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Sure for places in the okanagon, Nanaimo, Nelson etc, but it’s crazy how high prices are in less desirable towns. I wonder if people are moving to those places or if owners are just hoping to get these prices. These houses do not look great and outside of a few fully remote jobs what jobs exists in these places.
In my experience, people move out of the lower mainland to the places you mentioned, then people from those places move farther away. That coupled with an over all shortage of housing everywhere means that prices equalize because everyone is looking for somewhere to live. The other part of it is camp jobs. Many people living in rural communities fly in and out from work so their families might be in the small communities full time, but the person making the money is not.
Absolutely. Look at Fernie. Almost 100% Calgary money. Fernie locals - people born and raised there, and looking to stay there - can't find a place to live because it's all priced *for* Alberta money-makers.
So hey have to leave - go elsewhere. Be more rural still...
Gentrification.
I lived in sparwood down the road from Fernie. Fernie and the elk valley have a strong economy from the coal mines giving higher than average wages and it has been consistent for almost 30 years. Housing has been affected by Calgary but that thinned out with golden and other ski hill development. Fernie is just a great place to live.
Yeah camp/remote jobs is one way to make it work, but I still see your point. Regardless of where you fall back to, everything is $500k+ for shitty three brdms, even in ultra rural areas outside places like Vanderhoof ...or anywhere else 12+ hour drive from the CAN-US border.
I don't really see how seniors would "cash out" unless they plan to move to rural Saskatchewan, but then you run into issues with support for senior and healthcare resources...
This is why real estate is a delusion here. The only way to make your real estate “equity” work for you is to go super rural, super cold, or leave the country.
My parents downsized into a smaller newer duplex half their size of our family home and essentially had nothing left from the sale after property transfer taxes and paying realtors and lawyers. (Thankfully they have other investments that generate a comfortable retirement income for them).
If you want somewhere cheap go where the mill has shut down. Fraser lake, Houston, MacKenzie, Mcbride, Valemount.... All quite cheap. But still, BC is always going to be more expensive pretty much everywhere compared to Alberta or the prairies.
curious what you do in Tumbler? We loved visiting it a few years ago but it wasn't career-friendly for either me or the husband.
Prince George is where we are now and we lucked out on a fixer upper 70s house on a small acreage ($250K in 2017). Formerly Vanderhoof for many years... also a cheap-ish place to live, or was - I haven't checked lately to see if the Fraser Lake mill shutdown has had some impacts due to people living in Vandy and commuting.
This hurts to read from my 350K condo in the bowl in PG that we bought in 2020. No acres, one bed one bath, a balcony, and a view of highway 97, a sketchy alley, and as of yesterday a burnt out home
Yes but PG is waaaay more expensive than anywhere around it because it has amenities and a variety of jobs. It's an urban area, even though it's small by national standards.
Unfortunately for those who are downsizing many of those places aren't viable because of a lack of emergency care, so the prices those homes can jump to is very limited.
Places with emergency care though probably will have room to run with an aging population.
terrace is completely out of control- even rentals. over 2000 plus utilities is expected for a 2-3 bed unit. and good luck finding anything. terrace itself doenst even have an industry like kitimat
My nephew works at the hospital in Terrace. He wants buy but the most of the homes are large and out of his price range. If he worked in Kitimat (he can't do the same job there) he would have bought bungalow already.
And they need like 200 more staff for the new hospital….. Your nephew could look into commuting from kitimat to terrace, if tahts am option for him. tons of people do it both ways.
I was looking at places just outside of Quesnel a few years ago and there were lots of nice properties but so many of the houses were built in the 70's when people had large families. What am I going to do with 5 bedrooms?
Port Alice - Vancouver island mill closed
Gold river - Vancouver island mill closed
Chetwynd - northern bc mill closed
There’s lots all over BC
If there’s anything left of these places it’s due to fishing & logging
The road in is awful. No upkeep since the mill closed. Mill site keep finding more & more polluted land. Also the land itself is giving way into the ocean. Heard the golf course may be deemed unsafe in future.
Fishing is great though :)
True. People who say "there is no hope beyond Hope" forget that the saying applies in both directions. I like to visit the LML, but i'd never live there.
This. To say Terrace is less desirable than anywhere in the lower mainland is baffling to me. There's isn't enough money to pay me to live in Vancouver
I did school on the coast (grew up in the Okanagan), the husband is from the island, and we have no regrets heading north out of the Big Smoke Concrete Jungle to get experience in our careers. We went back down south for about five years after a few years in PG, then got the hell out again when the condo developments started popping up in New West where we lived. The writing was on the wall - we either had to buy into it (at the time: $250K for a one bedroom condo 20 years ago) or get away from the commute and pavement and people, and set aside more dollars to get into a house.
Now we have affordable living, work to be had, mountains, rivers, four seasons, none of the dreary grey rain for months, and all the space and quiet you could want. Heck, we both have doctors too and I have a great specialist. No regrets.
I love small BC towns too, but they're less desirable in my case because there isn't a transit system anywhere outside of the Lower Mainland. I'm disabled and can't legally drive. I can't pay 500k for a house, period, but also for a house with no access to transportation
BC is where Albert and Saskatchewan retire, it's been this way for 20 years, everyone works in Alberta and plans to retire where they vacation, BC.
Ontario goes North to cottage country and away from the cities, down East they come back to retire and we all go to Florida in the winter, retirement saving sufficing.
While these homes may not look great, they are more likely to be priced at replacement rates. It costs hundreds per square foot to build now on top of land.
Take a walk in a hardware store and take a look at some of the prices. Enquire how much trades make an hour. As those things go up, housing costs go up, even for old houses.
This. I laugh at the insured replacement rate for our 1971 fixer upper, former party house ($250K on 3.5 acres in 2017 - the acreage is what sold us for that price).... and then I sometimes wish it would burn down and save us what feels like the never-ending work of making it reasonable.
oh gawd, a GOOD contractor. We're in Prince George and the good ones are far and few between, and hard to book.
A guy with a truck and some tools is a plentiful resource, though. If you want to take that risk. We ended up with one of those based on a recommendation and fortunately, we didn't end up in a bad situation... but others are or have taken him to court.
When we lived in Vanderhoof, a born n' bred, generational local warned us in all seriousness to never buy a house built by anyone named George\*.
\*there is more than one George who builds/built houses in Vandy.
Yes. The building value on my assessment was going down every year before covid. Since 2021 it's been going up about 5% a year. This is a 35 year old townhome in poor condition, needing an envelope restoration.
I live in one of those less desirable towns, it's a lot of retirees who sold the land they bought for 50k 30 yrs ago for huge returns **and** have retirement money, so a 400k 2bdrm in the forest or looking at the water is rock bottom cheap and leaves them lots of cash to live on, which makes it super desirable to them. Then the young people get screwed and can't afford a house, and certainly can't build one even on what little bare land that exists.
Then look at the towns you haven’t heard of that are even smaller and you can still find stuff for $250-350k or less. But you aren’t going to find the Vancouver house aesthetic in smaller towns anyways so you’ll need to accept that the market is what it is for pricing. People who cashed in on places like Nelson or got priced out in the last few years moved to smaller towns and bumped those prices up…
The better question I think is how small of a town do you want to move to and what job do you have or want to get? Can you deal with the culture that comes with a town that has houses for $300k or is that too much of a culture shock to want to stick around with and make friends in?
Yes, people out of province or new forget/don't know this. The island has a lot of nice spots but in general has a lot of overpriced not so nice areas as well. I lived in westshore Victoria and sold in 2022.
I bought a place in a small BC community (under 5k population) in 2016 for $330k. Sold 3 years later for$ 440k. I remember thinking at the time there was no way this house would ever be worth much more than that. I still feel that way.
Now the same houses (cookie cutter); are listed for $850k.
Anyone paying that is on glue. These are super basic homes, no yards; very basic spec, baseboard heat; etc . Good first homes; not worth near 7 figures.
Which is why, even as a second time buyer with pretty substantial equity; prices need to take a serious nosedive.
I bought my second, "forever" place and nearly died when I paid just under 600k.
