Hi folks,

Anyone know of a decent property manager, solicitor or/and realtor in Nelson?

Cheers

Y.

Anyone have anything to tell me about the place more generally then?

It looks nice and quiet but hard to get to?? Still planning my holidays....so any comments would be useful!

Ta, Y.

Isn't it a hippy place???

According to the Lonely Planet, full of aging draft dodgers with lots of mari-ju-wana wafts floating in the air!

Never been but it's on our list. Very hippy, drop out, trustafarian style. I believe the hippies came when the Vietnam draft dodgers moved there, lots of beardy intellectual types followed. Big dope scene there. Dope is king of everything, I have met people who moved away cos they were sick and tired of the apathy towards everything. Very slow pace of life, very much with the hippy-in-crowd kinda scene. Typical small town scene really, maybe hard to get to know people, but once you do, kaboom ! Very remote, in terms of the Kootenays are a long way from anywhere. Great for ski/boarding, hiking, mountain biking, photography. The Monshees and Selkirk mountains are awesome. Plenty glaciers, bugaboos, etc. Heli ski-ing is the best, over and above 'world class'. There's 1000 times more ski-able mountains than the whole of Europe. Kootenay Lake isn't as warm as the Okanagan so OK for swimming but only peak summer time. The ghost towns are close by but I guess once you've seen one dead mining town you've seen um all ? Lots of amazing mountain/lake scenery close by when you want that hit of nature and transquility. Yah !

Enjoy ! I think for a certain type of person expecting a certain pace of life and getting away from the hubbub and noise of the mainstream, Nelson could offer an amazing quality of life.

Rich,

Yonk - did you try HWP's/my realtor? He's not in Nelson but he used to be the mayor and I'm sure he'd be able to recommend someone.

http://www.condosincalgary.com/

I wasn't taken with the place in the slightest but that's not what you want to hear I thought it would be much more attractive and much more boho. But it was raining non-stop and rather chilly (in June) so perhaps the bohos were all indoors?!

I've been to Nelson a couple of times in the last six months--I was just there three weeks ago. It's a nice town, with plenty of house potential--meaning there are some attractive houses just ready for renovation and it seems to be a reasonable hot property market as well. The main problems with it, from my point of view, are:

1) The water front is ugly because the airport is right next to the lake (it's the only flat place to have an airport) so there aren't any real waterfront businesses like restaurants etc. I guess they need an airport (although they don't fly anywhere from it, it is just hobby and tourist planes--if you want to fly to Vancouver etc, you have to go to Castlegar airport, which is about 40 minutes away, but I stand to be corrected on this--maybe there is a shuttle to Vancouver??) So the main focus of the town is up from the waterfront with the high street, which is busy, and full of cafes and tourist shops.

2) It is full of hippies. I am so over the hippy scene that it is tiresome, I find, to see again hippies hanging out in cafes all afternoon etc. That's just me though--I've just moved from a hippy town so I want a change.

3) It's a tourist town, another scene I am tired of. I never feel I am living in a real town when the main industry is tourism. But other people love it, so...

As for an estate agent etc, there are a lot of agents working there, and it is a reasonably hot market, so a web search should give you a good idea of what is available, and who is selling what. You can certainly get a nice property near the water for a good price still.

I have a friend in the UK who is looking for an up and coming town to move to in BC and I have pushed Nelson as a good choice. She's more into the cafe scene and needs an up and coming town for her business, so I feel comfortable recommending it to her--it just isn't for me.