The activity is not just luxury condos, townhouses and cabins, but restaurant renovations, amenity upgrades and summer-slope maintenance.

A Canada-wide real estate boom is most astounding at resorts such as Big White, where baby boomers with money are buying luxury vacation homes to use themselves as well as an investment by putting it into a rental pool.

- two-bedroom townhouse for $400,000 seems expensive to people in Kelowna, said Steve Hyndman, who is developing the $10-million SouthPoint Mountain Homes complex of 21 townhouses.
Øut itô very affordable compared to Whistler and Whistler makes Europe look cheap.ÿ/p>

Paul Mailey is with Maicon Construction, the company building the $35-million, 78-unit Copper Kettle Lodge.

xhe buyers are mainly baby boomers who have worked smart and hard and have the money to afford a secondary home with all the bells and whistles, said Mailey.
„t used to be that $200 per square foot would be top notch. With Copper Kettle, weôe gone to $300 per square foot, which means slate floors, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, quality construction and views.
This means a 1,500-square foot condo in the lodge goes for $380,000 - $420,000.
xhis type of housing is usually nicer than the buyerô primary residence, Mailey said.
Øaby boomers are at a point in their lives where the family home has been lived in and maybe has or hasn been renovated. With a brand-new vacation home, they can go all out.ÿ/p>

Buyers come from all over.
At Sundance, a $35-million complex of 93 condos, townhouses and cabins, purchasers have tended to be 25 percent from Kelowna, 20 per cent each from Ontario and the Lower Mainland and 25 per cent foreign mostly from the U.S. and the U.K.

Luxury homes alone don create a real estate boom.
The mountain location of Big White, with its consistently good powder snow, makes it a desirable skiing and snowboarding resort.
Add to that a village with hotels, spas, restaurants, shopping, childrenô programs and other activities such as cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, skating, tube rides and dog sledding and you have a true destination resort.

Big White has a good base population to draw from in the Okanagan, and it has good road and plane access from Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.

There also are seasonal flights from Toronto that can connect to points farther afield.

The vacation home market is driven by location, activities, amenities and access and fuelled by baby boomers with money, recreation time and a desire to make money on an investment that can also generate revenue in a rental pool.