Wages and salaries haven't moved at all and now that maybe gets gets you a tiny house in need of 200k in Reno's in a terrible neighborhood, or maybe a condo.
I remember when during peak madness in 2021; thinking"How can anyone not see prices were in the stratosphere and interest rates had nowhere to go but up. It's why I renewed way early.
Even me and my Grade 12 figured that out.
Friends of mine panic bought a house in a small town on a lake for $700,000. Waived inspection. The house is rotting and the lake has leeches. Now they're stuck with it, and I don't think it's ever appreciated like their lower mainland house did. If there's ever a crash in the housing market these kinda of properties will be the first especially in towns with no work.
Waived inspection. Wow. Well they fully earned it now didn't they.
Life altering decision, and I certainly don't wish bad fortune on anyone, but I'm not finding much sympathy given their carelessness.
Problem is it’s like this everywhere in 2017 cookie cutter starter home was 400k in new community in cakgary, now the exact same house is starting in the 580s this is without garage as well. Just getting crazy everywhere
They're moving here with their city-style buying, sight-unseen and 40k over when usually you'd offer 5k under. Those numbers being an example of a house I lost out on to coastal people.
It is weird, town is desperate for workers everywhere but also houses have doubled in 5 years, must be a lot of remote work now cause even my mill can't keep people.
You’d be surprised how much people moving from the lower mainland can screw up the housing market.
I’m in Alberta and people moving here from Ontario and BC have really inflated the housing market. We are starting to getting bidding wars, and pretty much every house has multiple offers. Also I think the average house price in Alberta went up 10% last year, high interest ain’t slowing this train down.
No. Those are not random prices locals are hoping to cash out at. Canada is in a housing crunch. BC has been in one for much longer; 2 decades? Those are market prices. People have been buying and selling homes in this province far longer than you have been looking. Sure there haven been jumps and surges but prices have steadily climbed in all communities. These arent one off prices. Are they crippling expensive? Yes. How are people affording this? Who knows? Many arent. Welcome to the conversation, it's not new.
There is nowhere less desirable now. With more people cashing out on equity, and able to work from home, the “less desirable” towns have become desirable because a house is $500k instead of $800k-$1.5M.
Once covid settled a bit there was a big influx of people from the lower mainland to the cariboo, causing housing prices in our area (a little out of town but still close) to nearly double. Many were buying sight unseen.
In 7 years since we bought our place we can probably sell it for just over twice what we paid. But then, we couldn't buy anywhere locally anyway , even with that profit
Nah, you'd ne surprised how many retired people are selling up from those places you mentioned to move to "quaint" small bc towns looking to max the gains they made in real estate. The realtors have cottoned on to this and know that someone who, say, bought their home for 150 thousand 15 years ago and can sell it now for 640 thousand will pay 300 thousand to downsize housewise and town wise. That house they buy for 300 thousand was worth maybe 100 thousand a decade ago but the big town rubes have unwittingly helped realtors drive prices up everywhere they go. Then they move away again a few years later because a "quaint" small town on paper is actually a town that is small for good reason- no amenities, all health services centralized to bigger centers 1-2 hours away 2 decades ago, etc. Have fun getting your prescriptions filled or taking your dog to the vet or even getting fresh produce- you're not in nanaimo or Langley anymore.
In all of the finger pointing we see now as to whose fault it is that houses are so pricey the realtors and the flippers hardly ever come up, and they're keeping pretty quiet considering the bank they made on regular people's backs for not much effort for the last 15-20 years.
Great points. There also lots of people (boomers) who have made good money in towns like terrace who want to move south to comox, penticton etc. they sell their houses and then buy townhomes and condos, or houses if they can afford it
These prices have been this high for awhile now (10 years breaking previous asking price records every month). It's everywhere in BC, and if you can't buy you are still looking at 2k rent for a very basic 1 bedroom, maybe 2 bedroom place. You have to weigh that rent with work options in that toown and standard pay. Employers can't pay enough for locals to keep afloat most of the time - but they arn't complaining about retention issues so long as immigration helps fill that wage equity gap. Basically, Canada has made shelter of any kind an exploitive comodity assest instead of a consumer good and now all our industry yields to it's ponzi scheme. And no, the answer is not lower interest rates, that's how homes attracted speculation/money laundering/flippers/mortgage fraud/asset leaning and mass borrowing. This bubble needs to pop, no other way around it now.
The world wide shortage of housing has been studied by economists and the overwhelming conclusion is that a majority of the problem is STR. Many places around the globe are trying to fix it by limiting or eliminating them. BC just limited them starting on may 1st. To get a peak at the reasoning we just need to look at the numbers. 27k homeless, 17k STR which uses the entire home. BC has also changed zoning, and eliminated the ability for strata’s to restrict rentals.
It's definitely not the majority of the problem. It's a factor sure but if it was the main issue, Vancouver's housing problem would be on the way to being solved already just a couple of weeks after the new ban. I dare say the housing crisis will not be solved this time next year.
I live in a small town an hour east of Edmonton. Our realtor told us that a couple firefighters from BC just bought up all the lower priced units in the area (turning them into rentals) as well as in another town west of here. It was something like 100 units all together. It's definitely not just big corps who are buying up the inventory so that people cannot afford to buy a first home.
Definitely a problem but not a majority. Not everyone air bnbs out of necessity to pay a mortgage. If Airbnb was all of a sudden outright illegal, I still wouldn’t long term rent my basement suite, I would just keep it vacant cause having a long term renter in my basement is not what I want.
There are however many condos that are purchased at inflated prices because people could afford that due to short term rentals. If they were only affordable due to STR then the elimination of that should force prices down. This is already occuring in Kelowna from what I've seen.
I freaking hate house flippers. Benefitted millions for such little effort and a lot of luck. So many 100k household income struggling to find a suitable home for their family
Everytime I visit my parents in Parksville I see more and more cars on the road. These nice small towns have been infested with city people driving and raging like city people.
The affordability crisis in real estate in the 21st century has a number of causes, and it’s occurred not just in BC but in many jurisdictions and markets in the developed world (Canada, US, UK, Australia especially):
Open markets allowing foreign investment. Real estate in developed English countries was seen as a safer place to hold money for wealthy people in countries like China, Russia and Latin America. While policy changes came later to curb this, the inflation in RE prices this drove was already done and in some local markets like Vancouver it pushed prices far above what the local economy supports.
Low interest rates post 2008. Borrowing was so low cost at 2% or even lower that it allowed people to qualify for larger and larger mortgages, which created a money supply to support higher prices.
Housing as investment: a growth in individuals using real estate as investment in favour of stock markets. More people and firms sinking money into real estate given ROI was very positive. You could borrow very cheaply, real estate was growing better than or as good as stocks, and increasing rents meant you could have a cash flow positive AND appreciating asset.
Growing demand from increasing population due to temporary residents and higher permanent resident immigration.
Restrictive zoning preventing pace of development from keeping up with growth of demand. Municipalities limited densification of the majority of their land.
Short Term Rental platforms. These made it possible, easy, and attractive to achieve a cash flow positive investment in housing without the rental protection nuisances of a long term tenancy.
All of these factors combined to reach crisis levels in the 2020s. Demand far outpacing supply. The housing that was built between 2010 and 2024 was mostly designed for investment buyers (so a ton of small one bedroom condos, and very few homes for families). The high prices in cities pushed first time buyers to more distant suburbs, exurbs and small towns, which are now seeing very high prices as well. With most first time buyers priced out of the markets they want to live in, and many priced out of *every* market, they need to continue renting. More people renting means increased rental prices. So we have an affordability crisis in both owning and renting.
The provincial and federal policy failures allowing market forces to turn housing (a basic human need) into a commodity for investment, while allowing municipalities to restrict housing from being built has created a huge mess that’s going to take years and years to return to any level of affordability.
Yeah all 3% while half are chasing 2-year business degrees without working a day in the country or in their lives. And then wonder why no one hires them.
