Land baron Rudy Nielsen once owned one of B.C.’s largest property portfolios

Anyone involved in B.C. real estate knows the name of Rudy Nielsen, an outgoing outdoorsman, entrepreneur and land baron who, at one time, owned one of the largest private property portfolios in the province.

As Mr. Nielsen liked to tell it, he made a fortune in real estate not once, but twice. The first time ended amid the recession of the early 1980s, when interest rates soared above 19 per cent. He was over-leveraged and lost everything, including his credit cards, his fancy $10,000 desk and his car. He found himself $1.8-million in debt to creditors. But he refused to declare bankruptcy, and worked his way back “deal by deal,” his wife, Joanne Nielsen, said.