4 casualties of Vancouver’s real estate market from @moneysense

Young would-be homeowners are feeling the chill. For more than half a decade, these potential property-owners and family-makers have been frozen out of the city of Vancouver. But that freeze due to unaffordable housing doesn’t stop at Boundary Road. Homebuyers are struggling to find affordable housing on the North Shore, in Richmond, in Burnaby even as far as Langley.

In my last post, I highlight eight distinct factors that have helped push housing prices up in metro Vancouver and across the lower mainland. But unaffordable homeownership isn’t the only casualty. Here are four additional fallouts from Vancouver’s messed up real estate market.

Fallout #1: You lose your deposit money!

In the last 12 months, the average cost of a single-family detached home, in Vancouver, jumped past the $1 million mark. Yes. I said average and $1 million in the same sentence. Mind-boggling, I know. Meanwhile the median incomes for Vancouverites have barely budged in the last few decades. Yet, this disparity in earning growth and the price of housing has done little to temper the pace of real estate transactions in this west coast city. Instead, it may have led to a increased sense of urgency for would-be homebuyers. This urgency has led to practices that have led some realtors and brokerages to voice concern over risks caused by fast deals and on-the-spot million dollar decisions. (Remember, despite all the media reports, the vast number of agents really do work hard for their clients.)