The Truth About Vancouver Real Estate

Denny: Historically, Jamie, investing in real estate has been a very popular thing in Canada, in Greater Vancouver. It has been often a place that people build wealth and park wealth.

Jamie: And it’s fun when prices go up, Denny. It is really exciting when prices go up. It is terrifying when prices go down. It is confusing when interest rates climb. It is confusing when Donald Trump gets voted in and new tariffs come in and then get paused and then come back and then get paused again and no idea what’s going on in the next few months. But I guess the question that we want to explore and just kind of share some ideas on today is, should you invest in real estate today in 2025?

Denny: And the couple of things that we often talk about with clients and look for when you are investing in real estate or thinking about investing in real estate are cash flow and long-term capital appreciation. And what do those two details look like today? Cash flow: not great. Interest rates are higher than they were a couple of years ago, even though they’re on the way down, but prices have climbed more significantly than rent over the last handful of years. And unless you’re putting a big portion of the sale price down as a down payment, your cash flow is going to be negative regardless of what type of product you purchase. We’re not a cash flow city. Not right now.

Jamie: No. And I think we can separate this. Maybe we’ll go on an angle of what types of people or investments make sense right now, what has more urgency, what has less urgency, and also provide some examples of how investing has looked over the last 10 years in different product types, because there have been some winners and there have been some losers. And you know, right now, if you are talking about strictly buying an investment property that is not your primary residence, that would be solely an income-based property, you are a rare gem. There aren’t as many of you out there right now as there have been in the past.

Now granted, we have a city that loves presale condos and condo flipping and there have been a lot of success stories there and right now, for probably the first time I can think of — well, maybe the most prominent time I can think of — there’s more negative news about people struggling to close on these condos. All in all, it’s not a glamorous time to be a landlord. It’s not a… there’s not a lot encouraging in investment other than just fear of not missing out on the market and getting your foot in the door from like, say, a first-time younger buyer perspective. But if you’re a seasoned investor, you know, older in life, have other assets and other properties, there’s not a lot incentivizing you to buy another one right now.

And I guess maybe land is treated differently than condos, but say specifically for condos, I mean, the ideal, the best cash-flowing asset type that I can think of in Vancouver or close to Vancouver is the small one-bedroom condo. It’s a very common one. And well, since the last few years, the tenants have got a lot more rights and landlords have lost. And I think it is important to have tenant protection, but there is a limit. So, you know, it used to be you could evict a tenant for improving a property… that, like the renovations, became under scrutiny and that’s more of a challenge nowadays. Even moving into a property, it has to be yourself or one of your kids. It can’t just be… I don’t think it can even be a brother or sister or aunt and uncle.

So, it’s harder to get a tenant out once they’re in. You can’t just have a fixed-term lease that is done in one or two years; they automatically roll into a month-to-month basis. And essentially, if you buy an investment condo that’s a small one-bedroom and you plan to sell it in 2 years, you’re not going to know how that tenant’s going to treat it over the next 2 years. If the tenant moves out voluntarily and you have a vacant place to sell, great, perfect. But if that tenant wants to stay there for 10 years and doesn’t have any incentive to move out in two, you’re going to be selling a property under a little bit more distressed conditions and it’s probably not going to achieve market value, maybe a little bit less. So, who’s buying that one-bedroom rental condo right now? Does it make sense? Or what might have to change for it to make more sense right now?

Denny: I’m not seeing a lot of people buying those. That was one of the more common property types that investors looked at over the last decade. And there are not many people talking about or looking at that type of investment right now, which is why inventory is quite a bit higher than it was over the last couple of years for that type of product. Why are they not looking at them? The optimism of capital appreciation over the next 5 years is pretty bleak. There’s a lot more inventory, developers are building a lot more of these one-bedroom style units, and it doesn’t seem like rent is going to continue with what your costs are going to be on that property.