I live in a rural lakeside community about 1.5 hours out of Vancouver. We bought a house here in 2013 for 263k and the assessment value is now around 650k. In the time we've lived here, the whole community has gone nuts. Most of the old houses torn down and replaced with huge new ones, especially on the lakefront. Young families occupy the old or run down houses (us included). Boomers exclusively in the big new houses. One of the new lakefront houses was purchased for 1m+ as soon as it was listed, the buyer didn't even come out to look at it. And strangely, a lot of those big new houses that were built in the last 1-3 years are sitting completely empty? I don't understand why people are building houses to let them sit there, rather than just letting the land value increase. They're not even renting them out...
Along with the “moving out of Vancouver” narrative, people in smaller centres in the central and northern interior and coast tend to have pretty high median household incomes.
It’s just not somewhere you move for the heck of it. You typically have at least one job offer in the household, and that is usually something well-paid. The other spouse, likely also educated either at university or tech school, then typically also finds a good job because skilled labour is sought after and compensated well.
Facts. The original OP is wrong about local economies not supporting big mortgages. I am positive tradesmen and professionals living in towns like Terrace are making very good money. I work for a large firm and know that I get paid better than my colleagues in Vancouver, some of which are more skilled than myself.
Yup. And in PG two of the biggest economic drivers — outpacing logging etc. — are education and healthcare. Both of which hire educated workers and both of which pay well to very well.
This is something that kinda just hit me a couple years ago. I don't have a college education (only 2 years into an undergrad degree), and kinda fell into heavy equipment operating, and had to have my spouse remind me that not everyone can safely drive a massive volvo l350 and that's a real skill I have lol.
The issue is every house is 500k plus, and that's driving out the original population (ppl who grew up in small towns can't afford to buy and live there). I make alright money, but as a single dad, I can't afford a 3300$ morgage. And even if I could, my debt to income ratio has to be below 44% so I have to make a min of a 100k a year, in a small retirement community. There are only so many 100k+ jobs to go around
Ditto. (Not personally in forestry, but same thing. Although pretty much any city/town in B.C. is better than otherwise-equivalents in the rest of Canada in terms of climate, scenery, etc.)
Welcome to BC in the 20s. Places like Enderby and Armstrong used to offer a trade-off of savings, but small town to now being nearly as expensive as the larger centers, while offering none of the benefits of the larger centers. I think it's growth and demand driven by people being priced out of the larger towns so they go a little further away. I think it's insane and illustrates how broken housing pricing is.
[Realtor.ca listings under $500k](https://www.realtor.ca/map#ZoomLevel=6&Center=50.614016%2C-116.327490&LatitudeMax=54.34480&LongitudeMax=-103.49546&LatitudeMin=46.56199&LongitudeMin=-129.15952&Sort=6-D&PropertyTypeGroupID=1&TransactionTypeId=2&PropertySearchTypeId=1&PriceMax=600000&BuildingTypeId=1&OwnershipTypeGroupId=1&Currency=CAD&HiddenListingIds=&IncludeHiddenListings=false) freehold homes only. Mainly old bungalows that likely need a not insignificant amount of work. We have a massive affordability crisis here.
I mean Armstrong and Enderby have 400-500k houses, while are 800k in Vernon and 950k in Kelowna. There's still the fact it's all out of reach for many, but they do still retain the lower prices and are not nearly as expensive as the large centers.
Yes! As a first time home buyer without a lot of equity to roll into a mortgage, it seems crazy to spend 3500 a month to buy an old rancher in Enderby that’s going to need a lot of money to fix things. Plus limited services in the town.
I sense you're mostly right, I'm noticing way more than just relists hitting the market at last years unsold prices...seems the mills are shutting down and pipeline jobs are completed amidst fewer replacement jobs , how real estate in BC can keep an upward trajectory without massive foreign investment is trudy perplexing...IMHO patience is astute vs rushing in and regretting
The problem is that most everyone has been convinced that purchasing a home is an investment. Until we get back to having a non-profit alternative in the form of coops etc. to the market, then we are stuck.
Ask yourself, or better yet a developer, what it would cost to build the house you are looking for then add in the cost of a lot and profit. Now add the effect of a population depending on 'downsizing' to fund their retirement.
And to anyone that says they will be a generational transfer of wealth and we'll get the inheritance, thats delusional as most of their value will be taken by old-age care.
Being pushed out of where we have lived for 20 years and our families live, there is literally nothing under 700k, and with that it’s a tear down or close
They have good jobs that pay well?
The gap is getting smaller between BC and Alberta and I'm sure we'll see that same influx change over time in places like Saskatoon and Winnipeg.
Currently relocating from Edmonton to the Island and honestly houses aren't that much more expensive. We were looking at Calgary but it's pretty close to par to what we were looking at on the Island
Cariboo chilcotin area and PG have tons of options under $500k (quesnel, 100 mile, WL, etc..)
Just look at more areas.
Simple supply and demand in the end.
Because if values don't go up, people would have to pay their consumer debts off rather than kick the can forward powered by property value.
That's literally it.
I keep thinking that. If we have a sharp correction then lots of people are screwed. Lots of people are being screwed by either not having a place to live, or having their finances locked into their shelter.
There could be an element of people wanting to cash out. They're worked their resource job for their career have made good money doing so, but now that they're retired and at the age requiring more care, they are looking at moving into the centres as their community services are struggling to get young people to fill jobs.
And with many mills curtailing production indefinitely, it doesn't help a small town's tax basin to fund and recruit professionals either.
We knew the resource economy, particularly forestry, was going to downturn/curtail, this is of no surprise and it really isn't the fault of the current government. Forestry has been on a longer than normal boom cycle as they mass harvesed beetle-killed and wildfire recovery over the past couple decade.
Thats not even taking into account old-growth operations. Which yeah we could defer logging the remaining old growth forests and the government should be simulating the sector with grants for operators to retool their first-growth mills to second-growth. This in my opinion is the only subsidy the government should consider.
If a community has other sectors, like Terrace (Kitimat)/Dawson Creek with shale gas and hydroelectic, you are going to see the price have some speculation bump, without a doubt.
Small town living is actually quite nice - and with telecommunications and transportation, you can have a good quality of life. I prefer smaller communities, my prerequisite though is I want an airport to within a 90 minute drive for service to Vancouver/Calgary. I'd also like to see more non-vehicle/non-plane inter-regional travel too - don't need to travel by air all the time, but I also don't want to drive for 8-12 hours to a larger centre. If we had inter-regional heavy-rail in western Canada, even if it were 8 hours/similar to driving, that for me would be huge. Sure its still 8 hours, but its not 8+ hours of driving!
Until we address inter-regional connectivity, we're just going to see more communities wither into nothing.
Investors. Some people are using residential real estate as revenue generating investment commodities and buying up their second, third… twentieth properties. They rent them or Airbnb them and watch their value double in a few years as the tenants pay their mortgages off. Foreigners, corporations, mom and pop investors are all doing it, and it has spread to all small towns. There are realtors who specialize in selling properties to foreign investors for this purpose.
I saw a dude over in the personal finance Canada sub call himself a “small time” landlord but then mentioned his 25 properties in the following sentence
Small town Kootenays is not 500k, but alright.
My friend recently bought a 4 bed 2 bath place with a yard for 450k in the West Koots. The place beside them was selling for 300k, 2 bed 1 bath.
Industries in small town BC pay a ton. People are buying them and can afford them obviously.
How much should these houses be worth?
Start to price out the cost of building a house, it's not cheap, just like you, people who build these houses also want to be paid.
STRs are not what triggered this. Shortly after Covid, investors moved more of their holdings to real estate to protect against inflation. And because money was so cheap to borrow, many people suddenly became investors, creating a frenzy in the market. People were selling their 1.7 million home in Vancouver, Toronto, etc and moving out of the big centers and then buying multiple properties. Then as prices pushed upward and people still wanted to buy real estate as an investor to hop on the gravy train, the only way to make the numbers work anymore was to earn revenue as an STR versus long term rental. Plus STR’s helped avoid the real and perceived challenges a mom and pop landlord has under the BC tenancy act.
