2019 and early January of this year,” Mr. Muise said.
The shutdown has only deepened the supply shortage. There were 667 active listings at the end of March, a 15 percent drop from last year, and the number of residential listings added during the month — 150 — was the fewest in 17 years.
Real estate agencies are considered an essential service and are still operating, but completing deals remotely has been difficult, Mr. Lipton said. All nonessential travel into the province is currently prohibited. As of May 1, Prince Edward Island had 27 documented cases of Covid-19 and no related deaths, according to a government website.
“Anyone coming in is checked at the bridge,” Mr. Lipton said. “If you want to come to your summer home, you should probably not come for now, unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Who Buys on Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island’s Provincial Nominee Program invites immigrants with certain labor skills or business investment opportunities to apply for permanent residency. The program has proved most appealing to buyers from India, China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan, according to government data.
Many of those newcomers are buying homes and opening businesses, Mr. Lipton said. “We now have a lot of good restaurants in Charlottetown,” he added. “All kinds of cuisines.”
Among foreigners buying second homes, Americans are the most common, said Joshua Egan, a real estate lawyer in Charlottetown.
Buying Basics
Prince Edward Island’s Lands Protection Act restricts the amount of land a nonresident may buy to five acres, and shore frontage to 165 feet.
“If you are looking to acquire property beyond those restrictions, you contact a lawyer and we file an application with the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission, setting out what you’re planning to do with it,” Mr. Egan said. “The commission looks at it and makes a recommendation to the island’s Executive Council, which decides whether to approve it or not.”
The commission considers various factors, including whether the area in question already has a high percentage of nonresident ownership, he said.
Mr. Lufkin, the property’s owner, said a group of family members bought the home together, using their combined land and frontage allowances to meet the requirements. A nonresident interested in buying the property now would likely make the offer subject to application to the commission and approval by the council, Mr. Muise said.
Buyers commonly use lawyers to handle transactions. The agent commission of 5 percent is paid by the seller.
Websites
Languages and Currency
English, French; Canadian dollar (1 Canadian dollar = $0.71)
Taxes and Fees
The annual property tax on this home is 15,854 Canadian dollars ($11,240), Mr. Muise said. Nonresident buyers must pay an additional tax of 50 Canadian cents for each 100 Canadian dollars of valuation.
Transaction fees include a land transfer tax of 1 percent of the sale price. Legal fees depend on the size and complexity of the transaction, but on a typical single-family home, they are around 1,300 to 1,600 Canadian dollars ($922 to $1,134), Mr. Muise said.