So, over the last couple of years with market values climbing, it’s common to be negative $1,000 on a one-bedroom investment condo in cash flow. Yeah, cash flow wise, monthly cash flow. I’d say in a really good scenario right now, you’re probably negative five or six hundred bucks a month, which is not appealing if there is no optimism of capital appreciation over the next 3 to 5 years. So, a lot of investors have kind of left the real estate game, but we’re going to maybe provide some examples of what to look for if you are thinking about an investment property in real estate. And one of the things to maybe think about is finding a deal. I think if you are patient and you are considering a one-bedroom condo investment right now, there’s a lot of listings. So, if you are not specific about the exact style of unit because you’re not going to live there, there’s just a lot to look at and you can find people who are maybe in a different situation of selling and are a little more motivated. And that is happening occasionally right now.

Jamie: Occasionally. Yeah. Maybe like, just all-encompassing, why wouldn’t you buy a one-bedroom rental condo right now? Tenancy laws in the tenant’s favor, not in the landlord’s favor. Oversaturation of condos in a lot of markets it feels like, but that’s not necessarily as true as the headlines tell. And then I guess just in terms of the cash flow; the cash flow isn’t necessarily there.

But another perspective is why would you invest in a one-bedroom condo right now? I think for the younger buyer, if it’s something that you might one day move into, that alleviates the risk of a tenant kind of taking over because you can occupy your place and evict a tenant down the road if your circumstances change. And in a lot of these cases, we’re seeing condos trade for… well, what if you bought a presale in say 2018 or 2020 that’s closing now, it may be at the same prices that that person paid 6 years ago. So in terms of the price you’re getting for a brand new condo, it might still be on the higher side, but it hasn’t really gone up in 6 years. So there is that benefit. If you were buying a presale condo today, it would probably be more than what you could get for a newly completed presale. What I mean by that is you’re buying a presale today that closes in four years, you’re paying still a premium for it because the developer needs to sell these for $1,200 a foot plus. But if you buy one that just closed that’s brand new, never lived in, instead of $1,200 a foot, you might get one at $1,100 a foot or $1,000 a foot, that was the same price 6 years ago. So I guess if you look at upside potential, there’s an argument there.

I do feel cash flow-wise, tenancy laws, there are a few forces moving against you, but a lot of the condos that I’m looking at, even for these one-bedroom rental condos, are trading at prices that are below the replacement value. So, if a developer can’t make them for less than $1,200 a foot, and you can buy them for $1,000 to $1,100 a foot, when market conditions improve and rates come down and the world stabilizes, you’re likely to see that gain. And that means that a $550,000 condo could jump to $650,000 pretty quickly. So I think if that excites you over a 5-year horizon, I think it’s very possible that over a 5-year horizon, we could see a $550,000 condo go to $650,000. We could see a little upside potential.

That depends, you know, that’s assuming market recovery, lower rates. But upside potential is a potential reason to go for it. And long-term holding for cash flow is less of a reason, I would say. But the longer you hold, the better off you are in the long run. So you know, ride out the storm. Right now we’re in a storm; there could be more favorable conditions around. Another reason for the one-bedroom condo is just also, historically, you have more tenant turnover. And so you’re more likely, yeah, you’re going to have some vacant months with tenant turnover, but you’re more likely to be at market rents or close to market rents. When you have a larger property like a home or townhouse that’s a family home, tenants might want to be there for 5, 10 years, less tenant turnover. You might be renting it well below market before you know it.

Denny: And if you do decide to sell that place in 5, 6, 7 years, and your rent is well below market value, that significantly limits the number of people that would be looking to purchase, especially with the new rules around how much time you have to give a tenant to vacate if the buyer wants to move into the home. They’ve increased that recently from two full months’ notice to three full months’ notice. So on a one-bedroom condo, the typical completion timeline is like 6 to 8 weeks. And in this new scenario, if an end-user who wants to move into a condo is purchasing a unit that is currently rented, now you’re giving three full months’ notice, which works out usually to be 3.5 to 4 months. And a lot of buyers don’t want to wait that long when they’re purchasing their first place.

