By Loreth Beswetherick A young Vancouver family has paid a Whistler-record $3.48 million for a second-home on Sunridge Plateau. The deal, which closed Friday last week, goes down in local record books as the priciest real estate transaction for a single-family home in Whistler to date. The home on Sunridge Drive is, however, not the most expensive home currently on the market. The property next door of similar size, Akasha, is listed for sale at $7.9 million. The Sunridge deal was brokered by RE/MAX listing agent Peter Colls and buyer’s agent Steve Cartner of Windermere. The 7,250-square foot home was listed at $3.48 million in April this year. It has five bedrooms, all en-suite with a total of seven bathrooms plus sauna, swirlpool and 45-foot indoor pool. The property was being used as a principal residence. High-end sales like this one have pushed the average sale price for a single-family home in Whistler into the $800,000 range. In 1998 the average sales price of a single family detached dwelling was $818,613, an increase of 26 per cent over the 1997 figure $651,017. That average value looks set to shoot even higher this year. In the first two months of 1999, for example, deals were closed on 10 homes over the $1 million mark, compared to just one sale over $1 million in the same period in each of 1998 and 1997. The total value of real estate sales for 1998 was $191.4 million for 504 transactions — which works out to an average of about $380,000 per sale. The average price of a single-family lot was $306,664. Until the Sunridge deal, the most expensive property to change hands was The Talisman in Taluswood, which went for a cool $3.38 million several months ago. The Talisman was listed by Sotheby’s and sold by the Whistler Real Estate company’s Kris Ongman.
