Latest numbers show Metro Vancouver housing market still hot
Posted April 7, 2016 7:34 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Metro Vancouver housing prices are continuing to soar.
A new survey from Royal LePage shows the median cost in our region rose by just over 25 per cent this quarter over the first quarter of last year.
“The pricing is significantly higher in the downtown Vancouver core but we’re seeing activity levels across the board,” says Alan Stewart with Royal LePage.
He blames a sustained lack of supply and low interest rates, pushing people out of the city.
“It’s like when you throw a rock into a pond, you get this ripple effect moving outwards. And that’s what we’re seeing now. People are being squeezed out of the Vancouver market, out of the detached housing market in particular. As you move further and further away from that downtown core, we’re seeing prices and activity level going up.”
Overall, the average Metro Vancouver home price jumped to just over 1.04 million dollars since the first quarter of last year.
An average two-story house will cost you more than 1.4 million dollars while the average condo jumped price jumped more than nine-and-a-half per cent to 487-thousand dollars.
And while the City of Vancouver has always lead the way, Stewart says the suburbs are catching up.
“We’re starting to see those kinds of numbers in Richmond and North Vancouver. West Vancouver is not like Kerrisdale or Kitsilano where the housing prices are pushing significantly higher, but certainly North Vancouver, West Vancouver and pushing out into Burnaby we’re starting to get towards those numbers.”
Burnaby saw an aggregate price jump of around 20 per cent year-over-year in the first quarter, meaning the average home there will cost you more than 866-thousand dollars.