Jamie: I mean, just as an example, if I was selling a rental condo, like say I was listing a rental condo next Monday and it got an offer the Monday after and that was a 10-day subject offer. So like, next Monday… we’re in March here, folks. So you list a property say March 17th, 18th, you get an offer March 24th, 25th, that subject removal is April 2nd or 3rd. April doesn’t count for vacant possession. So you give them the full month of April, all of three full months — May, June, and July — and then the buyer can move into the place August 1st. So if a buyer is buying a rented property, call it mid-March, they’re able to move in August 1st. It’s a long time to wait. It reduces the buyers.

So, a little tangent here, but often we’re suggesting to sellers to have a conversation with their tenant in advance. Try to work out an arrangement to warn them that they’re going to be selling, maybe work out an arrangement to get a mutual agreement to end tenancy and incentivize them to leave. So, it’s a more predictable sales experience. The risk there is you’re going to have a vacant place. You’re going to sell it vacant, but you should get more money. You should appease more buyers and it should be a better sale.

I guess what I mean by that is you have the option of selling it with the tenant in and waiting for that buyer that’s going to be patient for August. Or you have the option of saying, “You know what, I’m going to give the tenants two free months’ rent instead of one. I can get them to move out June 1st and I’ll sell a place in cleaner, vacant condition and hopefully get a little more money and might get a little more ahead.” Yeah, it’s a risk, but it’s a common conversation we’re having.

Denny: So, noting that the one-bedroom condo isn’t super exciting right now as an investment property with potential for capital appreciation over the next 5 years, what is more exciting?

Jamie: Single family, but I mean there’s a big difference in price, Denny. It’s a big difference in price.

Denny: Just kind of want to share an example of, let’s say, a typical 1950s-60s home in North Burnaby right now outside of Brentwood Park. Brentwood Park is demanding a little bit of a higher number, but that typical ’50s house on a 7,000-square-foot lot in a lot of neighborhoods in North Burnaby is around $1.8 million right now. That’s a lot of money. For that type of property, you need to put down $360k. Your mortgage is going to be $1.44 million. A lot of those homes do not have suites.

So, if you’re looking for a better long-term appreciation investment, I like this style of property if you have the means to do it, or if you could partner with a family member or friend and do it together. So you’d maybe be spending $50k to put in a basement suite versus buying a home with a basement suite, which is probably going to cost you an extra $100,000 to $200,000 depending on where it is. So you are immediately building some equity that way. Your monthly mortgage on that $1.44 million right now is going to be in the range of $7,000 a month. Upstairs, depending on location, probably rents for $4,000 to $4,500. Downstairs, once you put in the suite, a one-bedroom suite’s probably renting for $2,000 to $2,500 depending on how big it is and proximity to schools and amenities and SkyTrain.

So at the end of that, you are roughly generating $6,500 to $7,000 in rent, which is essentially covering your mortgage or pretty close to, and your expenses on top of that are going to be property tax and insurance, which might result in a negative cash flow of $800 to $1,500 a month. That’s not terrible. And the reason I really like that option as like a 5 to 10-year thought is because as these multiplexes start developing throughout the city — and Burnaby being one of the leaders in terms of promoting density throughout their city — there’s going to be less and less single family. There’s going to be less and less land available. The desirability of that land and single-family lots is going to continue to increase, especially as we see these fourplexes start coming up and having a little bit of a precedent of what they’re going to sell for. Because right now with developers who are looking at buying lots like this, we’re budgeting pretty conservatively of what the sell-out is going to be because they don’t exist yet and we don’t really know. But as they come up, my guess is they’re going to sell for a higher price per square foot than we think they are because they don’t exist, and it is a missing product that I think we need more of for young families in these neighborhoods. As a result, land value is going to go up. And I think over the next 5 to 10 years, the certainty of a single-family lot, let’s say in Burnaby in this example, has a much higher investment or capital appreciation than that one-bedroom condo.

Jamie: And I guess just comparing the one-bedroom condo to your example, so we’re talking about a mid-century up-down rented house for say $7,000. That actually kind of correlates similarly to buying one-bedroom condos and the total cash flow. Like if you had… I mean the best-case scenario with a one-bedroom condo I think is maybe you can find a $500,000 one-bedroom that rents for $2,100 a month and you might get marginally a little more cash flow, but it depends on how you attribute house maintenance versus strata.

