Price-conscious developers are now building one-bedrooms at less than 500 square feet
Fiona Anderson
Sun
IT’S NOT MUCH, BUT IT’S ALL MINE: New condo owner Matt Stone can almost reach across the living room of his 531-square-foot apartment. Some other units in his building are even tinier. Photograph by : Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun
One-bedroom condominiums aimed at first-time buyers and investors are getting progressively smaller — the latest only 478 square feet — as escalating prices means size has to be compromised for affordability.
Units at 1010 Howe Street in downtown Vancouver — which went on sale June 24 — ranged from 478 square feet to 600 square feet, excluding the penthouses. But prices for the apartments, which were converted from offices about 12 years ago, were as little as $221,900, with an added discount if the buyer was willing to take the unit as is: without new paint, lighting or window coverings.
That’s the option realtor Matt Stone of Coldwell Banker Westburn Realty chose. Stone, who is also on the sales team for 1010 Howe, bought in because “it’s a really good location and a great price.“
Stone thinks the size of the apartment — in his case 531 square feet — will be fine for him since he lives alone. He plans to open up the kitchen, and with the high ceilings, the place will look bigger, he said.
Most apartments downtown are about the same size, Stone added.
Bob Rennie, of Rennie Marketing Systems, which is marketing the project, said the only way to make apartments affordable is to make them smaller or get the city to subsidize the developer.
“With today’s land costs and today’s construction costs, we’re really coming to the end of the under-$300,000 product downtown,” Rennie said.
While apartments in Yaletown and other downtown areas aimed at first-time buyers are getting increasingly smaller, the average size of new apartments in downtown Vancouver have in fact stayed steady in the past six years as high-end condominiums in Coal Harbour get larger, said Jennifer Podmore of MPC Intelligence, which tracks new residential developments in the province.
Where size has really dropped is in Richmond, where the average new condominium — including two-and three-bedroom units — was 1,123 square feet in 2000 and is now only 905 square feet, Podmore said.
Even in Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge, one-bedroom apartments have shrunk from 750 square feet to 590 square feet.
Another trend Podmore has seen is smaller units on the lower end of the scale.
“The one thing that is getting smaller is the smallest units that we can offer,” Podmore said. “It’s partly for affordability [but] it’s also because we know how to maximize space much better.
“We are being incredibly functional with our space because we have to be.”
Podmore said Vancouver is just catching up to cities like Hong Kong, Paris, London and New York that know what it’s like to have “these spatial crunches.”
In the Main Street area, 50 per cent of units in the latest development– DoMain at the corner of Main and 12th Streets — are under 600 square feet, the project’s marketer said.
The smallest units are one-bedrooms at 535 square feet priced under $300,000, said Patricia Glass, senior marketing coordinator with Platinum Project Marketing Group, MacDonald Realty Ltd. Only five units have not yet sold and they are the larger one-bedrooms at 750 square feet, she said.
Buyers used to be freaked out by 550-square-foot apartments but now they recognize that to get into the real estate market for the first time they have to look at units in that range, Glass said.
It’s not just first-time buyers who are buying the smallest units, she added. About 25 per cent of the units were sold to investors who like the size because the rent can cover the mortgage, Glass said.
Smaller units aren’t unique to the Greater Vancouver area either. Platinum Project Management Group has a project in Chilliwack that is selling “very efficient” 850-square-feet, two-bedroom-two-bathroom units that would have been more than 1,000 square feet before, Glass said.
“If we can shrink 1,000 square feet into 850 by cutting corridors [and] reducing excess flow spaces we’ve got much more efficiency and thus affordability,” Glass said.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006