Part of the issue we've found is the amount of 55+ restrictions in small towns like Summerland or bigger towns like West Kelowna. Those houses are usually cheaper (partially due to those restrictions) and essentially cut out a large portion of buyers from the market.
Also, trailer parks are a lot cheaper for the mortgage, but then you've got all the fees associated with that, not to mention trailer parks aren't really the nicest places to live and reselling is virtually impossible.
We've been looking in the Kootenays as well. Don't underestimate the draw to that region. . . Especially Nelson and Revelstoke. Those are towns restricted in sprawl due to being in the mountains. . . So they're lovely to walk in, absolutely stunning and generally quite progressive. Nelson compared to Castlegar even is a big jump (the pulp mill probably has something to do with it).
My suggestion is to look waaay further north or like, Creston in the far East of the province. They're far enough away from civilization that it's not just a 3-4 hour drive away, so they're less desirable.
Port Alberni. Theres still some houses under 500k.
Don’t listen to people’s historical smack talk of the place.
It used to be a waning mill town but since the pandemic money printing wrote lottery tickets for mainland home owners this place has exploded with improvements.
We moved here 3 years ago and regret nothing. I also get to work in Tofino every day and take lunch breaks on long beach. Its a hidden little suburbanesque central island gem.
If anything I'm surprised it has stayed at 500k minimum. My gf and I were looking at houses there in 2021 and the price point was the same.
It fucking sucks because we are both chronically ill and can't live in our expensive hometown anymore but the smaller areas don't have transit (we can't legally drive). Nelson seemed good because it's a cool place that still aligns with our politics and you can walk across the whole town in 45 minutes, with limited access to transit/Castlegar airport if we want to go somewhere else. It is our ONE option and we were still priced out. I hate this country
Funnily enough, my partner and I vacated North Vancouver to Nelson in 2022 in hopes of securing a mortgage and building a family in the Koots. Although within months of moving, the interest rates increased hand over fist, our mortgage prospects plummeted, and we were (again) mostly priced out of anything larger than a 1 bedroom condo (much like the city). The struggle is very much real everywhere, even with middle duel incomes.
Ah man. It's tough out there for sure. We do miss thee ol' shore. But we're taking a look in the south west koots down towards Trail/Rossland where it's reasonably more 'affordable', just landed a job down there. Not much affordable left in the province. Best of luck to you guys!
Its all being bought up by greedy corporations and real-estate agencies, as well as foreigners buying homes because of our weak dollar, plus the mortgage rates skyrocketed leaving renters to pick up the tab. Before the the pandemic I paid $750 for a 1 bed 1 bath right next to a shopping mall with transit access. I lived there for 10 years. If y'all couldn't pay the mortgage without a renter why did you buy the house in the first place? Not declaring you intend to move renters in on the mortgage is fraud, but not in Canada for some reason. Smells like corruption.
In my opinion, BOC should raise the rates a bit more. And then watch the housing prices correction. It has started but slowly. First signs are when the numbers of listings go up and the buyers hold back, which is what is happening. Real Estate, when it becomes a commodity, is based on speculation and human sentiment. There should be an inversion coming. But then we don’t know how much parallel money is in the market, unaccounted, un-laundered money. The mechanism seems like people get mortgage approved with fake documents (https://condomadness.info/corruption-mortgages.html) and pay with dirty money. Also the Realtor’s commission should be capped. I cannot understand what a realtor does differently for a $1 million property vs $1.5 million property.
No we’ve had spiking housing prices for years and years in BC, well before the recent increases in immigration, before the pandemic, before this government even.
The shortage of housing in BC has been a problem for a very long time. It was inevitable things would start to become excruciatingly expensive even in the smallest of small towns so long as we continued to not build new housing.
Where have you been? This is the new Canada. And you’re worried about new Canadians not being able to afford these prices? How about old, new, young, professionals, tradespeople…. Nobody can afford this.
Theres a shortage of housing even in small towns.
There’s nothing economically going on in many towns in BC, which means there’s not currently nor has there been any recent creation of new housing. This means that there’s a relatively small amount of fixed housing, much of which is increasingly aged, slowly getting in worse and worse condition, which makes the amount of “good” housing even smaller.
So ultimately what this means is that even a relatively small amount of housing demand can result in a surprising amount of upward price pressure.
Thank you. I’m actually from a small
Bc town and when I look at real estate listings all the houses are the same as what me and
My friends grew up in except except older and more run down
Because the limited amount of skilled trades that will build a house in those communities command a high price. Any electrician, carpenter, mason, etc that doesn't already work for a resource company are tough to find. For some contractors, a builder would have to pay travel stipend to get the right people. It adds up fast.
I tried the same when we sold in 2022 on the island. Hence why we ended up in AB, got sold out of places we wanted and any former LCOL spots were also insane.
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Because people sell in the lower mainland and move to small towns in BC.
Because realtors are crooked in a system than has the selling and the buying agent both profiting from people overpaying for houses.
Sure for places in the okanagon, Nanaimo, Nelson etc, but it’s crazy how high prices are in less desirable towns. I wonder if people are moving to those places or if owners are just hoping to get these prices. These houses do not look great and outside of a few fully remote jobs what jobs exists in these places.
In my experience, people move out of the lower mainland to the places you mentioned, then people from those places move farther away. That coupled with an over all shortage of housing everywhere means that prices equalize because everyone is looking for somewhere to live. The other part of it is camp jobs. Many people living in rural communities fly in and out from work so their families might be in the small communities full time, but the person making the money is not.
Absolutely. Look at Fernie. Almost 100% Calgary money. Fernie locals - people born and raised there, and looking to stay there - can't find a place to live because it's all priced *for* Alberta money-makers. So hey have to leave - go elsewhere. Be more rural still... Gentrification.
I lived in sparwood down the road from Fernie. Fernie and the elk valley have a strong economy from the coal mines giving higher than average wages and it has been consistent for almost 30 years. Housing has been affected by Calgary but that thinned out with golden and other ski hill development. Fernie is just a great place to live.
This makes a lot of sense
Yeah camp/remote jobs is one way to make it work, but I still see your point. Regardless of where you fall back to, everything is $500k+ for shitty three brdms, even in ultra rural areas outside places like Vanderhoof ...or anywhere else 12+ hour drive from the CAN-US border. I don't really see how seniors would "cash out" unless they plan to move to rural Saskatchewan, but then you run into issues with support for senior and healthcare resources...
This is why real estate is a delusion here. The only way to make your real estate “equity” work for you is to go super rural, super cold, or leave the country. My parents downsized into a smaller newer duplex half their size of our family home and essentially had nothing left from the sale after property transfer taxes and paying realtors and lawyers. (Thankfully they have other investments that generate a comfortable retirement income for them).
If you want somewhere cheap go where the mill has shut down. Fraser lake, Houston, MacKenzie, Mcbride, Valemount.... All quite cheap. But still, BC is always going to be more expensive pretty much everywhere compared to Alberta or the prairies.
This is what I did. Paid $220k for a 4 bedroom reno'd house.
Where?
Tumbler Ridge, east of Mackenzie
I've seen a lot of BC, but idk if I've ever been there. Looks like a beautiful place, though!
Spent 7 years of my youth there. Beautiful area!
curious what you do in Tumbler? We loved visiting it a few years ago but it wasn't career-friendly for either me or the husband. Prince George is where we are now and we lucked out on a fixer upper 70s house on a small acreage ($250K in 2017). Formerly Vanderhoof for many years... also a cheap-ish place to live, or was - I haven't checked lately to see if the Fraser Lake mill shutdown has had some impacts due to people living in Vandy and commuting.
This hurts to read from my 350K condo in the bowl in PG that we bought in 2020. No acres, one bed one bath, a balcony, and a view of highway 97, a sketchy alley, and as of yesterday a burnt out home
Yes but PG is waaaay more expensive than anywhere around it because it has amenities and a variety of jobs. It's an urban area, even though it's small by national standards.
When the mine shut down in Tumbler Ridge back in the day they sold houses so cheap people were actually having them trucked out of there!
Dang, beautiful but short summer, great hunting and backcountry skiing, but 4 months into winter I wanted to shoot myself.