So, a more typical one-bedroom is probably $600,000 for say 600 square feet. Well, Burnaby North, the area that you’re talking about, a single-family home, it would be more. So maybe it’d be $650,000. So, you’re talking about three one-bedrooms versus one single-family home. The one-bedroom investor doesn’t want to lift a finger. They want the strata to maintain the property. They want to do minimal thinking and energy towards it. The single-family investor that house-hacks a home into an up-down rental has to be willing to deal with more maintenance for a house, put more work in, put more sweat equity in, more time in. A different type of property, but for the similar cash flow, you get the upside land potential.

And right now, Burnaby is a bit of a hot spot. It’s been getting a lot of attention for updating its zoning, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow suit in Burnaby. You know, I think there’s been so much news this year that’s overshadowed this density push, so other municipalities haven’t had to really have any sort of announcements or launches on it. But I did take a little peek at the websites just to see if there were any updates, and Coquitlam, like Burnaby, has updated their zoning to allow four to six units on single-family homes. So there’s a lot of predictability there. You don’t even have to go through… like you buy a lot, if it allows four units, you can get straight to a building permit with no risk. Coquitlam extended its deadline to implement this small-scale multi-unit zoning of 4 to 6 units until June 20th, 2025. Port Moody extended it until December 31st, 2025. District of North Van: December 31st, 2025.

So, I think it’s likely by the end of this calendar year there’s going to be more conversations about what other cities are going to follow suit. And like Coquitlam, for example, is ripe for the picking. There are so many homes, good lots, large lots there, flat lots, great ones to develop on. I mean, Burnaby’s getting all the attention now, but I could see Coquitlam, and North Van is a sexy market that people want to be in, so those markets are going to get more attention. Port Moody as well, but just by the numbers doesn’t have as many homes, and I don’t think you’re going to see those sort of… well, one, also Port Moody, like Heritage Mountain, has been developed 30 years ago, so it’s not full of teardown homes. There are only small areas of Port Moody where they have undersized homes on large lots. So, I don’t see the 1995, 3,800-foot Heritage Mountain home coming down for four units anytime soon. So, Port Moody will probably be relatively unchanged with a few exceptions. But nonetheless, I think the upzoning is the reason to go for single-family homes over condos.

Denny: And the reason to do condos over single-family is just for less time, energy, investment.

Jamie: Yeah. And I think there’s arguments for both, Denny. Like looking at the prices of some of these condos, yes, it may not be exciting with a lot working against you, but looking at some of the latest sales… like The Trapp and Holbrook in New West had a 506-square-foot one-bedroom condo sell for $490,000. That building is 10 years old, 2014. So I mean that’s downtown New West, close to SkyTrain, concrete construction, under $500k. RiverSky by Bosa down on the Quay had a one-bedroom sell for $519,000. And in the Brentwood area, you know, a more talked about area, a little bit older, 2010-ish built I think, a one-bedroom, 651 square feet, sold for $637,000. So that’s just under $1,000 a foot. And then Solo 2, a little more high-end one-bedroom… all these have parking and lockers. But like a one-bedroom and den is $740,000 in Solo. So, you know, Brentwood, you’re talking about low sixes to mid-sevens. New West, there are opportunities just under five to, call it, $600,000. They can’t make new condos at these prices. So, there is that argument that you could put your money there and it would do okay.

And if you look at the single-family market that we’re talking about, yes, single-family is a winner, but it hasn’t been a proven winner for all areas. We go back to 2016, there are some areas that saw high prices that haven’t repeated themselves today. And so, Burnaby… it’s kind of an interesting world we live in. Brentwood, Burnaby, mid-century homes right now are a pretty hot commodity and we’ve run into some even multiple-offer situations in Brentwood, which is going against the grain of a lot of other areas. What you’re calling a $1.8-$1.9 million property in Brentwood, in 2016 might have been a $1.6 million property back then. And in other markets of Burnaby that were more heavily impacted by the foreign buyer, let’s call it Deer Lake, Buckingham Heights… well, I think Metrotown has examples, but the main areas were the west side of Vancouver, Richmond, West Vancouver, and pockets of Burnaby like Buckingham Heights.

