Vancouver Agent
301-1055 W Broadway V6J 1M8 Vancouver, BC, Canada

"While Vancouver is using powers under the rental-only zoning changes, it differs from New West in not directly zoning an area for rental only. When New West slapped rental only on some existing properties, affected owners complained about downzoning, or making their land less valuable."

New building construction, building material changes and rising replacement costs have put further strain on industry profitability, the authority found. The average claims cost for buildings less than five years old was $18,000 compared to $10,000 for all ages.

"There’s not much evidence that the pandemic has changed the tastes of otherwise enthusiastic city dwellers. And even if moving seems like an effective strategy to stay safe, it’s not exactly clear that it will look that way in hindsight."

"Metro Vancouver condo buildings are being forced to spend an average of 65 per cent more on insurance premiums in 2020, new data suggests, providing the first statistical glimpse into the extent of the financial crisis hitting owners in multi-unit buildings."

"While rents in some Canadian cities have declined slightly or even risen in recent months (...) Toronto rents went down by five per cent compared to a year ago and across Metro Vancouver by about nine per cent."

"Not only have COVID-19 precautions virtually shut Canada’s borders to newcomers, they’ve led to many of the more than one million international students and guest workers in Canada (about 180,000 in Metro Vancouver) returning to their homelands. That’s hitting housing, especially the rental markets of Vancouver and Toronto, which have the highest immigration rates per capita in North America."

The article starts with a very cheerful, "Good morning!," but it kind of goes downhill from there...

"Any tightening in mortgages for investors could put more downward pressure on the condo market, where investors account for more than one-third of condo owners in the Toronto and Vancouver regions. Although the average selling price remained steady across all types of homes in these two areas, the price of a condo has started to soften, falling 4 per cent in the city of Toronto."

"The number of homes sold is in free fall, but so far average prices are not plummeting as sellers try to ride out the pandemic."

Recorded MLS sales for Vancouver East and West, "attached" properties, from March 1st to March 14th: 285 March 15th to 31st: 170 From April 1st to 14th: 74... Since April 15th: 49 (Greater Vancouver for same dates: 833, 512, 224, 132)

In Vancouver and Victoria, realtors say there are still some multiple offers, but calls are drying up. One Vancouver realtor said activity was bumpy, with one property drawing many viewers, while others were like ghost towns.

"Aside from developerswhose financial stake in getting houses and apartments built looks like a conflict of interestthe members of a pro-housing political constituency are difficult to identify. People who lose when new housing is blocked don’t even know that they themselves are victims."

"The unusually shaped property, adjacent to the former Molson brewery on Burrard Street and close to Vanier Park, was the ancestral village of the Squamish Nation. Squamish members were forcibly removed in 1913 and transported to the North Shore and Squamish Valley. Their homes were burned."