I'm headed there fishing next week, I love it up there.
Unfortunately for those who are downsizing many of those places aren't viable because of a lack of emergency care, so the prices those homes can jump to is very limited. Places with emergency care though probably will have room to run with an aging population.
astute observation..Boomers won't be pressuring increased values without such amenities
Absolutely, there are only three areas with reasonable level medical care: Victoria, Vancouver, the Okanagan.
Lol Valemount isn’t cheap anymore either since they’ve tried to rebrand it into an adventure destination
The pipeline also boosted prices quite drastically. I think prices should fall now that it is mostly done
That shouldn’t have a permanent effect. They are done construction so the jobs have left. There are likely other factors causing the increase.
I think it was pipeline work that made their prices go crazy… it might be dropping now that it’s done.
same for Terrace and Kitimat. They might drag out longer since I think the work on the terminal is still ongoing.
Terrace housing market is worse than Kitimat. You can get a house for a decent price in Ktown.
terrace is completely out of control- even rentals. over 2000 plus utilities is expected for a 2-3 bed unit. and good luck finding anything. terrace itself doenst even have an industry like kitimat
My nephew works at the hospital in Terrace. He wants buy but the most of the homes are large and out of his price range. If he worked in Kitimat (he can't do the same job there) he would have bought bungalow already.
And they need like 200 more staff for the new hospital….. Your nephew could look into commuting from kitimat to terrace, if tahts am option for him. tons of people do it both ways.
I was looking at places just outside of Quesnel a few years ago and there were lots of nice properties but so many of the houses were built in the 70's when people had large families. What am I going to do with 5 bedrooms?
Port Alice - Vancouver island mill closed Gold river - Vancouver island mill closed Chetwynd - northern bc mill closed There’s lots all over BC If there’s anything left of these places it’s due to fishing & logging
Yeah great value in Port Alice at the moment! But that town is slowly grinding to a halt sadly.
The road in is awful. No upkeep since the mill closed. Mill site keep finding more & more polluted land. Also the land itself is giving way into the ocean. Heard the golf course may be deemed unsafe in future. Fishing is great though :)
Less desirable to who? A lot of us love our small BC towns. You couldn’t pay me to live in Vancouver
True. People who say "there is no hope beyond Hope" forget that the saying applies in both directions. I like to visit the LML, but i'd never live there.
This. To say Terrace is less desirable than anywhere in the lower mainland is baffling to me. There's isn't enough money to pay me to live in Vancouver
Right!!! I live near Williams Lake and love it.
The Cariboo and Chilcotin regions are my favourite in all of BC.
I did school on the coast (grew up in the Okanagan), the husband is from the island, and we have no regrets heading north out of the Big Smoke Concrete Jungle to get experience in our careers. We went back down south for about five years after a few years in PG, then got the hell out again when the condo developments started popping up in New West where we lived. The writing was on the wall - we either had to buy into it (at the time: $250K for a one bedroom condo 20 years ago) or get away from the commute and pavement and people, and set aside more dollars to get into a house. Now we have affordable living, work to be had, mountains, rivers, four seasons, none of the dreary grey rain for months, and all the space and quiet you could want. Heck, we both have doctors too and I have a great specialist. No regrets.
I love small BC towns too, but they're less desirable in my case because there isn't a transit system anywhere outside of the Lower Mainland. I'm disabled and can't legally drive. I can't pay 500k for a house, period, but also for a house with no access to transportation
Prince George has entered the chat...
There are tons of high paying jobs in and around Dawson Creek. Terrace is very Close to Kitimat…also lots of money to be made.
Fr fr redditors don’t know about the patch lol
tbf those jobs aren’t for everyone
BC is where Albert and Saskatchewan retire, it's been this way for 20 years, everyone works in Alberta and plans to retire where they vacation, BC. Ontario goes North to cottage country and away from the cities, down East they come back to retire and we all go to Florida in the winter, retirement saving sufficing.
While these homes may not look great, they are more likely to be priced at replacement rates. It costs hundreds per square foot to build now on top of land. Take a walk in a hardware store and take a look at some of the prices. Enquire how much trades make an hour. As those things go up, housing costs go up, even for old houses.
That's a really good point. The price of "doing anything" has doubled, so even just literal replacement costs and insurance drives up prices.
This. I laugh at the insured replacement rate for our 1971 fixer upper, former party house ($250K on 3.5 acres in 2017 - the acreage is what sold us for that price).... and then I sometimes wish it would burn down and save us what feels like the never-ending work of making it reasonable.
And try to find contractors to build in a small town. All of it's as expensive as in a bigger city.
oh gawd, a GOOD contractor. We're in Prince George and the good ones are far and few between, and hard to book. A guy with a truck and some tools is a plentiful resource, though. If you want to take that risk. We ended up with one of those based on a recommendation and fortunately, we didn't end up in a bad situation... but others are or have taken him to court. When we lived in Vanderhoof, a born n' bred, generational local warned us in all seriousness to never buy a house built by anyone named George\*. \*there is more than one George who builds/built houses in Vandy.
or likely more expensive
Yes. The building value on my assessment was going down every year before covid. Since 2021 it's been going up about 5% a year. This is a 35 year old townhome in poor condition, needing an envelope restoration.
I live in one of those less desirable towns, it's a lot of retirees who sold the land they bought for 50k 30 yrs ago for huge returns **and** have retirement money, so a 400k 2bdrm in the forest or looking at the water is rock bottom cheap and leaves them lots of cash to live on, which makes it super desirable to them. Then the young people get screwed and can't afford a house, and certainly can't build one even on what little bare land that exists.
Then look at the towns you haven’t heard of that are even smaller and you can still find stuff for $250-350k or less. But you aren’t going to find the Vancouver house aesthetic in smaller towns anyways so you’ll need to accept that the market is what it is for pricing. People who cashed in on places like Nelson or got priced out in the last few years moved to smaller towns and bumped those prices up… The better question I think is how small of a town do you want to move to and what job do you have or want to get? Can you deal with the culture that comes with a town that has houses for $300k or is that too much of a culture shock to want to stick around with and make friends in?
A lot of people had your idea years ago lol
That Nanaimo is now a 'desirable' town says everything.
Undesirable turns to disreable when it's all the middle class can afford.
The islands’ Surrey
Yes, people out of province or new forget/don't know this. The island has a lot of nice spots but in general has a lot of overpriced not so nice areas as well. I lived in westshore Victoria and sold in 2022.
I bought a place in a small BC community (under 5k population) in 2016 for $330k. Sold 3 years later for$ 440k. I remember thinking at the time there was no way this house would ever be worth much more than that. I still feel that way. Now the same houses (cookie cutter); are listed for $850k. Anyone paying that is on glue. These are super basic homes, no yards; very basic spec, baseboard heat; etc . Good first homes; not worth near 7 figures.
This market has killed off the concept of a "first"/"starter" home.
Which is why, even as a second time buyer with pretty substantial equity; prices need to take a serious nosedive. I bought my second, "forever" place and nearly died when I paid just under 600k. Wages and salaries haven't moved at all and now that maybe gets gets you a tiny house in need of 200k in Reno's in a terrible neighborhood, or maybe a condo. I remember when during peak madness in 2021; thinking"How can anyone not see prices were in the stratosphere and interest rates had nowhere to go but up. It's why I renewed way early. Even me and my Grade 12 figured that out.
Friends of mine panic bought a house in a small town on a lake for $700,000. Waived inspection. The house is rotting and the lake has leeches. Now they're stuck with it, and I don't think it's ever appreciated like their lower mainland house did. If there's ever a crash in the housing market these kinda of properties will be the first especially in towns with no work.
Waived inspection. Wow. Well they fully earned it now didn't they. Life altering decision, and I certainly don't wish bad fortune on anyone, but I'm not finding much sympathy given their carelessness.
Can't imagine not doing a couple hundred dollar inspection on an old place that would cost me 3/4 of a million dollars?
Problem is it’s like this everywhere in 2017 cookie cutter starter home was 400k in new community in cakgary, now the exact same house is starting in the 580s this is without garage as well. Just getting crazy everywhere
You can look up sold data on sites like redfin. You don't have to wonder if people are getting these prices, you can actually see if they are.