And Buckingham is the old street I grew up on, Denny, believe it or not. The reason why I bring up Buckingham is it had a few notable sales in 2016. It had like three sales that I can think of, land value properties that sold for around $3 million. So 2016 prices, these are call it 13,000-square-foot lots, maybe ’60s-’70s built homes, unique homes but really dated and mainly land value. Sold for, call it, the range being $3 to $3.1 million. And today those homes, if they resold, they’d probably get about $2.6-$2.7 million. So 9 years later, selling for 15% less. The Canadian dollar at that time was about 77 cents to the US dollar and now it’s 69. So a 10% devalue in the dollar. So in terms of US currency… Canadian currency we’re down 15%, US currency down 25%. And so in some of these markets in our city, we have homes that are down 25% in over 9 years if you’re accounting for it in US funds, not that… you know, trying to account for inflation here.

So, I would say that’s a potential indicator that those homes that got inflated from the foreign buyer back in the day have been deflated and might make a great investment for the next decade. If they’ve been soft for this decade… there was a time when my parents sold their home before the market went crazy. I think they sold a home for $960,000 in 2006. And in the 10 years after they sold, from 2006 to 2016, it went up $200,000 a year. So, we’re talking about you sell it and then you watch your home go up $200k a year. That’s unsustainable. And I can remember even an Upper Deer Lake home that was on a 50-foot lot, just over 6,000 square feet, in the peak of the madness got, I think it was $1.85 million, and today it’s probably $1.6 million or so.

So, there are parts of our city that haven’t performed well. And I think if you can… not that you’re going to build four units, I think it would kind of stir up the neighborhood if you’re putting four units in a luxury neighborhood like Buckingham Heights, but that’s not going to cash flow well necessarily because of the high price points. But if you’re a believer in land, I mean, I think there’s a lot more upside potential in some of those markets that have been flat for 9 years. I also think when we look at what caused them to be flat, foreign buyer taxes got implemented after these $3 million sales. So they put in a 15%, then a 20% tax, and now there’s the full ban. If we think there’s a world over the next few years where the government decides that we need to encourage more foreign investment because our housing and economy need it and they remove the ban, and if we miraculously gain the trust of these foreign investors that we’ve so much burned over the last 9 years and they come flooding back, what’s going to happen to prices in those areas? I mean, if they do alleviate that policy to restrict foreign buyers and they do start sort of unraveling that, there’s a good argument to say there’s a lot more upside gain for land value in some of those markets that were so hot 9 years ago.

Denny: Yeah. Even if that foreign buyer ban is not removed, just the long-term upside potential of improving those types of properties too is something that I think is exciting as an investor. And yes, these are bigger numbers and maybe more seasoned investors that would be looking at single-family and have the means to have a $400,000 down payment. But at the end, let’s say in 5 to 10 years, your tenant moves out, you have a lot more options of improving a property to maximize that investment, such as maybe doing a cosmetic reno. In a single-family home, a 1950s home, you may spend $100,000 on a kitchen and bathrooms, and that might result in a $200,000 lift in your market value if you’re looking to sell at that time.

With the density changes too, you now have options to redevelop a property. And if that, obviously, comes with a lot of capital, there are builders out there right now who are looking for partnership opportunities to partner with homeowners, take on the cost of the construction, and then you’re developing your property and selling out four to six units, kind of thing. So just the long-term improvement options I like a lot versus the one-bedroom condo. Yes, less risk. Yes, much lower number. Yes, probably more turnover in renters that you’re increasing rent each time somebody moves out. But in 5 years from now or 10 years from now when you go to sell that, the improvement value of your floors and paint for example, you might spend 10 grand and make 20, versus on a single-family home, I think there are just a lot more options to kind of maximize that investment.

