When it comes to the media Vancouver is portrayed as being one of the most expensive cities, Real Estate wise, compared to the rest of the world.  These surveys and scare tactics do not tell the whole story though.  This article from Vancouver magazine tells the real story. 

www.vanmag.com/Real_Estate/Feature_Stories/Is_Vancouver_Really_as_Expensive_as_it_Seems

Good read that sheds some light on the myth of all offshore $, as well exposes some pretty slimy business tactics from a well known cheat in the marketing game

Read Here

Here is an interview in which Bob Rennie discusses many of the topics he touched on in our annual breakfast meeting last week.  Interesting and worth a read!

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"There is no magic silver bullet that will kill the Vancouver Real Estate Market....There will never be a new single family lot created in this city ever again." - Bob Rennie

Open this Sunday 2-4pm

#310 - 1516 Charles St.

1 bed , 1 bath

588 sq ft

top floor, north facing, great views

partially renoed with a great floorplan in a solid building

pets allowed w/ no restrictions, rentals allowed

1 parking / 1 locker

Walk score of 100, the "Drive" just steps away

$299,900 !!!

So this Monday morning was the annual office wide breakfast meeting, at which we usually have the pleasure of listening to Bob Rennie speak.  For those unfamiliar with Bob please take two seconds to google him and you'll realize the importance and information that one can gain from listening to his ideas and opinions for an hour.  Bob has been involved in Vancouver Real Estate for 30+ years and has his fingers on the pulse of whats to come from our city.  His upcoming developments at Shannon Mews, Marine Gateway, and Brentwood Station offer very exciting directions for the future of development in Vancouver. 

Another thing about Bob is that he loves to crunch numbers and produce stats.  A lot of the media attention and those trying to sensationalize our market will say that this city is unaffordable and the bottom is just waiting to fall out.  He provided us with a printout that I think really puts our city's market into prospective.  It is expensive to live here but some numbers that get added to stats blow it out of proportion.

the average sales price of a detached house in Vancouver is =  $970,000

-thats high and requires a household income of $140,300 approximately to afford it

but

if you remove the top 20% of sales in terms of price, the average detached price = $674,000

-still fairly high in relation to the rest of the country but nowhere near the average we always hear

-that price requires a household income of around $98,000, which is much more realistic between two people

-by removing the top 20% of sales (4,578 total sales out of 22,884) that leaves 18,000+ detached house sales with this more realistic average

-what really throws of the average for the city is those top 20% of sales because their average sale price by themselves is $2.15 Million

Now the same sort of critical analysis can be done to our attached market ie. condos/appts 

the average sale price of a Vancouver condo / appt is = $427,952

-which requires a household income of approx $66,000

if we remove the top 20% again our average drops to = $315,517

-which requires a household income of approx $52,900

-this 20% is only removing 3,930 sales from a total of 19,650 properties which leaves 15,000+ sales with this lower average

-again its those high numbers brought on by a small percentage of the sales that balloon price averages and continue to convince people that this city is unaffordable

Getting into the market in Vancouver is not easy, and I'm not trying to claim that it is.  But don't let the misinformed media and analysists like Macleans magazine try to convince you that it is impossible.  They are always 3 steps behind and when our market speeds up and prices conitue to rise (because they will), don't get caught wishing you'd gotten involved when the time was right.

Here is a link to the Top 28 grants and rebates presented by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. Great info for first timers or anyone looking to purchase or transfer real estate.  There is money to be saved out there, find it!

Click Here