{"id":155,"date":"2014-11-13T00:51:02","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T00:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/?p=155"},"modified":"2014-11-13T05:02:56","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T05:02:56","slug":"buyers-undeterred-by-housing-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/buyers-undeterred-by-housing-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver Sun Editorial: If nobody can afford to buy, how are people buying?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Skala<\/a>

Skala – Danish inspired townhomes in Mt. Pleasant<\/p><\/div>\n

If nobody can afford to buy, how are people buying?\u201d<\/p>\n

That question, posed recently to delegates at a business conference in Vancouver by Cameron Muir, chief economist of B.C.\u2019s real estate association, is a darn good one.<\/p>\n

The answer is that people are buying, and in droves, because they are finding Lower Mainland properties appropriate to their needs and in line with their financial capacity.<\/p>\n

Residential property sales on the Multiple Listing Service in Greater Vancouver numbered no fewer than 2,922 in September, reflecting a 17.7-per-cent increase over one year earlier.<\/p>\n

Despite widespread anxiety about the lack of affordable housing in the region, the market remains active. Not all the aforementioned sales involved foreign buyers with bags of cash. Of the total, 1,652 of the sales involved apartments and townhouses. The trend toward living in multi-family accommodations is increasing in the Vancouver area as people search for properties they can afford.<\/p>\n

Developers are taking a hint, with 80 per cent of new housing units being part of multi-family developments.<\/p>\n

This is not an unusual trend. Multi-family units have long been the principal form of housing in highly-envied cities in Europe. This is destined to be the way of the future here as Vancouver becomes more popular as a place where people want to live and invest their capital.<\/p>\n

Those living in Rome, Paris and London appear to accept that it usually is the wealthier folks who are able to buy properties in the central part of the city. These municipalities have built their cities so good transportation links allow the less wealthy to live a little further afield with relatively easy access to the core areas. It is a not unreasonable arrangement.<\/p>\n

Vancouver, like these other cities, has housing that is expensive because of supply and demand; too many buyers want to enjoy this city\u2019s livability and amenities. But, with easy commutes, they can do so. The weather certainly is no worse in Surrey or Coquitlam than in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

To be fair, it is mainly one specific category of housing that has pricing that is stratospheric: the detached single-family residence.<\/p>\n

The typical price of an apartment property in Greater Vancouver is $378,700, a relatively affordable purchase at today\u2019s interest rates.<\/p>\n

In Coquitlam, the typical price of an apartment was $260,500 in September, and $279,700 in New Westminster. In Maple Ridge, where prices for this type of property have been declining in the last few years, the typical apartment price was $164,700.<\/p>\n

The typical price for a detached home in Port Coquitlam, was $587,100 and $647,700 in Ladner.<\/p>\n

Buying a home never was easy, not for parents and not for grandparents. It is the single biggest purchase most people make in their lifetime, requiring planning, saving and patience.<\/p>\n

Any hardship related to home buying, whether in a highly desired, pricey market such as Vancouver or one that is less so, is more than balanced by the inevitable payback buyers receive over time in the form of equity vested in their properties.<\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0http:\/\/www.vancouversun.com\/business\/Editorial+Buyers+undeterred+housing+prices\/10356599\/story.html#ixzz3Iu7xwAxo<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If nobody can afford to buy, how are people buying?\u201d That question, posed recently to delegates at a business conference in Vancouver by Cameron Muir, chief …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[69,66,68,67,40,319],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-news","tag-downtown-vancouver","tag-home-buyer-trends","tag-housing-economics","tag-is-vancouver-affordable","tag-north-vancouver","tag-west-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbrownrealestate.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}