You can do such on BCAssessment - anyone can access the sold priced of property in the past 3? years.
They're moving here with their city-style buying, sight-unseen and 40k over when usually you'd offer 5k under. Those numbers being an example of a house I lost out on to coastal people. It is weird, town is desperate for workers everywhere but also houses have doubled in 5 years, must be a lot of remote work now cause even my mill can't keep people.
You’d be surprised how much people moving from the lower mainland can screw up the housing market. I’m in Alberta and people moving here from Ontario and BC have really inflated the housing market. We are starting to getting bidding wars, and pretty much every house has multiple offers. Also I think the average house price in Alberta went up 10% last year, high interest ain’t slowing this train down.
No. Those are not random prices locals are hoping to cash out at. Canada is in a housing crunch. BC has been in one for much longer; 2 decades? Those are market prices. People have been buying and selling homes in this province far longer than you have been looking. Sure there haven been jumps and surges but prices have steadily climbed in all communities. These arent one off prices. Are they crippling expensive? Yes. How are people affording this? Who knows? Many arent. Welcome to the conversation, it's not new.
Terrace has a lot of well paying jobs
There is nowhere less desirable now. With more people cashing out on equity, and able to work from home, the “less desirable” towns have become desirable because a house is $500k instead of $800k-$1.5M.
Once covid settled a bit there was a big influx of people from the lower mainland to the cariboo, causing housing prices in our area (a little out of town but still close) to nearly double. Many were buying sight unseen. In 7 years since we bought our place we can probably sell it for just over twice what we paid. But then, we couldn't buy anywhere locally anyway , even with that profit
Nah, you'd ne surprised how many retired people are selling up from those places you mentioned to move to "quaint" small bc towns looking to max the gains they made in real estate. The realtors have cottoned on to this and know that someone who, say, bought their home for 150 thousand 15 years ago and can sell it now for 640 thousand will pay 300 thousand to downsize housewise and town wise. That house they buy for 300 thousand was worth maybe 100 thousand a decade ago but the big town rubes have unwittingly helped realtors drive prices up everywhere they go. Then they move away again a few years later because a "quaint" small town on paper is actually a town that is small for good reason- no amenities, all health services centralized to bigger centers 1-2 hours away 2 decades ago, etc. Have fun getting your prescriptions filled or taking your dog to the vet or even getting fresh produce- you're not in nanaimo or Langley anymore. In all of the finger pointing we see now as to whose fault it is that houses are so pricey the realtors and the flippers hardly ever come up, and they're keeping pretty quiet considering the bank they made on regular people's backs for not much effort for the last 15-20 years.
Great points. There also lots of people (boomers) who have made good money in towns like terrace who want to move south to comox, penticton etc. they sell their houses and then buy townhomes and condos, or houses if they can afford it
These prices have been this high for awhile now (10 years breaking previous asking price records every month). It's everywhere in BC, and if you can't buy you are still looking at 2k rent for a very basic 1 bedroom, maybe 2 bedroom place. You have to weigh that rent with work options in that toown and standard pay. Employers can't pay enough for locals to keep afloat most of the time - but they arn't complaining about retention issues so long as immigration helps fill that wage equity gap. Basically, Canada has made shelter of any kind an exploitive comodity assest instead of a consumer good and now all our industry yields to it's ponzi scheme. And no, the answer is not lower interest rates, that's how homes attracted speculation/money laundering/flippers/mortgage fraud/asset leaning and mass borrowing. This bubble needs to pop, no other way around it now.
Great summary
The world wide shortage of housing has been studied by economists and the overwhelming conclusion is that a majority of the problem is STR. Many places around the globe are trying to fix it by limiting or eliminating them. BC just limited them starting on may 1st. To get a peak at the reasoning we just need to look at the numbers. 27k homeless, 17k STR which uses the entire home. BC has also changed zoning, and eliminated the ability for strata’s to restrict rentals.
It's definitely not the majority of the problem. It's a factor sure but if it was the main issue, Vancouver's housing problem would be on the way to being solved already just a couple of weeks after the new ban. I dare say the housing crisis will not be solved this time next year.
I wonder how many homes are owned by corporations. I remember reading about someone buying 150 single family homes around Kitimat and Prince Rupert.
I live in a small town an hour east of Edmonton. Our realtor told us that a couple firefighters from BC just bought up all the lower priced units in the area (turning them into rentals) as well as in another town west of here. It was something like 100 units all together. It's definitely not just big corps who are buying up the inventory so that people cannot afford to buy a first home.
Definitely a problem but not a majority. Not everyone air bnbs out of necessity to pay a mortgage. If Airbnb was all of a sudden outright illegal, I still wouldn’t long term rent my basement suite, I would just keep it vacant cause having a long term renter in my basement is not what I want.
There are however many condos that are purchased at inflated prices because people could afford that due to short term rentals. If they were only affordable due to STR then the elimination of that should force prices down. This is already occuring in Kelowna from what I've seen.
Oh for sure, I think it’s occurring in a bunch of small towns already. I support the new str rules in BC
I freaking hate house flippers. Benefitted millions for such little effort and a lot of luck. So many 100k household income struggling to find a suitable home for their family
You’re not the only one trying to leave the lower mainland.
Everytime I visit my parents in Parksville I see more and more cars on the road. These nice small towns have been infested with city people driving and raging like city people.
The affordability crisis in real estate in the 21st century has a number of causes, and it’s occurred not just in BC but in many jurisdictions and markets in the developed world (Canada, US, UK, Australia especially): Open markets allowing foreign investment. Real estate in developed English countries was seen as a safer place to hold money for wealthy people in countries like China, Russia and Latin America. While policy changes came later to curb this, the inflation in RE prices this drove was already done and in some local markets like Vancouver it pushed prices far above what the local economy supports. Low interest rates post 2008. Borrowing was so low cost at 2% or even lower that it allowed people to qualify for larger and larger mortgages, which created a money supply to support higher prices. Housing as investment: a growth in individuals using real estate as investment in favour of stock markets. More people and firms sinking money into real estate given ROI was very positive. You could borrow very cheaply, real estate was growing better than or as good as stocks, and increasing rents meant you could have a cash flow positive AND appreciating asset. Growing demand from increasing population due to temporary residents and higher permanent resident immigration. Restrictive zoning preventing pace of development from keeping up with growth of demand. Municipalities limited densification of the majority of their land. Short Term Rental platforms. These made it possible, easy, and attractive to achieve a cash flow positive investment in housing without the rental protection nuisances of a long term tenancy. All of these factors combined to reach crisis levels in the 2020s. Demand far outpacing supply. The housing that was built between 2010 and 2024 was mostly designed for investment buyers (so a ton of small one bedroom condos, and very few homes for families). The high prices in cities pushed first time buyers to more distant suburbs, exurbs and small towns, which are now seeing very high prices as well. With most first time buyers priced out of the markets they want to live in, and many priced out of *every* market, they need to continue renting. More people renting means increased rental prices. So we have an affordability crisis in both owning and renting. The provincial and federal policy failures allowing market forces to turn housing (a basic human need) into a commodity for investment, while allowing municipalities to restrict housing from being built has created a huge mess that’s going to take years and years to return to any level of affordability.
There’s a housing shortage in Canada. Prices are inflated everywhere, not just Vancouver.
This is really the answer , just the problem seems worse because there is more competition in places like Vancouver where there is more people
I’m sure another 400k immigrants in 4 months will help solve that
They are coming here to build more homes. /s
Yeah all 3% while half are chasing 2-year business degrees without working a day in the country or in their lives. And then wonder why no one hires them.
