Metro Vancouver home sales, prices hit record high in 2021

Glen Korstrom
Western Investor

Despite ongoing pandemic, region saw 43,999 residential real estate transactions – up 42.2 per cent from 2020

Benchmark townhouse price in Metro Vancouver is up 22 per cent to just over $1 million. | Chung Chow

Despite ongoing pandemic, region saw 43,999 residential real estate transactions – up 42.2 per cent from 2020

Residential real estate transactions in 2021 surged across the Metro Vancouver region to an all-time high of 43,999, which was 42.2 per cent more than the 30,944 sales recorded in 2020, and a 73.6 per cent increase compared to the 25,351 homes that changed hands in 2019, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).

Home prices also hit record highs, with the typical townhouse price cresting over $1 million for the first time.

The previous record for home sales in the region was 42,326, in 2015 – before governments put in place empty homes taxes and foreign buyers’ taxes.

Home has been a focus for residents throughout the pandemic,” REBGV economist Keith Stewart said. “With low interest rates, increased household savings, more flexible work arrangements, and higher home prices than ever before, Metro Vancouverites, in record numbers, are assessing their housing needs and options.”

Listings increased, but to a lesser degree than sales. 

Home listings on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) platform in Metro Vancouver reached 62,265 in 2021, which is 14.7 per cent more than the 54,305 homes listed in 2020, and a 19.9 per cent increase compared to the 51,918 homes listed in 2019.

“Listing activity didn’t keep pace with the record demand,” Stewart added. “This imbalance caused residential home prices to rise over the past 12 months.”

The benchmark price for a detached home in the region is $1,910,200, which is a 22 per cent jump from December 2020, and a 2.1 per cent increase compared to November 2021.

Attached homes (mostly townhomes) increased in value to a similar degree, with those dwellings also increasing in price by 22 per cent, compared with December 2020, to $1,004,900. Attached homes increased in price by 1.5 per cent compared with November 2021.

Apartments saw a smaller 12.8 per cent jump in value, compared with December 2020, and ended the year priced at $761,800. Those homes saw an average 1.2 per cent price increase, compared with November 2021.
Despite strong home sales throughout 2021, the year ended with a bit of a thud. The region saw 2,688 home sales in December, which was 13.1 per cent below the level in the same month in 2020, and a 21.6 per cent decline from the level achieved in December 2019. 

December home sales in Metro Vancouver were, however, strong enough to be 33.4 per cent above the 10-year average for sales in a December.

© 2022 Western Investor

Buying a Home Without Seeing it First: Worth it or Not?

Zoocasa Staff
other

Buying a home is always an exciting and risky experience whether you are a first-time home buyer in Ontario, looking to upgrade, or are purchasing another investment property.  Since the global pandemic has been in full swing, seeing a home before you buy it might not be an option for you due to location or personal comfort, and is now readily available by most brokers and agents through virtual home tours. 

In some situations, you might be thinking about putting in an offer without taking a tour of the property in advance or debating doing a few virtual home tours with your agent first. But, would this be a good approach for such a large investment?

When is it a good idea to buy a home without viewing it first?

There are some specific situations where buying a home without going to see it first is a good idea. 

1. When the property is in another location that is far away.

If the property you are interested in is out of your province, or requires a significant amount of travel, then buying it without visiting it first could be your best bet. You will not need to spend any money or time trying to get there, book accommodations, or pay for any meals while you are visiting. For example if you are living in British Columbia and looking to head towards the east coast, a google search for “first time home buyer ontario” or “virtual home tour in Toronto” would be a great place to start. 

Plus, this will allow you to use your time for other responsibilities, as you won’t need to take time off from work or use your vacation days for traveling there and back again. 

1. When the real estate market is hot. 

In areas and neighborhoods that have high demand but low housing supply, it is not unusual for sellers to find a buyer within days of posting their listing, or even on the same day. Buying a home without viewing it first will let you act fast, and the quicker that you can reach the seller with an attractive offer, the more likely you will be able to outbid others who are interested as well. This approach should only be considered when you have enough real estate experience and are financially capable of taking on the investment and potential maintenance requirements that can arise once you see it in person. 

1. When you are firm on the location.

Maybe you have lived in a certain area in the past, or you want to be closer to friends and family, or you need to relocate for work. Whatever the reason, you might be willing to prioritize location over the state of the property itself, and you have a budget available to do some minor repairs or renovations.

 If the location of the home is the most important aspect for you, then purchasing a property without needing to view it first could be a good option for your circumstances.

When is buying a home without viewing it a bad idea?

While buying a home without seeing it first could benefit you, there are definitely some drawbacks associated with doing so. 

1. You will not be able to get the full details of the home.

This is one of the greatest downsides to buying a home without seeing it first. Even though you could see plenty of pictures and videos, take 3D tours and video calls with an agent on-site, you will not be able to get a real feel for the property unless you actually go there yourself. 

You will not be able to find flaws like mold, unpleasant smells, noisy neighbors, or poor lighting. Pictures of homes for sale are typically edited and taken during the day at times when the home looks its best. 

And virtual tours can always be staged to show only the good parts of the home, but once you get there you might find that the rooms are smaller than they looked or the ceiling is lower than you thought it was just from looking at the photos alone. 

1. The seller may view your offer as a risk and reject it. 

Although many home sellers are eager to sell, getting an offer from someone who did not view the home can be seen as a risk. This is because the sale could be delayed due to the buyer needing inspections and appraisals, since they can’t see the home themselves. There is also a higher chance that the deal will fall through. 

Hot market conditions could lead some buyers to place an offer without viewing the property first in an attempt to weed out the competition, then end up backing out once they do visit or if their demands cannot be met. However, this is a very risky approach; most sellers view going back on the market as a bad thing, as it could make their property look less appealing to new buyers.

