Our region’s multimillion-dollar-bungalow phenomenon may have reached new heights with the listing of this two-bedroom, 880-square-foot bungalow for a whopping $14,880,000.
That’s a staggering $16,909 per square foot, in a city where luxury homes trade for $2,000 per square foot and upwards.
So why so much money for what seems – at first glance – to be so little?
The home is on an 11,000-square-foot beachfront lot on West Vancouver’s “Golden Mile” – Bellevue Avenue – and is one of the only properties not to have been developed into a mega-luxury waterfront home. Yet.
![$14-9m Bungalow West Van beach](https://www.vmcdn.ca/f/files/glaciermedia/import/lmp-all/1238332-14-9m-bungalow-west-van-beach.jpg;w=960)
In fact, the property would be slightly more valuable without the bungalow, as it is pretty much 100 per cent guaranteed that the home will be torn down to build a larger house, which is an added cost.
![$14-9m Bungalow West Van site plan](https://www.vmcdn.ca/f/files/glaciermedia/import/lmp-all/1238336-14-9m-bungalow-west-van-site-plan.jpg;w=960)
If it makes you feel better, B.C. Assessments valued the property in July 2017 at $10,252,000, and that’s without a new high-end home on the site.
![$14-9m Bungalow West Van ocean view](https://www.vmcdn.ca/f/files/glaciermedia/import/lmp-all/1238334-14-9m-bungalow-west-van-ocean-view.jpg;w=960)
However, the near-$15 million price may still be a little rich for a developer looking to make an end profit.
Records show that on a similar-sized lot two houses away, a 2016-built, Russell Hollingsworth-designed, 4,000-square-foot luxury home sold in December 2017 for $13 million on the nose – $1.98 million under asking.