Jamie: Yeah, there are different options for different price points, but I would say all in all, single-family homes over the last decade have had… I mean, even though the last two years have been a bit slow, in normal times it’s very challenging to buy a good home most of the time. Right now it happens to be a bit easier and we still run into occasional multiple offer situations. So, if you’re looking for a single-family home under $2 million or around that $1.5 million range, I think any buyer that’s looking for that knows there’s actually relatively limited supply of good quality homes. Yes, the headlines, yes, statistically listings are up everywhere, but a lot of those listings are garbage. You know, they’re not garbage-garbage, but they’re just not sellable. There are too many high-priced homes and too many high-priced condos, and in general, half the listings are overpriced, and that’s probably an understatement. A lot of people are overpriced. So when a good listing hits, it catches eyes, it gets attention, and it goes quick. And that still… and a good listing means a favorable family layout, might be three bedrooms, two bathrooms up, might not be a project, not something that’s going to require significant renovations, something that’s turnkey on a quiet street, you know, that dream property with a backyard.

I don’t think when it comes to unique properties, particularly townhouses and single-family homes in markets like Burnaby, New West, or North Van where they’re not abundantly available all the time, now is a great time to be a buyer for those. In terms of investment, yeah, I think there’s an argument to say, you know, a North Vancouver townhouse as an investment. But again, tenancy laws are an argument against it, price point and upside potential are arguments for it. I know that single-family homes are the dream, but if you can’t afford $1.5 million and your budget’s more like $1.1 million, maybe an older townhouse might be the option. Or two one-bedroom condos. What would you do?

Denny: Oh man. I think I’d probably go for an older townhome for the reason that I think that product type in 5 years from now is going to be more and more and more desirable with young families needing more space and there not being a lot of them. And also with what I just talked about, the upside potential of improving those properties. That one-bedroom condo that’s four years old, if your tenant moves out in 5 years, you’re painting the unit. You’re maybe changing floors, and the upside potential on that investment, I think, is much lower. Versus you’re buying a ’90s townhome that’s in original condition. You’re paying an original condition price right now. Your tenant lives there for 5 years. After 5 years, they move out and you want to move on from that investment. You potentially could spend $75k updating the kitchen and bathrooms and maybe get $150k out of that.

Jamie: Do you want to go into stats, Denny, or is it too overwhelming?

Denny: Maybe I’ll just mention some briefly. Just kind of what sparked the topic of investing in real estate is a lot of people are avoiding it right now. A lot of investors have kind of looked elsewhere in the last couple of years with interest rates up. And I think in the next 24 months, we’ll see a lot more people come back, one, because of interest rates coming down quite a bit, but two, also just because inventory and the buying environment right now is pretty good.

And if we look at available listings in a few different areas, start with condos right now, comparatively to 2024 numbers, they’re up 70% in New Westminster — 70% more listings today than there were at the end of February 2024. In North Burnaby, up 62%. In North Coquitlam, up 43%. In North Vancouver, which is one of the most balanced markets right now, only up 14%. Vancouver West, so that includes downtown, Kitsilano, Fairview, up 23%. Detached homes, a pretty similar story throughout greater Vancouver. New West is up 22% in the number of listings from this time last year. Burnaby North up 67%. Coquitlam West up 45%. North Van again, pretty balanced; only up 14%.

Jamie: I actually think that North Van up 14%, kind of reflects a community that doesn’t have a ton of new development going on. You know, I think of New West, a small city, Pier West condos probably skew the stats a little bit because there are a lot of listings there. Coquitlam West is loaded with new developments along North Road. New developments kind of skew the stats. A lot of these listing percentages being up year-over-year are from the brand new condos. Not all of them, but a lot of them are the brand new condos.

Denny: Um, what are you finding for sales ratios?

Jamie: A balanced market, usually there’s, call it… well, a balanced market is around a 20% sales ratio or 5 months of inventory, meaning if you have two sales in a given month, there’d be 10 listings in that area. But that’s not a Vancouver balanced market. We’ve tended to see that our balanced market is usually two or three months of inventory.