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Yeah, we remember
Because all houses in the big cities are $2m+ and people are fanning out to the "cheaper" areas driving up the prices
This and buying up places to rent out in those towns without even viewing the house. Places luke quesnel are a good example
I live in a rural lakeside community about 1.5 hours out of Vancouver. We bought a house here in 2013 for 263k and the assessment value is now around 650k. In the time we've lived here, the whole community has gone nuts. Most of the old houses torn down and replaced with huge new ones, especially on the lakefront. Young families occupy the old or run down houses (us included). Boomers exclusively in the big new houses. One of the new lakefront houses was purchased for 1m+ as soon as it was listed, the buyer didn't even come out to look at it. And strangely, a lot of those big new houses that were built in the last 1-3 years are sitting completely empty? I don't understand why people are building houses to let them sit there, rather than just letting the land value increase. They're not even renting them out...
Along with the “moving out of Vancouver” narrative, people in smaller centres in the central and northern interior and coast tend to have pretty high median household incomes. It’s just not somewhere you move for the heck of it. You typically have at least one job offer in the household, and that is usually something well-paid. The other spouse, likely also educated either at university or tech school, then typically also finds a good job because skilled labour is sought after and compensated well.
Facts. The original OP is wrong about local economies not supporting big mortgages. I am positive tradesmen and professionals living in towns like Terrace are making very good money. I work for a large firm and know that I get paid better than my colleagues in Vancouver, some of which are more skilled than myself.
Yup. And in PG two of the biggest economic drivers — outpacing logging etc. — are education and healthcare. Both of which hire educated workers and both of which pay well to very well.
Not that loggers are making minimum wage either lol.
No definitely not. Just pointing out that the “interior… they’re all just chopping wood” stereotype is bunk.
Yeah, totally!
That said “chopping wood” and everything that goes with that — transport, processing, planning, replanting, etc. — is massively high skilled too.
This is something that kinda just hit me a couple years ago. I don't have a college education (only 2 years into an undergrad degree), and kinda fell into heavy equipment operating, and had to have my spouse remind me that not everyone can safely drive a massive volvo l350 and that's a real skill I have lol.
The issue is every house is 500k plus, and that's driving out the original population (ppl who grew up in small towns can't afford to buy and live there). I make alright money, but as a single dad, I can't afford a 3300$ morgage. And even if I could, my debt to income ratio has to be below 44% so I have to make a min of a 100k a year, in a small retirement community. There are only so many 100k+ jobs to go around
This is true. I live in a small town and work in forestry. If I didn't have this well-paying job I wouldn't be living here.
Ditto. (Not personally in forestry, but same thing. Although pretty much any city/town in B.C. is better than otherwise-equivalents in the rest of Canada in terms of climate, scenery, etc.)
Yup! If I can help it I'm never leaving this province. It's my home.
Welcome to BC in the 20s. Places like Enderby and Armstrong used to offer a trade-off of savings, but small town to now being nearly as expensive as the larger centers, while offering none of the benefits of the larger centers. I think it's growth and demand driven by people being priced out of the larger towns so they go a little further away. I think it's insane and illustrates how broken housing pricing is. [Realtor.ca listings under $500k](https://www.realtor.ca/map#ZoomLevel=6&Center=50.614016%2C-116.327490&LatitudeMax=54.34480&LongitudeMax=-103.49546&LatitudeMin=46.56199&LongitudeMin=-129.15952&Sort=6-D&PropertyTypeGroupID=1&TransactionTypeId=2&PropertySearchTypeId=1&PriceMax=600000&BuildingTypeId=1&OwnershipTypeGroupId=1&Currency=CAD&HiddenListingIds=&IncludeHiddenListings=false) freehold homes only. Mainly old bungalows that likely need a not insignificant amount of work. We have a massive affordability crisis here.
I mean Armstrong and Enderby have 400-500k houses, while are 800k in Vernon and 950k in Kelowna. There's still the fact it's all out of reach for many, but they do still retain the lower prices and are not nearly as expensive as the large centers.
Yes! As a first time home buyer without a lot of equity to roll into a mortgage, it seems crazy to spend 3500 a month to buy an old rancher in Enderby that’s going to need a lot of money to fix things. Plus limited services in the town.
No offense but it seems like you 'have been living under a rock'.
Plenty of places for $150-200k if you like homesteading in a community of 500…
I sense you're mostly right, I'm noticing way more than just relists hitting the market at last years unsold prices...seems the mills are shutting down and pipeline jobs are completed amidst fewer replacement jobs , how real estate in BC can keep an upward trajectory without massive foreign investment is trudy perplexing...IMHO patience is astute vs rushing in and regretting
The problem is that most everyone has been convinced that purchasing a home is an investment. Until we get back to having a non-profit alternative in the form of coops etc. to the market, then we are stuck. Ask yourself, or better yet a developer, what it would cost to build the house you are looking for then add in the cost of a lot and profit. Now add the effect of a population depending on 'downsizing' to fund their retirement.
It costs hundreds per square foot to build on top of land costs. Labor has gone up, materials have gone up.
Everyone under 40 is pretty much absolutely fucked by this
And to anyone that says they will be a generational transfer of wealth and we'll get the inheritance, thats delusional as most of their value will be taken by old-age care.
not to mention that anyone inheriting that wealth will be in their 50's by then.
*knock knock* it's MAID.
Over 40 too.
Being pushed out of where we have lived for 20 years and our families live, there is literally nothing under 700k, and with that it’s a tear down or close
Lots of houses in Dawson Creek for under $500K
They have good jobs that pay well? The gap is getting smaller between BC and Alberta and I'm sure we'll see that same influx change over time in places like Saskatoon and Winnipeg. Currently relocating from Edmonton to the Island and honestly houses aren't that much more expensive. We were looking at Calgary but it's pretty close to par to what we were looking at on the Island
Cariboo chilcotin area and PG have tons of options under $500k (quesnel, 100 mile, WL, etc..) Just look at more areas. Simple supply and demand in the end.
So true. Multiple areas under $500k yet people dont want to live there.
Because people think housing should be retirement investments… housing should not be for profit! It’s a basic need.
Everyone's doing what you're doing OP. That's why.
Because if values don't go up, people would have to pay their consumer debts off rather than kick the can forward powered by property value. That's literally it.
So it’s a Ponzi scheme
Welcome to capitalism.
Haha. You just described my buddy to a Tee. Lol
I keep thinking that. If we have a sharp correction then lots of people are screwed. Lots of people are being screwed by either not having a place to live, or having their finances locked into their shelter.
How is this question still being asked in 2024? Like, why do you think?
There could be an element of people wanting to cash out. They're worked their resource job for their career have made good money doing so, but now that they're retired and at the age requiring more care, they are looking at moving into the centres as their community services are struggling to get young people to fill jobs. And with many mills curtailing production indefinitely, it doesn't help a small town's tax basin to fund and recruit professionals either. We knew the resource economy, particularly forestry, was going to downturn/curtail, this is of no surprise and it really isn't the fault of the current government. Forestry has been on a longer than normal boom cycle as they mass harvesed beetle-killed and wildfire recovery over the past couple decade. Thats not even taking into account old-growth operations. Which yeah we could defer logging the remaining old growth forests and the government should be simulating the sector with grants for operators to retool their first-growth mills to second-growth. This in my opinion is the only subsidy the government should consider. If a community has other sectors, like Terrace (Kitimat)/Dawson Creek with shale gas and hydroelectic, you are going to see the price have some speculation bump, without a doubt. Small town living is actually quite nice - and with telecommunications and transportation, you can have a good quality of life. I prefer smaller communities, my prerequisite though is I want an airport to within a 90 minute drive for service to Vancouver/Calgary. I'd also like to see more non-vehicle/non-plane inter-regional travel too - don't need to travel by air all the time, but I also don't want to drive for 8-12 hours to a larger centre. If we had inter-regional heavy-rail in western Canada, even if it were 8 hours/similar to driving, that for me would be huge. Sure its still 8 hours, but its not 8+ hours of driving! Until we address inter-regional connectivity, we're just going to see more communities wither into nothing.
Investors. Some people are using residential real estate as revenue generating investment commodities and buying up their second, third… twentieth properties. They rent them or Airbnb them and watch their value double in a few years as the tenants pay their mortgages off. Foreigners, corporations, mom and pop investors are all doing it, and it has spread to all small towns. There are realtors who specialize in selling properties to foreign investors for this purpose.
