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Houses in my culdesac in a suburb of Vancouver were selling for $450k in 2014. We bought here last April for $1.05m after seeing prices rise $200k in a month.

Houses in my culdesac in a suburb of Vancouver were selling for $450k in 2014. We bought here last April for $1.05m after seeing prices rise $200k in a month. The neighbors just sold last week for $1.35m, and there's a house around the corner listed for $1.5m.

walrus01 5y ago
Vancouver is really its own special case because not only is it subject to the price rise/increase that is being seen in the top 20/25 largest North American cities, in general for the US/Canada sized market, but also a massive influx of foreign money looking for a place to park it in reliable solid real estate. I am a participant in the Vancouver area housing market so I concur with your examples of what prices have risen to. I know a person in Langley whose single family home on a lot in a very normal early 1980s era subdivision was probably $400k valued ten or twelve years ago, they're now receiving unsolicited offers for 1.5 million.
- abeppu 5y ago
  Is there a reason that those foreign investors like Vancouver specifically so much? People have been talking about the sharply increased prices in Vancouver for some time now -- so I'd think if you were looking for a safe place to park 1.5M you might prefer to buy 4 houses in Winnipeg or something?
  - walrus01 5y ago
    It's my understanding that it's primarily related to historical (past 40 years) immigration patterns to Vancouver. And the size of Mandarin and Cantonese speaking communities in the metro Vancouver area, which is of a similarly large amount of people as in Toronto. Earlier immigration to the lower mainland of BC was mostly Cantonese speaking folks from the region of Hong Kong, since about 2000 it's been much more "new money" Mandarin and more northern regions of China. Not just people looking for a safe place to park money but also enough members of their first language and ethnic community that there's a good selection of grocery stores, restaurants, retail shops, community events/entertainment. That's my theory, at least. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Canadians_in_Greater_Vancouver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Canadians_in_Greater_V...
  - digianarchist 5y ago
    Traditionally it’s been a landing zone for East Asian immigrants. That said I’m very skeptical that foreign money is causing the bubble in Canada. We’re bringing in 400,000 high skilled people per year and we allow people to raid their current home value and their pensions in order to buy a home. Those two things overshadow the measly 6-8% of the market which is foreign buyers. The proposed ban on foreign purchases will hopefully prove me out.
- luckyluke88 5y ago
  Couple crazy points about Langley as I have lived here since the 80s - my parents bought one of those homes back in 1980 for just under 25k!! - in the 80s the busiest intersection (200 st and bypass) where the chapters, milestones, etc is now, was a giant field full of cows haha :)
  - walrus01 5y ago
    So theoretically if your parents are at retirement age and want to live somewhere warm, very rough calculation, if they sold that 25k house for 1.5 million today and put it into a mixed form of investments that return an average of 6% annually, that's $90k a year to live on. Not counting at all whatever other money they have saved up and RRSPs.
    - luckyluke88 5y ago
      Yeah they downsized a number of years ago but your comment is inline with their overall situation. :) I got fairly lucky and got my start with a townhouse around 2000 just as everything really started to run up. A friend of mine bought his house on a third acre for 210k about four years before me Pretty tough situation for young adults today with such high prices.

walrus01 5y ago

Vancouver is really its own special case because not only is it subject to the price rise/increase that is being seen in the top 20/25 largest North American cities, in general for the US/Canada sized market, but also a massive influx of foreign money looking for a place to park it in reliable solid real estate. I am a participant in the Vancouver area housing market so I concur with your examples of what prices have risen to. I know a person in Langley whose single family home on a lot in a very normal early 1980s era subdivision was probably $400k valued ten or twelve years ago, they're now receiving unsolicited offers for 1.5 million.

abeppu 5y ago
Is there a reason that those foreign investors like Vancouver specifically so much? People have been talking about the sharply increased prices in Vancouver for some time now -- so I'd think if you were looking for a safe place to park 1.5M you might prefer to buy 4 houses in Winnipeg or something?
- walrus01 5y ago
  It's my understanding that it's primarily related to historical (past 40 years) immigration patterns to Vancouver. And the size of Mandarin and Cantonese speaking communities in the metro Vancouver area, which is of a similarly large amount of people as in Toronto. Earlier immigration to the lower mainland of BC was mostly Cantonese speaking folks from the region of Hong Kong, since about 2000 it's been much more "new money" Mandarin and more northern regions of China. Not just people looking for a safe place to park money but also enough members of their first language and ethnic community that there's a good selection of grocery stores, restaurants, retail shops, community events/entertainment. That's my theory, at least. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Canadians_in_Greater_Vancouver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Canadians_in_Greater_V...
- digianarchist 5y ago
  Traditionally it’s been a landing zone for East Asian immigrants. That said I’m very skeptical that foreign money is causing the bubble in Canada. We’re bringing in 400,000 high skilled people per year and we allow people to raid their current home value and their pensions in order to buy a home. Those two things overshadow the measly 6-8% of the market which is foreign buyers. The proposed ban on foreign purchases will hopefully prove me out.
luckyluke88 5y ago
Couple crazy points about Langley as I have lived here since the 80s - my parents bought one of those homes back in 1980 for just under 25k!! - in the 80s the busiest intersection (200 st and bypass) where the chapters, milestones, etc is now, was a giant field full of cows haha :)
- walrus01 5y ago
  So theoretically if your parents are at retirement age and want to live somewhere warm, very rough calculation, if they sold that 25k house for 1.5 million today and put it into a mixed form of investments that return an average of 6% annually, that's $90k a year to live on. Not counting at all whatever other money they have saved up and RRSPs.
  - luckyluke88 5y ago
    Yeah they downsized a number of years ago but your comment is inline with their overall situation. :) I got fairly lucky and got my start with a townhouse around 2000 just as everything really started to run up. A friend of mine bought his house on a third acre for 210k about four years before me Pretty tough situation for young adults today with such high prices.