Gibsons Development - Soames Place

[Skook]

December 7, 2015 Update

A Soames Place update is long, long overdue – I can’t believe the last post was back in August, 2014. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been keeping my eye on the project. For instance I know that the grand-opening occurred mid-June – yep, its move-in ready, for sure. Another thing I know is that The Robinson Group no longer handles the condo marketing and sales. SC Realtor John McKenzie took that over in October and Holywell 90 Day Realty got the commercial units. See, I know what’s happening.

So, with an update badly needed I headed right to the Soames Place Facebook page today and snagged a screenshot of the last post.
Looks like someone named Alessandro sent the developer, Andrew Lee, pictures of his newly decorated unit. 16 people really liked those pics, too, and one viewer, Linda Sabiston, even left a comment: “Yes, very nice pictures, indeed...”

So, with so much approval, I just had to click on those pics and check them all out and they’re beautiful pics of a beautifully staged unit. You can check them out, too, by clicking here and then click on a pic to open the album.

It was the deck pics that really got my attention and I thought, “Hey that has to be Unit #210.” That unit is at the back of the building and has the largest patio deck in the complex. And, that unit stuck in my mind because it was developer listed in November 2013 for $351,450 and sold in August 2014 for $307,500 (↓12.5%). It was put up for sale again in July 2015 at $370,000 (↑20.3%) and sold for ask near the end of September. While all this was happening nothing else was moving. There are 28 condos in this project and 19 are still up on MLS – there have been only nine sales and this unit flipped and the flipper made money!!!! Get out!!!

So, I’m looking at these unit pictures and wondering what’s going on? Who is Alessandro? I thought he might be an interior designer who bought the unit to stage to drum up business – that happened at the Watermark. But, different searches got me nowhere so I just let it go and then this...

There’s Alessandro and he is a web developer and lives in Vancouver and he bought Unit 210 at Soames Place and then had it beautifully decorated then hired Linda Sabiston of ‘First Impression Photography’ who does high end shoots for a lot of local Realtors so that he could use those beautiful images to entice people to his new $175.00 per night motel room...

Well, my golly gosh. Do you believe it? Talk about adding insult to injury – the developer is practically pulling his hair out for lack of sales and this one unit gets sold twice and the second time at a profit and will now make as much money in a week as the developer hopes to make in a month renting out another unit. I kid you not.

Unit #301 has been listed on the Holywell Property Management site since July 20th (and Craigslist, too). It was first listed at $1450/mth and on November 7th the rental price was dropped to $1350/mth and on top of that the developer is willing to throw in a pre-paid $500 BC Ferry card for signing a yearlong lease.

Alessandro is expecting to make $1225 per week to stay in his tastefully decorated condo/motel unit. Oh, Mr. Lee, life is so unfair. Honestly, who would want to own a real motel these days?

I’m just putting the finishing touches to my updated Soames Place spreadsheet and will post it in a day or two. Alessandro distracted me. Oh by the way, it doesn’t look like he’s rented it out yet, but he does have 26 reviews – they’re for his Vancouver AirBnB digs and everyone seems very happy with Alessandro. So, don’t worry Mr. Lee when up to 6 strangers per night waltz in and out of your spanking new condo development. I'm sure Alessandro has it under control...from Vancouver.