What it’s Like Being a REALTOR® Working on Small Canadian Islands

REALTORS® working in small island communities know the keys to success include positioning themselves as local experts and that reputation is everything in a population where word spreads fast.

Island markets tend not to be fast-paced environments in which deals close in a matter of days with multiple offers. Deals take weeks to finalize, and patience is vital.

What makes island living, and selling, different?

On the mainland, if a property “doesn't sell in two weeks, the panic button sets in, and they start pushing the price down,” says Myles Wilson, a salesperson and REALTOR® with Pemberton Holmes on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia, which has a population of more than 11,600. 

“We have 33 REALTORS® and, if the buyer is coming from off the island, they can't just jump in their car and drive to the listing. They have to go catch a ferry, find accommodations. It is more of a process to find someone to buy that property. The average listing can take up to six months to sell.”

Island real estate has its own set of unique realities and challenges that REALTORS® who live  there are best placed to address.

“If you live on an island and sell real estate and don't have at least three boats, you are not a true island sales rep,” jokes Steve Rolston, Broker of Record with J.A. Rolston Ltd. Brokerage on Manitoulin Island in Ontario. “We have one streetlight on the island and it is at the swing bridge when you leave. … It is a different world here.”

If you live on an island and sell real estate and don't have at least three boats, you are not a true island sales rep.” 

Steve Rolston

For island residents, the ‘trade off’ to living remotely in picturesque locations is naturally going to be access to amenities normal to city folks. A Canadian Tire or Home Depot usually involves planning a day to take a ferry. Those who want to buy in places such as Salt Spring Island need to be prepared for such challenges and a slower lifestyle. Working with a REALTOR® who has a grasp on the full list of pros and cons, and can set realistic expectations, is something that can help ease the process.

“I certainly wouldn't sell anything in Vancouver, because I don't know what I'm doing over there,” says Wilson, who moved to Salt Spring Island from Ontario in the 1980s and started in the real estate business in 1991. 

Geography plays in to zoning, access to utilities 

Part of his job is understanding that these properties have drilled wells, septic fields and, in many cases, sit on native burial grounds. A buyer needs a local REALTOR® who knows where to seek out maps and find answers to questions a buyer may not know to ask. Local zoning laws can also be complicated and require someone who understands them. And, in the case of Salt Spring, which isn’t a municipality, finding information on a property doesn’t come from a singular source. Information is obtained from Islands Trust, the Capital Region District (CRD), the Heritage Branch of the Government of British Columbia, and other agencies, says Heidi Kuhrt, a salesperson and REALTOR® with Macdonald Realty Salt Spring Island.

“On Salt Spring Island, there isn’t one body in charge of water, unlike Vancouver where Metro Vancouver oversees operations and distribution,” she says. “Some homes are on wells, others have water licences to springs or lakes, and still others are connected to community water systems. People often say that they hear water is scarce on the island. This isn’t true. A better response is it is complicated.”

What’s bringing people to island communities? 

Kuhrt grew up in Vancouver, studied and worked as a real estate professional there, and then worked on Bowen Island in British Columbia for 10 years before moving with her family to Salt Spring Island. She had a young family and wanted services such as a hospital, indoor pool and high school, which don’t exist on the other Gulf Islands. She says 95% of her business on the island is primary home sales and not vacation home properties.

“The island attracts many interesting creative and out-of-the-box thinkers,” she says. “I get to be one of the first points of contact for them. It is fun meeting such people. Many parts of the island are hidden gems that you only get to experience when on a personal home search, including architecturally fascinating homes and beautiful, secret natural spots.”

In Wilson’s experience, the typical buyer profile on Salt Spring Island is over the age of 55, with 85% buying to live there full-time and the other 15% buying a home to use on occasion. 

On Manitoulin Island in Ontario, which is 160 kilometres long and the largest freshwater lake island in the world, there are several different types of buyers, Rolston says.  Those include former islanders (called haweaters on Manitoulin, a name that derives from the island’s prevalence of hawberries) moving back home to the island. Then there are urban buyers, who are retiring and tend to gravitate toward the east half of Manitoulin, where shopping and services are more readily available, accompanied by easier access to the mainland. 

Rolston says his business breaks down to around 60% residential sales and 40% recreational. He has lived most of his life on Manitoulin and has been in the real estate business for 38 years. “I personally would never consider working an area I did not know well.”

Knowing the area in which she operates is a cornerstone of Tina Lynch’s business on Gabriola Island, north of Salt Spring Island, in British Columbia. The salesperson and REALTOR® with Royal LePage Nanaimo Realty moved there with her family when she was just four years old and has been in real estate for 20 years. Serving a population of just under 5,000, her brokerage averages around 70 transactions per year, many of which are for people who have retired early and moved to the island to volunteer and start community initiatives, such as a health care clinic.  

Selling somewhere where everyone knows your name 

In such a small market, reputation is paramount, she says. 

“We know lots of people in the community,” Lynch says. “If I need to go and talk to someone … and talking to people is important in real estate, I can go to the grocery store and probably connect to three or four people. And so that makes it different than operating in the city. Also, it means you're very careful of how you act as a businessperson too, because it is a small community and if you were to make a mistake, it would be out there.” 

An upside, she says, is that branding and marketing is easier. Lynch and her husband, who partners with her in the business, drive a 1978 Volkswagen van that they use as part of their branding.

“You're selling a lifestyle. That's what people are drawn to, that's why they're coming here. They want change. They want laid back, simple.”

Mike Turner agrees with that sentiment – people who come to his brokerage (Royal LePage Turner Realty), located in Gander, in Newfoundland and Labrador, are looking for an escape from urban living. Turner just sold a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house, built in 1909 as a church, on the northern tip of the province in a place called Pike’s Arm, located on New World Island (population just under 3,000). The new owner will be sitting in the living room, drinking coffee, watching whales and icebergs. 

Turner sells properties over a chain of islands in the region, which he describes as a slower paced market.

 “Prices are much lower, so you’re not dealing with bidding wars. It’s just a totally different way of selling real estate. It’s much more relaxed, with a lot more travel, compared to the hyper competitive metro markets. And you’ve got to be patient – it takes a lot more time for a property to sell, waiting for the right person to come along. So, you are setting your client’s expectations, and your own expectations.”