As well, breaking the Agreement of Purchase and Sale (APS) gives the sellers grounds to sue the buyers, and they are generally entitled to keep any deposit paid up to that point, unless the APS specified otherwise. Even if the sellers successfully sell the property after putting it back on the market, if it sells for less than what the original offer stipulated, the original buyer could be liable for the difference in profit.

Book a property view request, even if it needs to be a virtual home tour.

It’s always a good idea to at least do a virtual tour of your prospective property. This way, you can get a real time look at the property when it’s not staged and set up for photos. With Zoocasa, booking a virtual home tour to view Ontario real estate is only a few clicks away. 

 

© 2015 – 2021 Zoocasa Realty Inc

B.C. Assessment records illustrate housing stress being pushed out across province

Derrick Penner
The Vancouver Sun

“One of the biggest challenges, is the fact that with COVID, you’ve seen a certain part of the regional workforce be liberated in terms of (housing) choices,” said Andy Yan, City Program at SFU.

Demographer Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University. Photo by Mark van Manen /PNG

The Lower Mainland’s 2022 property assessments soared the highest the farther away from Vancouver you go, figures from B.C. Assessment show, painting another picture of how property markets are being reshaped by COVID-19.

Hope, at the eastern end of the Fraser Valley, saw the typical assessment on a detached home rise 45 per cent to $620,000 on its 2022 valuation, compared with the University Endowment Lands where assessments rose 11 per cent. The value on that typical endowment lands property, however, hit an eye-popping $5.5 million, but the prospect of remote-working urbanites priced out of Vancouver or Burnaby buying in farther-flung municipalities is distributing the stress of housing inequality across the region.

“One of the biggest challenges, is the fact that with COVID, you’ve seen a certain part of the regional workforce be liberated in terms of (housing) choices,” said demographer Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University.

Potential buyers who were once discouraged from considering suburbs such as Langley and Abbotsford by the prospect of long commutes can now choose to buy a detached home or bigger townhouse with more space for children, Yan said. So typical property assessments on detached homes soared some 39 per cent to $1.16 million in the City of Langley, 34 per cent to $1.32 million in the Township of Langley and 34 per cent to $1.42 million in Surrey.

Maple Ridge saw its typical detached assessment rise 37 per cent to cross the $1.12 million mark and Chilliwack saw detached assessments rise 40 per cent to $877,000.

Squamish saw a 35 per cent increase in the assessment on a typical detached home to hit $1.39 million, which is likely driven by price appreciation in the more popular neighbourhoods, but does add to housing stress.

“I wouldn’t say my house is up 35 per cent by any means,” said Jaye Russell, executive director of Sea to Sky Community Services in Squamish.

Over the last seven or eight years, however, Russell said Squamish has seen its population increase along with housing prices.

“Our market-rental rates are on par with Vancouver in Squamish, and that’s concerning,” Russell said, “because the cost of living hasn’t gone down and (this trend) is displacing and causing more people to have housing insecurity in our community.”

Assessments are based on property values as of July 1 of the previous year. B.C. Assessment has sent out more than one million notices to Lower Mainland property owners. Yan said those values are out-of-date by now and likely surpassed in a lot of locations. Many are suburbs that are home to service workers and the region’s manufacturing workforce who had incomes that could keep them in housing where they lived that “has kind of gone out of reach.”

 

“Now the question is, ‘What’s the future for that particular part of the workforce?’ ” Yan said. “You can see how this has a total cascading effect.”

And it raises questions about how governments might deal with improving affordability through policy decisions, Yan said.

“What government can do is typically (in) three major areas,” Yan said. “Supply, demand and financing.”

And soaring assessments “certainly talks to (needing) a more directed strategy around supply, (around) being aware of whom you’re trying to house, what you are trying to house them in and where you are going to put it.”

In Squamish, Russell said the district has formed its first housing society with the mandate to support the development of more affordable housing.

At the provincial level, Finance Minister Selina Robinson said government has allocated some $2 billion to build more homes for middle income families and “will keep working with municipalities to streamline the development process and get homes built faster.”

Robinson wasn’t available for an interview Tuesday, but in an emailed response to questions said that “the escalating cost of housing in our province and across the country continues to be concerning.”

The size of assessment increases aren’t surprising themselves, said Bryan Murao, B.C. Assessment’s deputy assessor for the region.

“It’s not the first time that I’ve seen changes like this, (but) it might be the first time for smaller communities like that,” he said.

For parts of Vancouver, West Vancouver and Richmond, however, where the increase in assessments weren’t as steep, Murao said housing hasn’t necessarily reached the peak values they achieved in 2016 or 2017.

In Vancouver, the assessment on a typical detached home rose 16 per cent to almost $2 million, Burnaby was up 19 per cent to $1.72 million and West Van was up 21 per cent to $2.99 million.

“Anecdotally, what we’ve heard is that the ability for people to telecommute, sometimes exclusively, has opened up a lot of opportunities for people to move throughout the province,” Murao said.

And other parts of the province have experienced similarly steep increases. On Vancouver Island, Port Alberni saw a 47 per cent increase in the assessment on a typical detached home to hit $470,000 and Tofino was up 42 per cent to $1.36 million.

Low interest rates have also played a substantial role in driving the cost of housing, said Tom Davidoff, director of the Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate at the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business.

“The biggest thing was increase in demand,” Davidoff said, “(but) mortgage interest rates were low to begin with and fell even lower, especially last summer.”

That raises another point of inequality, Yan said, as the low interest rates allowed property owners to leverage the rising value of primary residences to buy second or even third homes.

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© 2022 Vancouver Sun