Denny: Maybe as this is an investor-forward podcast, maybe let’s mention the areas to consider, meaning very low or surprisingly low sales ratios today. Like where is there more pressure, or where do you have more time to invest and where do you have less time potentially? So, some numbers that were quite a bit lower than I would have guessed are, number one, Brentwood condos under a million bucks. I would have probably guessed it’s balanced around 20% and that is at 12.3%. So, in terms of months of inventory, that’s 8.5 months of inventory.

Jamie: Yeah, that’s lower than I would have anticipated, meaning more months of inventory, a lot more inventory than sales.

Denny: Brentwood luxury condos, this is fairly predictable. So, over a million bucks, 5.4% sales ratio last month. That’s 19 months of inventory or something like that. And this is a really surprising one for me and the reason that I gave the example of a North Burnaby single-family home as an investment idea. Any guesses on the sales ratio for North Burnaby under $3 million?

Jamie: 15%.

Denny: 5.5%. In February 2025, there were five sales and there are currently 91 active listings in North Burnaby for single-family homes. Over $3 million, like just looking at luxury stuff, not that that is your investor-friendly product type, but a similar 3% sales ratio.

Jamie: And remember, we’ve harped on Yaletown quite a bit in the last couple of years of how slow it’s been.

Denny: And Yaletown, give it some props, it’s bouncing back a little bit. It’s coming back. Two-bedroom condos under $2 million in Yaletown, 14.5% sales ratio. So that works out to 7 months of inventory roughly.

Jamie: And you’re going to have a lot of two-bedrooms between one and two million that are probably overpriced and unsellable in that range, too. The sales ratios Denny’s putting out there are encompassing all listings, say under three million in Burnaby or under two million in Yaletown. But between two and three million in Burnaby is a lot of product that is not priced to sell. And between one and two in Yaletown, there’s probably a similar story there, too. So, it kind of validates the overall trend that Yaletown’s doing better, that we’ve seen the reversed COVID-years trend, where people were leaving the city and Yaletown was struggling. Now, we’re starting to see a little more resurgence back.

Denny: The other area, if you like our idea of a single-family investment, putting a suite in, renting up and down, and then reconsidering in 5 years when municipalities have adjusted their zoning and some of these fourplexes come in and there’s more certainty about what those sales numbers will look like. Tri-Cities single-family, this is a surprising one for me. I think this number is skewed because there is a lot of development going on and a lot of land assembly listings that are overpriced and have been sitting for a long time. But the number is a 3.5% sales ratio. Tri-Cities single-family. Wow, that’s low.

Jamie: That’s low. That’s encompassing everything. I guess from an investor standpoint, I mean, Port Coquitlam… you talk about a single-family house. Why would you go out that way? You get more house for your dollar. A lot of people are drawn to newer construction out in Port Moody, but from an investment standpoint, like PoCo, you can get like an 8,000-foot lot, a decent two-level home between that Shaughnessy-Coquitlam River area, and you’re paying about, on the low end, $1.2 to $1.3 to $1.4 million depending on the condition. But if you have a $1.3 million, 8,000-square-foot lot and the home is equivalent to what you’d see for $1.6 million in Burnaby or New West, you get a little more bang for your buck. You hope that PoCo adopts that small-scale multi-unit development to four to six units, and over a 10-plus-year horizon, I think you’re going to see a lot of land gain there.

Denny: $1.3 million for 8,000 square feet of land is pretty good. And I think that’s one of the areas that from an investor standpoint that I would be looking at. There are a lot of listings. Like in the Tri-Cities under $2 million, there’s 261 listings right now. And if you are someone who’s maybe looking to upsize to a larger, newer home over two million, there’s 368 listings in the Tri-Cities.

Jamie: Yeah, that’s a lot. Good time to be a buyer, I think. So, what do you feel when condos start making the turn in these areas that are slower, or properties as a whole start making the turn? What do you think’s going to be up 10% by the time things start trending upward across the board?

Denny: The stuff that we’re seeing multiple offers on today — the North Burnaby house, the townhouse in North Van that’s got the good family layout — those that are still getting an offer date today and seeing a couple of offers, what’s going to happen to those in 12 months?

