Home prices are heading higher

The future of Vancouver real estate

A 1 bedroom condo in downtown Vancouver recently sold for $1 million. (#404 889 Pacific St.)

Someone looked at this 4th floor unit and said, “Yes, let me go ahead and pay $1,600 per sqft to buy this.”

Higher up in the same building a 3 bedroom unit sold last month for $2.35 million. (#3501 889 Pacific St.)

You might think there aren’t that many people with $2.35 million of purchasing power.
But this property sold in just 6 days.
The competition to buy these multi-million dollar homes is surprising given that mortgage interest rates are near 6% these days.

For reference this 3 bedroom unit sold at $1,900 per sqft.

Not to be outdone, another building down the street on Hornby just sold a 2 bedroom unit for $2.1 million.

This one is smaller in size, but the price per sqft is higher at $1,930. (#5101 1289 Hornby St.)

If that sounds expensive, #802 1818 Alberni St. sold last month for $2,119 per sq ft.

This is a 2 bedroom, 972 sq ft condo that isn’t even on a very high floor.

The Alberni by Kengo Kuma building just completed construction last year.
It’s that odd shaped tower in downtown.

Guess how much they are asking for a 792 sqft, 2 bedroom unit?

$2.89 million. 😮

If it actually goes for that price it would make this condo $3,649 PER SQUARE FEET!

It certainly has a unique appearance and comes with a lot of amenities.
But I’m not sure it’s worth that kind of money.

Unfortunately if you want to live in Vancouver it’s going to become more difficult to pay for shelter here.

When tens of thousands of people move into this city every year with no new land to build on, property prices have to go up.

Condo developers are encouraged to build “luxury” units because that’s how they make the most profit given the space, density requirements, and other constraints they have to work with.

Paying $2,000 per sqft for new condos will slowly become the norm around here. 😕

I’m not sure what’s more surprising: real estate prices are higher after 1 year of interest rate increases, or that there are still enough people in this city who can still clearly afford to pay these inflated prices for housing.

Fortunately Canada is a pretty big country. And housing is still relatively affordable in most cities.

Here are the average condo prices this year according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

• Greater Vancouver Area: $775,467
• Greater Toronto Area: $705,472
• Calgary: $286,000
• Winnipeg: $253,174

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Random Useless Fact:

In 2017 Toronto estimated it would cost the city up to $150,000 to put in new stairs to a park.
Then some retired guy came along and built the stairs for $550 with materials he bought himself.