Building boom marks prosperous road ahead.

A great financing environment and an improved local economy have contributed to North Bay's home building and housing market boom, now stretching into the third year.

Realtors say executives with good-paying jobs are migrating into the city to buy high-end homes. These migrants, combined with a large influx of retirees and post-secondary students, are keeping all types of listings at a premium.

Listings for single-family homes in the North Bay and Callander area continue to be in short supply particularly for move-up buyers, says Trevor Thomas, a North Bay realtor and president of the North Bay Real Estate Board, in describing the across-the-board "domino effect" in the housing market.

Resale homes in the $120,000- to $180,000-range are few and far between.

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With the average age of homes in North Bay about 35 years old, Thomas says many potential homebuyers are opting to build new instead of forking over as much as $250,000.

Influenced by low-interest rates, many potential home-purchasers have come out of the woodwork.

New subdivision projects in Ferris, Callander and the upscale Wallace Estate lots that were inching along at the early development stage, are now coming together, coinciding with government investment in new schools, post-secondary institutions and the North Bay hospital.

It has resulted in a diverse cross-section of professionals in their mid-30s and up, including doctors, teachers and former North Bay residents, seeking to return home from southern Ontario.

New institutional construction is a big draw for homebuyers, but so are the larger-than-normal lots of 65 feet wide and 140 feet deep.

"We've got people from the North coming south and from the south coming north. North Bay is kind of the in-between point," says Thomas.

Southern Ontarians are by-passing the Muskoka market and are trolling for water-front properties while some locals are renovating homes for Internet wiring to allow for home-based offices.

"North Bay's been solid even through a period of relative weakness in some of our Northern Ontario centres," says Warren Philp, Northern Ontario Market Analyst.

The resale numbers have been strong in North Bay and the city has the highest average resale home price of all the five northern cities at $131,456, based on 881 at the end of June. Last year's average price as a whole was $125,407 based on 1,266 sales during 2003, up 5.3 per cent from the year before. Sales were 35 per cent ahead of the prior year at 881.

Construction continues to drive the North Bay market with the total value of building permits issued by the end of September, totaling $59,625,695, up considerably from the $33,296,307 issued during all of last year.

The bulk of it - about 52 per cent - is in residential construction, followed by institutional (20 per cent) and industrial (eight per cent).

Last year, North Bay counted 123 single-detached starts, the highest number since 1992. By the end of September, 145 units were built.

Just to the south, Callander, a town of 3,100 just a 15-minute drive down Highway 11 from North Bay, is exploding with upscale residential development around the Osprey Links Golf Course.

Retirees, families and young couples are building upscale homes nestled in a new 265-lot subdivision between the champion 18-hole golf course and picturesque Callander Bay.

Peter Minogue, a North Bay realtor with Coldwell Banker, estimates his firm has sold 130 lots in Callander over the last three years.

"The least expensive home is $200,000 all the way up to the $600,000 to $700,000 range.

"Callander in the last 18 months had 117 new building permits," says Minogue, along Lake Nipissing's south shore and the golf course development.

The slower-paced quality of life and municipal taxes that are 35 to 40 per cent lower than North Bay's are big attractions for many homebuyers.

Minogue believes years of marketing the city's quality of life and the gradual four-laning of Highway 11 is drawing urbanites north in search of cottage properties.

After selling only five parcels on a 24-lot Callander Bay island property over the last five years, his firm has sold eight in the past month just through Internet advertising.

It is stark contrast to the mid-1990s, when local job downsizing and transfers at CFB North Bay, Ontario Hydro, Bell Canada and Ontario Provincial Police and Corrections Canada led to a surplus of listings and home-building starts could be counted on one hand.

Today, Minogue says, "You can hardly get a listing and keep it. They're almost sold the same day."

He attributes the confidence in the local market to midsized mining supply companies like Cementation Skanska moving 35 to 40 high-income employees to their consolidated head office, and the run on high-end homes, while local homeowners are looking to upscale.

The biggest influence is the influx of students a Nipissing University and Canadore College, which make up more than 70 per cent of the schools' populations.

"It has really created a housing crisis," says Minogue, with many property owners buying single-family homes or semidetached units and renting them to students.

On the commercial side, the 8,900-square-metre Home Depot project and the True North Chev Olds, an automotive centre employing 60 people, should be ready for November openings.

The city's award-winning Community Improvement Plan continues with ongoing investment in the downtown core. One major property owner, C&C Properties, is renovating the upper two storeys of a former office building downtown for conversion into a small 36-bed student village for Nipissing-Canadore undergrads.

With more than 3,000 post-secondary students coming to the city from outside the region, residency accommodations are tight. Through the Downtown Improvement Area's program, the city is encouraging and financially assisting, through loans, tax exemptions and grants, the conversion of commercial downtown properties to get more young people downtown.

C&C property manager John Wilson says they have invested more than a quarter of a million dollars into creating loft-style apartments of three- and four-bedroom units.

"Revenue-wise, it's increasing the stream of the building."

One of the future economic drivers in the community will be the upcoming construction of the North Bay Regional Health Centre.

There is still no word from the province on funding for the 720,000-square-foot complex. The project team did take out a building permit in early October, "a positive sign, but still nothing conclusive," says North Bay mayor Vic Fedeli.

The final stages of negotiations with the Ministry of Health should be wrapped up by mid-November and the project could go to construction tender before spring.

North Bay and the surrounding communities will contribute a 30-per-cent share toward building costs, with the city having committed $20 million, or $1 million a year for 20 years, plus $7 million in infrastructure servicing.

The $218.6-million complex, tentatively scheduled to open in 2007, will combine two groups, the 275-bed North Bay General Hospital and the 113-bed Northeastern Mental Health Centre, side-by-side on one campus alongside Highway 17.

By IAN ROSS

Northern Ontario Business