Jamie: I think that 10% number you just threw out is pretty accurate. I think if you are looking to upsize today from your condo to a Tri-Cities townhome or a Tri-Cities entry-level single-family, let’s say Tri-Cities $1.5-ish, PoCo maybe $1.3 million, Coquitlam maybe $1.5-$1.7 million, Port Moody in that same range, I think that’s going to be up 10%. And your condo won’t feel much of a lift, in my opinion, over the next 12 months because there’s too much inventory.

Denny: I think for condo owners, from an investment standpoint, if you’re waiting for your condo to come up in prices, those houses are going to chase away from you a little bit by the time they get there.

Jamie: And I don’t want to be so broad with condos because we even had a condo in New West get multiple offers this last week.

Denny: How many offers did it get?

Jamie: That one got three. So, three offers. That was a really interesting one because there was a unit in the building that sold 2 weeks earlier that was 100 feet bigger, bigger patio, and we beat that sale price with three offers, 100 feet smaller, smaller patio.

Denny: Aren’t we going to do an episode on multiple offers coming up here?

Jamie: I think so. So, we won’t go too deep on that, but nonetheless, any closing thoughts or any other data to share regarding investing in real estate today? Because I think what we’re trying to sum up is there is a lot of good opportunity for products that are struggling to sell. You have a lot of selection for condos, and condos in the Fraser Valley probably aren’t chasing away from you anytime soon. But certain ones. A two-bedroom in the $600,000 price range in New West, a single-family at $1.5 million, townhouses in certain areas — they might very well chase away in the next 12 months. Not chase away, but they could see a 10% lift if the next 12 months, have a bit of a recovery.

Denny: I just say better buying conditions right now. If you are thinking about an investment in real estate, there’s more inventory. There’s more to look at. If you’re patient and aren’t super specific about a building or unit type, there is more opportunity to negotiate, to get better terms, to potentially grind down list prices. Prices haven’t climbed in the last couple of years for condos and I think the next 3 to 5 years will be a different story.

Jamie: I think so too. Just to go back before we close it up, going back 3 years. I looked at certain areas because in 2021-2022, that crazy busy market, we saw outskirt cities… Kelowna went up, Sunshine Coast went up, Maple Ridge, the Maple Ridge townhouse, the Pitt Meadows townhouse, the Langley places, all these further out… it was interior floor area that mattered and upgrading space, size of home mattered. And so a lot of people were leaving the city for larger homes. Now we’re seeing a bit of a reverse trend. So 3 years ago, what does that put us at? February, March 2022. What areas have done the worst in the last three years and what areas have held their own?

And just to go over a few highlights for single-family homes in the last three years, the areas that have come up the most… and this is based on the real estate board’s latest stat package, and they go off a benchmark price, which isn’t the average house sale price, it’s just what represents a typical house in each market. So, Maple Ridge, the benchmark single-family home is down 14.5% in the last 3 years. Pitt Meadows down 21.4%. Squamish down 13.4%, Whistler down 20%. So those were… I mean again, Whistler is a small market, skewed data, 20% seems harsh. But those areas had the biggest hits for single-family in the last 3 years.

Areas that had the least hits: Port Moody up 2.1%, Burnaby up 1.5%, Coquitlam down 0.2%, West Van down 0.1%, East Van down 1.4%. So relatively flat when… I think there’s at least a 2% margin of error in these stats. So inner-city communities are flat in the last 3 years, further-out ones are down 15-ish percent.

Townhouses: Maple Ridge down 11.7% for the benchmark price. Squamish down 18.9% benchmark price. Those ones were hit the most. Burnaby up 6%, North Van up 2%, Vancouver East up 7%. So while some areas in the city have been going down, other areas have been improving. And if we were to look at those specific markets in 2022, 3 years ago from today, we’d probably see the opposite, the exact 180 of that, where the markets that are doing the best would be doing the worst. So I guess in short, things kind of correct. And you drink a lot of beer after COVID settles out, you get healthy and drink less beer. You go buy a house in Squamish after COVID, you go back to the city. Trends kind of reverse themselves sometimes over time.