Scot notes the current reports on the cost of condos:
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So we are told that we shouldn’t expect to have a single family detached home, fair enough. But now the dream of basic condo living is becoming more challenging.
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Here in The Sun: Gap narrows between condo, house prices in Greater Vancouver.
At the soon-to-be-built Burrard Place, 350 of 395 units sold within a month. Priced at over $1,200 a square foot, these are nearing the cost of a single-family home in Vancouver. About half of the units, mostly those under $1 million, were sold to investors and the remaining, at about $2 million, to end users, according to Jon Stovell, president and CEO of Reliance Properties.
Older downsizers with money to spend on new condos after cashing out of their single-family homes are also a factor. In West Vancouver, apartments account for only about 19 per cent of all properties, said Michael Ward, senior vice-president of Grosvenor America. He is building and selling Grosvenor Ambleside in West Vancouver, where penthouse units are priced at between $3,500 to $4,000 a square foot and other units range from $3.5 million to $15 million. It’s about 70-per-cent sold, with more than 85 per cent to purchasers who live within 10 kilometres, said Ward.
“It’s not what we expected,” he said. “There are wealthy local people to absorb these condos, a mix of locals in West Vancouver with Caucasian, Iranian and Chinese buyers, who are equity rich in their homes.”
All of this has led to prices for prime Vancouver real estate — defined as properties in the top five per cent of the housing market — to increase by 20.4 per cent between September 2014 and September 2015, far outstripping Sydney, the city with the second largest price increase at 10.7 per cent for the same period, according to a report released Tuesday by London-based real estate consultants Knight Frank.
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Rampant land speculation fuelled by an avalanche of offshore money has driven new condominium prices to the tipping point, a senior real estate analyst warns. …
Ferreira said “an immense amount of offshore capital” flowing mostly from mainland China into multi-family land speculation has nearly doubled the price of land this year and could drive future condominium prices into the stratosphere. …
Ferreira added that in downtown Vancouver, only six new highrise concrete condos remain unsold.
I still wonder if the exorbitant prices referred to are primarily applicable to view and/or waterfront condos with luxurious appointments. Vancouver South still seems to have a lot of less expensive listings in buildings set back from the edge and lower than 30 stories. Granted, higher prices at the highest end will filter down, but I hardly see $1,200 a ft2 happening in the lists of average Metro condo prices anytime soon.