Bare Land and Unique Properties

“The appraisal came back as ‘property type: other’…”

Here’s a truth about real estate that nobody wants to admit: not everything fits in a box. Banks have boxes. Nice, tidy boxes labeled “single family home” and “condo” and “townhouse.” Their computer systems literally don’t have a dropdown menu option for “converted church with commercial kitchen” or “geodesic dome on 40 acres.”

We’ve funded a hot springs resort. A campground with 37 tiny cabins. A house that started as a single-wide trailer and evolved into something that would make an architect cry. Tree houses that are actual residences. Off-grid properties powered by hamster wheels. (Okay, solar panels, but you get the idea.)

The banks look at these properties and see risk. We see perfectly good dirt with stuff on it.

Why banks treat unique properties like kryptonite

Traditional lenders need comparables. Their entire system runs on the simple question: “What did the similar house down the street sell for?” But what happens when there is no similar house? What happens when your client’s property is the only underground bunker-turned-luxury-home in a 500-kilometer radius?

The appraiser writes “see attached notes” and attaches a small novel. The bank’s underwriter opens the file, gets a migraine, and stamps it “DECLINED.”

It’s not personal. Their risk models just explode when you input “log home with attached grain silo converted to recording studio.” Their algorithms expect three bedrooms, two baths, and a two-car garage. Not “main house plus seven yurts generating Airbnb income.”

The beautiful absurdity of bare land

Raw land might be the most honest investment in existence. No pretense. No staging. Just dirt with potential. Yet banks treat it like you’re asking them to finance your unicorn breeding operation.

Here’s something the banks miss: bare land in BC is getting scarcer and more valuable every year. ALR (Agricultural Land Reserve) restrictions, development pressures, and environmental protections mean good chunks of dirt are actually fantastic investments.

Your client in Fort Nelson has 160 acres with year-round road access, surveyed boundaries, and timber worth more than the mortgage they’re requesting. Banks: “But where’s the house?”

Or the couple trying to buy a vacant lot in Seymour Arm to use as a summer lake lot for their RV. Nope, there’s no power to the lot line, and water is from a well dug by “Jerry down the road” but we can see based on nearby sales, the land is worth the $500k they are paying for it and they only need $100k. Banks? “We don’t lend on vacant land.”

We’ll lend on it. Not at 65% like a house in Victoria, but at a level that makes sense given how long raw land typically takes to sell. 55% LTV on good access land? 35% on more remote parcels? The math works.

Who actually needs unique property financing?

The vision-haver who bought an old church in Sicamous and turned it into a house. Vaulted ceilings, stained glass, but good luck finding three comparable sales of converted churches. The banks see blasphemy. We see 2,800 square feet on a double lot.

The off-grid optimizer living their best life on solar power and rainwater collection near 100 Mile House. Completely self-sufficient, mortgage-payment capable, but the banks can’t compute “no power bill.”

The creative developer who bought six adjacent lots just outside Campbell River and put a different type of tiny structure on each one. It’s brilliant. It’s profitable. It’s also impossible to finance through conventional channels.

The rural entrepreneur running a sawmill operation on their property in Cache Creek. The land’s worth $200K, the equipment’s worth $300K, the timber rights are worth another $400K. They need $150K. Banks: “Is it residential or commercial?” Yes.

Our approach to “different”

We’ve been lending in BC for over 45 years. Long enough to know that “weird” doesn’t mean “worthless.” Different doesn’t mean dangerous. Sometimes it just means someone had an idea the banks haven’t caught up to yet.

Our math is embarrassingly simple: 1. What’s it actually worth if we had to sell it? 2. How long would that take? 3. Does the loan-to-value make sense given the timeline?

That underground house in the Golden? If it’s worth $700K and sits on the market for three years in a foreclosure, we need to keep our loan low enough that accumulated interest plus selling costs still leave us whole. At 40% LTV? We’re fine. The earth-sheltered design is irrelevant to the math.

The time equation nobody talks about

Here’s what really matters with unique properties: time to sell. A cookie-cutter house in Kamloops might move in 30 days. That converted fire hall in Likely? Could be 18 months. Maybe four years.

Banks pretend this difference doesn’t exist. We price it in.

Your client with the pristine 80 acres near Powell River needs $100K. It’s worth $500K easy, but it might take three years to find the right buyer who appreciates untouched wilderness with beach access. At 20% LTV, we’ve got room for those three years plus interest plus selling costs plus a safety margin. The uniqueness is factored into the rate, not used as a reason to decline.

Quick example because math helps

Converted schoolhouse in Fort St James: - Property value: $350K (took the appraiser two weeks and a philosophy degree) - Existing debt: None - Requested mortgage: $125K for business expansion - Our LTV: 36% - Expected time to sell: 24-36 months - Bank’s response: “We don’t finance converted commercial properties” - Our response: “Funded by next Tuesday”

The three classrooms are now bedrooms. The gym is a gorgeous great room. The principal’s office is an ensuite bathroom (there’s poetry in that). It’s unique, sure. But it’s also a 4,000 square foot home on two acres.

Why Tekfund exists

We’re here for the properties that make underwriters nervous. The ones where the appraiser needs extra pages. The ones that are perfect for someone specific but maybe not for everyone.

A tree fort isn’t a condo. A decommissioned radar station isn’t a suburban split-level. A floating home isn’t a townhouse. But they’re all someone’s home or investment or dream, and if the numbers work, why should the property type matter?

In a province as diverse as BC, where people live in everything from houseboats to hobbit holes, somebody needs to finance the weird stuff.

We measure our expected days on market in years sometimes. We adjust our LTVs accordingly. We sleep fine at night.

Because here’s the truth: that bizarre property your client loves isn’t risky because it’s unique. It’s just unique. The risk is in the numbers, not the narrative. And we’ve gotten pretty good at knowing the difference.