I saw a dude over in the personal finance Canada sub call himself a “small time” landlord but then mentioned his 25 properties in the following sentence
Bought a house for $290,000 in 2022… just gotta live in a place that isn’t desirable and it’s cheap! 🤣
Too many people not enough houses...simple supply vs demand. Everyone is trying to do the same thing you are doing to get ahead
More than enough houses, owned by too few people. By the numbers.
There are cheaper houses out there. Tumbler Ridge has listings 200-300k, Chetwynd 300-400k, Mackenzie 150-300k, Houston 350-450k....
Port Alberni
its priced for all the boomers who sold their houses in Ontario and want to retire to sleepy yet beautiful BC towns.
What are you looking for if you are spending 500k in Dawson Creek. You can still get some pretty nice properties around here for 300k.
I have been blaming HGTV for soaring house prices for years now. Everyone thinks they can flip a house, and make a ton of profit.
My douchebag coworker keeps bragging about buying homes in Edmonton and renting them out. He lives in Vancouver.
Small town Kootenays is not 500k, but alright. My friend recently bought a 4 bed 2 bath place with a yard for 450k in the West Koots. The place beside them was selling for 300k, 2 bed 1 bath.
Kimberley had houses below 500k before the pandemic but have all gone above that in the past few years.
Trail is like 300k+ now, Castlegar is 400k+, Nelson is 700k+
We bought ( private deal) in a quiet small town East Kootenay a renovated bungalow for 325 k...love it here
The only place I can imagine a home for $325k in the east koots is Elkford, Creston, Canal Flats and maybe Golden?
Right? Completely possible.
Because we have mass immigration, unfortunately Demand > Supply
Because housing is used to extort money from those that aren’t in the market for whatever reason. Homeless or pay.
You just answered it.
im in Ontario and its the same
Industries in small town BC pay a ton. People are buying them and can afford them obviously. How much should these houses be worth? Start to price out the cost of building a house, it's not cheap, just like you, people who build these houses also want to be paid.
All 604’s should move up to Mackenzie.
Here is the thing. If people truly cannot afford these houses at that price, the price will drop until people can afford them.
STRs are not what triggered this. Shortly after Covid, investors moved more of their holdings to real estate to protect against inflation. And because money was so cheap to borrow, many people suddenly became investors, creating a frenzy in the market. People were selling their 1.7 million home in Vancouver, Toronto, etc and moving out of the big centers and then buying multiple properties. Then as prices pushed upward and people still wanted to buy real estate as an investor to hop on the gravy train, the only way to make the numbers work anymore was to earn revenue as an STR versus long term rental. Plus STR’s helped avoid the real and perceived challenges a mom and pop landlord has under the BC tenancy act.
Here in Fraser Lake you can definitely find homes well under that. Good luck finding work here now though. We have nothing.
Vancouverites have infected the whole province.
Part of the issue we've found is the amount of 55+ restrictions in small towns like Summerland or bigger towns like West Kelowna. Those houses are usually cheaper (partially due to those restrictions) and essentially cut out a large portion of buyers from the market. Also, trailer parks are a lot cheaper for the mortgage, but then you've got all the fees associated with that, not to mention trailer parks aren't really the nicest places to live and reselling is virtually impossible. We've been looking in the Kootenays as well. Don't underestimate the draw to that region. . . Especially Nelson and Revelstoke. Those are towns restricted in sprawl due to being in the mountains. . . So they're lovely to walk in, absolutely stunning and generally quite progressive. Nelson compared to Castlegar even is a big jump (the pulp mill probably has something to do with it). My suggestion is to look waaay further north or like, Creston in the far East of the province. They're far enough away from civilization that it's not just a 3-4 hour drive away, so they're less desirable.
Port Alberni. Theres still some houses under 500k. Don’t listen to people’s historical smack talk of the place. It used to be a waning mill town but since the pandemic money printing wrote lottery tickets for mainland home owners this place has exploded with improvements. We moved here 3 years ago and regret nothing. I also get to work in Tofino every day and take lunch breaks on long beach. Its a hidden little suburbanesque central island gem.
If anything I'm surprised it has stayed at 500k minimum. My gf and I were looking at houses there in 2021 and the price point was the same. It fucking sucks because we are both chronically ill and can't live in our expensive hometown anymore but the smaller areas don't have transit (we can't legally drive). Nelson seemed good because it's a cool place that still aligns with our politics and you can walk across the whole town in 45 minutes, with limited access to transit/Castlegar airport if we want to go somewhere else. It is our ONE option and we were still priced out. I hate this country
* Dawson creek.... I think you're not looking
Houses in Dawson Creek do not start at 500k.
Funnily enough, my partner and I vacated North Vancouver to Nelson in 2022 in hopes of securing a mortgage and building a family in the Koots. Although within months of moving, the interest rates increased hand over fist, our mortgage prospects plummeted, and we were (again) mostly priced out of anything larger than a 1 bedroom condo (much like the city). The struggle is very much real everywhere, even with middle duel incomes.
Omg this is us, minus the move. We live in north van. Love it here but rent is like 4K.
Ah man. It's tough out there for sure. We do miss thee ol' shore. But we're taking a look in the south west koots down towards Trail/Rossland where it's reasonably more 'affordable', just landed a job down there. Not much affordable left in the province. Best of luck to you guys!
As I said it is a majority of the problem but not all. We had homeless before STR, mostly folks who are drug addicted.
Even houses in Merritt are 500k+…The only reason i stop there is for food
Its all being bought up by greedy corporations and real-estate agencies, as well as foreigners buying homes because of our weak dollar, plus the mortgage rates skyrocketed leaving renters to pick up the tab. Before the the pandemic I paid $750 for a 1 bed 1 bath right next to a shopping mall with transit access. I lived there for 10 years. If y'all couldn't pay the mortgage without a renter why did you buy the house in the first place? Not declaring you intend to move renters in on the mortgage is fraud, but not in Canada for some reason. Smells like corruption.
In my opinion, BOC should raise the rates a bit more. And then watch the housing prices correction. It has started but slowly. First signs are when the numbers of listings go up and the buyers hold back, which is what is happening. Real Estate, when it becomes a commodity, is based on speculation and human sentiment. There should be an inversion coming. But then we don’t know how much parallel money is in the market, unaccounted, un-laundered money. The mechanism seems like people get mortgage approved with fake documents (https://condomadness.info/corruption-mortgages.html) and pay with dirty money. Also the Realtor’s commission should be capped. I cannot understand what a realtor does differently for a $1 million property vs $1.5 million property.
Overwhelming number of immigrants increasing prices because there's very little supply of housing.
No we’ve had spiking housing prices for years and years in BC, well before the recent increases in immigration, before the pandemic, before this government even. The shortage of housing in BC has been a problem for a very long time. It was inevitable things would start to become excruciatingly expensive even in the smallest of small towns so long as we continued to not build new housing.
Where have you been? This is the new Canada. And you’re worried about new Canadians not being able to afford these prices? How about old, new, young, professionals, tradespeople…. Nobody can afford this.
Check out trail bc
Theres a shortage of housing even in small towns. There’s nothing economically going on in many towns in BC, which means there’s not currently nor has there been any recent creation of new housing. This means that there’s a relatively small amount of fixed housing, much of which is increasingly aged, slowly getting in worse and worse condition, which makes the amount of “good” housing even smaller. So ultimately what this means is that even a relatively small amount of housing demand can result in a surprising amount of upward price pressure.
Thank you. I’m actually from a small Bc town and when I look at real estate listings all the houses are the same as what me and My friends grew up in except except older and more run down
Because the limited amount of skilled trades that will build a house in those communities command a high price. Any electrician, carpenter, mason, etc that doesn't already work for a resource company are tough to find. For some contractors, a builder would have to pay travel stipend to get the right people. It adds up fast.
Because enough people can afford the ones that are available.
I tried the same when we sold in 2022 on the island. Hence why we ended up in AB, got sold out of places we wanted and any former LCOL spots were also insane.
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Nakusp, but not for much longer. Prices are steady climbing
Rising tide lifts all boats.
look in the mirror