First-time home buyers are in the drivers’ seat in Metro Vancouver, wheeling through an environment of overbuilt new condominiums, stable or falling home prices and the lowest mortgage rates in years.
A recent survey of potential first-time home buyers revealed a confident group of mostly young people, and for good reasons.
The typical first-time buyer in Canada plans to put down $48,000, or about 16 per cent, on a $300,000 home and pay if off in 20 years, according to the latest survey - done from February 25 to March 5 - by Bank of Montreal. And nearly 70 per cent plan to save up and pay for it themselves.
This appears a reasonable assumption today, even in Metro Vancouver, which has the highest average housing prices in the country. Western Investor did a quick survey this week of listings at www.REW.ca: its search engine can quickly track down listings by price and type anywhere in the Lower Mainland.
Our survey found 101 condominiums in the City of Vancouver priced under $300,000, another 79 in Burnaby and a whopping 263 in Surrey - and many of these were townhomes. In Chilliwack, there are 39 detached houses advertised at $300,000 or less, along with nine three-bedroom townhouses.
And there are also deals looming in the new condominium market, due to stiff competition and an oversupply of units. A residential panel at the Vancouver Real Estate Forum this month cautioned that a huge inventory of new and unsold condominiums are glutting the market.
There are about 450 condominium projects marketing units right now across the Metro region, including 6,700 unsold high-rise condo units, the Forum was told. An unusually large number hit the Richmond market this year from different developers.
“By my count there are 1,300 marketable and unsold condos you could buy today in Richmond across 16 projects,” said Daryl Simpson, senior vice president of Bosa Properties Inc. As well, Simpson added, another 800 units are coming to Richmond in the next quarter in four new condo projects.
Forum speaker Cameron Muir, senior economist for the BC Real Estate Association, noted condo sales have “plummeted to levels we have not seen since the mid-1990s.” Muir said condo prices are at the same level as three years ago.
The BOM survey reveals that Metro Vancouver first-time buyers estimated they would have to spend $529,000 for their first home, the highest in Canada. With a minimum 5 per cent downpayment, the local first-time buyer would need to save about $26,000, but 66 per cent of those surveyed were confident they could save the money without help from parents or families,
