Add a Vancouver, British Columbia, real estate developer to the growing list of investors buying up Central Oregon land.

Ender Ilkay, founder of Cedar Coast Properties, is developing McCall Landing, a partially built subdivision in northeast Bend, off of Northeast 18th Street.

He bought 102 of the 129 single-family home lots in the subdivision from a California holding company in September, Deschutes County property records show.

He also bought several undeveloped lots at Ochoco Pointe in Prineville, off of Northeast Hudspeth Lane.

Since then he’s been securing building permits and working with Bend building and real estate company Pahlisch Homes on a plan to develop the subdivisions over the next five to eight years.

Ilkay is focusing on development of the Bend subdivision. He’s received 11 permits from Deschutes County to build homes valued between $180,000 and $240,000.

“We have no debt on the property. We bought it completely with cash,” Ilkay said. “We’re in this for the long term.”

Since 2009, developers have been taking advantage of a silver lining in the region’s depressed real estate market: With land values at a fraction of their prices just four years ago, groups with cash to spare can find deals that would have been unthinkable when real estate was booming.

Numerous lots in bare subdivisions in east Bend have changed hands as a result.

A development team that includes real estate investor Gary Miller, a congressman from California, has bought hundreds of mostly foreclosed lots on the east side of town over the last three years, including the Mirada, Gleneden and South Deerfield Park subdivisions.

Salem and Portland-area developers have also gotten in on the act, purchasing lots in northeast Bend subdivisions like Quail Crossing and Rabbit Hills.

Bend marks the first venture into the United States for Ilkay, a 27-year real-estate veteran who has focused his development plans mostly on homes in British Columbia’s tourism and retirement communities.

He was also the driving force behind a proposal to build a 250-cabin resort along the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail on Vancouver Island — a proposal that was blocked late last year amid concerns over the plan’s environmental impacts.

In the case of McCall Landing, Ilkay purchased the lots at a fraction of their value before real estate crashed in 2008.

Ilkay paid $1.63 million for the lots, county records show, or about $16,000 per lot.

The lots were valued at $9.5 million in June 2008, according to county records, or about $75,000 per lot.

Pahlisch Homes owned the property back then, Deschutes County property records show. It sold the lots to California-based HOF Financial I LLC in 2010 to avoid losing it in foreclosure, records show.

Values dropped far enough last year for Ilkay to decide the price wouldn’t go down much further. He had been looking across the Pacific Northwest to grow his real estate portfolio, but settled on Central Oregon.

“Bend really got my attention,” Ilkay said. Even with real estate prices down, “it’s still a great, quality place to live and recreate. All those things are still there, and as long as that’s still there, it will be a good investment as real estate recovers.”

Pahlisch Homes is working with Ilkay as a development partner in the McCall Landing project, building the homes.

Six homes have been built in the subdivision since Ilkay purchased the lots, he said.

Five more homes are under construction now, said Jason Myhre, marketing director with Pahlisch Homes. Construction on four additional homes is expected to start next week.

Pahlisch had been eyeing McCall landing for several years, having owned many of the lots there since 2008.

But a demand for homes under $250,000 is driving new interest on home building this year, and Myhre said Pahlisch’s partnership with Ilkay gave the builder the means to start moving ahead with development.

“We’re seeing low interest rates, pent-up demand and low inventory,” Myhre said. “That’s just led to a healthy turn in the market lately. I wouldn’t say it’s booming, but it’s definitely getting healthier.”

Ilkay, for his part, is convinced that the decline in home values has slowed, and prices are likely to rise.

The median price of a single-family home in Bend was $235,000 in July, according to data from Bratton Appraisal Group. That’s a nearly four-year high, though values have bumped up and down since mid-2009.

But a dwindling supply of large lots for sale was the biggest factor in his decision to make the move on the McCall Landing project, Ilkay said.

With other development teams scooping up vacant land, he might not have had another chance if he had waited much longer.

“It’s not normal to have so many shovel-ready subdivisions on the market for sale,” Ilkay said. “There aren’t many of these left anymore.”