HOUSING I You can get a comfortable, but not luxurious, home
Bruce Constantineau
Sun
VANCOUVER SUN Vancouver realtor Manyee Lui stands in front of a home listed for sale for $1.18 million. The property, at 2193 West 20th, is 16 years old and has about 4,000 square feet of living space.
Home buyers who think $1 million can buy a great house almost anywhere in Greater Vancouver should think again because the price of entry into many exclusive neighbourhoods has passed the $1-million mark, according to Multiple Listing Service data.
The lowest price for a single-family home currently for sale in Vancouver‘s Quilchena district, for example, is a cool $1.2 million. Want to live in the upscale Braemar district of North Vancouver? The owner of the cheapest house for sale there wants $1,049,900.
Fifteen homes listed for sale in West Vancouver‘s Altamont district have asking prices that range from $1,695,000 to $6.9 million.
West Vancouver lives up to its reputation as having some of the priciest homes in Canada, with at least six neighbourhoods where no single-family home can be purchased for less than $1 million.
Vancouver realtor David Andrews said the $1-million price level makes sense in some markets and shouldn’t dazzle anyone any more than $100,000 homes impressed people 40 years ago.
“With today’s low interest rates, the cost to finance a $1-million house looks very much like the cost of a half-million-dollar house a dozen years ago,” he said.
West Vancouver realtor Malcolm Hasman said single-family houses are available in West Vancouver for less than $1 million but they’re not dream homes.
“If someone calls me up and tells me they want to spend $1 million for a beautiful home with a great view and a swimming pool, I tell them those houses no longer exist,” he said. “A million dollars used to get you a fabulous home with a view and a pool but that has gone the same way as 50-cent-a-gallon gas.”
Hasman said he and his associates used to think it was a great year if they could sell 120 West Vancouver houses priced above $1 million. Now they sell double that amount. Hasman sold 66 $1-million-plus properties in 2004 and has already sold 42 this year.
Vancouver realtor Manyee Lui said a family can still live in great comfort in a $1-million house on the west side of Vancouver but the property is not likely to have luxurious features like a swimming pool, tennis court or outstanding views.
“Actually, $1 million is not that high-end anymore,” she said. “It will get you a very good-size family home that will let you live comfortably, close to a good school. But it won’t be super luxurious.”
Andrews, who also does business in several U.S. real estate markets, said the general upswing in Vancouver house prices is supported by a strong economy and doubts the market will experience a significant correction any time soon.
“The Vancouver market is not a bubble like a lot of U.S. west coast markets because prices here have appreciated by less than 100 per cent in the past 10 years,” he said. “Some U.S. markets have gone up by 200 and 300 per cent during that same time.”
Hasman said a rise in interest rates wouldn’t kill the high end of the real estate market because many of his clients are out-of-country buyers with lots of equity so few of his deals are subject to financing.
“Nobody is bulletproof in any market if the global economy turns down,” he said. “But I think Vancouver is a beautiful, safe, attractive place to a lot of wealthy buyers and it would take something very dramatic to finish our market off.”
Credit Union Central of B.C. chief economist Helmut Pastrick said he doesn’t feel B.C. real estate prices in general have been artificially inflated so he doubts that values are due to plummet in any segment of the market.
“There’s not a significant amount of speculative buying and flipping [for a quick profit] going on now,” he said. “The last time we had a true price bubble was in 1981, when speculative activity was very significant. We also had a strong market in 1990, and spec activity then was more than twice as high as it is today.”
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. senior market analyst Cameron Muir agreed that market prices today are supported by solid economic fundamentals like job growth, inmigration and a growing economy.
“There are more active listings in the resale market than there was a year ago but they’re still low by historical standards,” he said. “The same thing is going on in the new home market — very low inventories and an industry that’s working pretty much at capacity right now.”
Muir noted that many buyers purchasing $1-million homes these days are move-up buyers taking advantage of the increasing equity they have built up in their current homes.
“They have an $850,000 home already and want to move up to the $1-million range so it’s not like they have to pay the whole whack.”