Ozzie Jurock
Sun
There are still scores of opportunities for savvy investors to get high on the Lower Mainland housing scene, real estate consultant Ozzie Jurock says in the June issue of his newsletter, Jurock Real Estate Insider.
“For astute real estate investors there has simply been nowhere else in the country, in fact of all of North America, to be putting their money since 2001,” he declares.
“In the past year alone, despite many warnings that the market was slowing, average prices have forged ahead 20 to 30 per cent.”
For example, a $70,000 Abbotsford condo bought five years ago would have yielded a profit of $100,000 plus, he says.
Jurock has been recommending “the Lower Mainland and anything within a two-hour radius” for 13 years.
His pick of neighbourhoods that he believes will offer the best returns during the next five to 10 years include the following:
– Vancouver: “If anything on the west side is still affordable and uptrending, Dunbar is it,” writes Jurock. Specifically, between 10th Avenue and West 34th Avenue; also Main and Broadway.
– North Vancouver: Lower Lonsdale is “Yaletown North, without the prices.”
– Richmond: Steveston has “given Richmond the one thing it lacked: a soul.”
– Port Moody: Newport Village, with its “size, space, views” and quaint shops.
– Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows: Albion development area, which Jurock claims will boom when the big bridge opens in 2009 and ferry traffic subsides.
– Langley: Yorkson Village, the first master-planned community in Canada built to the environmentally advanced Built Green gold standard.
– Surrey: Surrey Centre, “where the potential for rental investment and quick profits is possible.”
– Mission: Mission Central “for bargain hunters and flippers,” and Cedar Valley “for long-term investment.”
– Chilliwack: Garrison Crossing; Chilliwack Centre; rural acreage packages on the north side of the freeway.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
