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Forget Vancouver. British Columbia’s housing boom is set to shift to the province’s rugged north as Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s US$31 billion liquefied natural gas project sparks an economic boom in the remote region.

British Columbia’s North Coast — a sparsely populated region usually synonymous with untamed wilderness, black bears and glacial fjords — is set for a turnaround as Shell and its four partners ramp up activity on Canada’s largest infrastructure project ever, according to Bryan Yu, deputy chief economist at Central 1 Credit Union.

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Residential home prices in the North Coast are set to surge faster than any other region in the province through 2020 as the project in Kitimat prepares to employ as many as 7,500 people at its peak, according to forecasts from Yu. In contrast, prices in Vancouver’s Lower Mainland area — once one of the hottest housing markets in North America — will fall, keeping the overall provincial median price flat.