Are We Bubbling or Not? Vancouver Homes Still Affordable

Bubble by Jay Morgan

Amidst the news about sky-rocketing Vancouver home prices, what are the options of an average citizen to acquire a decent dwelling in the Vancouver area?

Yes, the news has been bringing us dizzying price figures during the past few months, but these don’t reflect the reality particularly well. First off, prices are going up – on average. They go up because there is demand for our properties. The demand comes from within Canada and Vancouver itself, but it also comes from foreigners. If you’ve ever heard of Asian property investors, this is where they come in.

Asian and mostly Chinese new rich come to Vancouver to store their money in our houses and luxury condos. This is because property investment possibilities are artificially limited in China and this type of investment has always been quite lucrative.

Having said that, note the specific categorization we used: Chinese investors operate within the top edge of the spectrum. They are mostly interested in large detached houses in Greater Vancouver and luxury downtown Vancouver condominium units. If there is more demand in these areas, prices that are already rather high are going to go up big time.

The hikes in the highest-priced houses are in turn able to sway the overall price statistics by a significant margin. If one luxury condo sells for as much as ten smaller row units or twenty regular apartments, you can imagine what this does to your averages.

All in all, if the market is sliced into more manageable chunks, we can see that the apartments and houses that most of us will want to live in are priced roughly the same as last year, if not even cheaper in some locations. Best of all, even if the luxurious bubble ever bursts, most home owners in the city are going to get but sprinkled by it.

So yes, if you are shopping in the most exclusive locations and for the most exquisite units, you may need to keep saving up for longer. And in the meantime, you can live in a good old house in the suburbs sold to you at a reasonable price. Fortunately, Jay Banks and his team can help you buy either of those two.

Stay with us to stay in the picture and please leave us a comment about your own experience.

Posted by Jay Banks.