Bob Ransford
Sun
The mind wanders in August … as much as real-estate shoppers wander during the summer.
Anecdotally, I am told buying has slowed a bit in Vancouver and the suburbs over the last few weeks, a situation confirmed by the release of MLS numbers for Greater Vancouver and the Valley. Both fell month over month in July, but were much ahead year over year.
Construction, however, is picking up pace, accelerating from frenzy to almost out-of-control. In downtown Vancouver, when the pile drivers aren’t pounding away, the silence is almost strange.
It is becoming common place to run into people who ask for help with employment — not people looking for a job, but people looking to hire employees, from painters to landscapers.
Just when you thought you could meet the deadline and deliver as promised, those materials you need to finish your project are sitting in a container at the port where the trucks haven’t moved for weeks during these dog days of summer.
I am reminded that this summer may just be the end of the beginning as we race toward the Olympics.
Meanwhile, we hang our “welcome” sign out in British Columbia and the whole world seems to flock to our cities. The American tourists feel safe in our cities. The Europeans feel close to nature. The Asian tourists feel like this is just like home.
It’s hard to find a local on the streets of our cities at this time of year, with most having escaped for a week or two to the hinterland or abroad.
Speaking of the hinterland, there seems to be a mini-boom in new “recreational” housing. Ads are popping up in the strangest places for lakeside chalets, waterfront cottages, wilderness cabins and a myriad of other what I call “escape homes.”
But what are buyers of these new out-of-the-city homes really escaping to?
While many of the ads portray these places as offering the ultimate wilderness experience, my first reaction is to quickly turn to the project website in search of more details. The first thing I am always interested in seeing is a site plan that shows the location of the much coveted wilderness cottage in relation to the adjoining cottages.
Escaping to suburbia in the wilderness is not my idea of getting away from it all. If there is little more than a few trees separating my wilderness cottage from my next door neighbour, I might as well stay home, light the barbecue, turn off the radio, fill the turtle pool and pretend that I am at the lake.
The recreational housing boom in B.C. is a bit like an echo from the urban boom we’ve experienced over the last three or four years. With mortgage rates still hovering at all-time low levels, there are few barriers to entry in the real estate market.
Yet, we’re hearing predictions of an “economic Armageddon” on the horizon as the worldwide housing bubble bursts. If mounting U.S. debt causes policy-makers south of the border to change their view, we may see the beginning of a slow and steady climb in interest rates temper our local housing markets.
But the reality is people continue to flock to live in British Columbia for a whole number of reasons, not the least of which is our quality of life and climate-induced lifestyle. Robust job creation levels will likely continue through 2009 and maybe even beyond. Finally, our supply of developable land within defined urban areas is dwindling and the NIMBYs have so far been successful in resisting densification in the suburbs.
So, where does all of this lead?
Predictions are risky at the best of times. I should hardly be making them in the heat of summer as the mind wanders.
My prediction is that we will still be talking about the amazing strength of our local real estate markets next year as we gather on the patio mid-summer to enjoy the best of this place we call home.
Bob Ransford is a public affairs consultant with Counterpoint Communications Inc. He is a former real estate developer and a director of the Urban Development Institute – Pacific region.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005