High home prices don’t just affect young folks

Most of the discussions about the rapid rise in Metro Vancouver home prices — apart from the griping about foreign buyers — have been focused on the impact the region’s wild property market is having on young adults hoping to settle down and, in some cases, raise families.

Of course, that is a huge issue, as various commentators, including Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes and Jennifer Fox, whose views appeared in this space Tuesday, have argued, specifically about the impact on the city if young people simply can’t afford to live here. Given the explosion in discussion on our website and on social media generated by Fox’s op-ed about her decision to leave Vancouver, it is clear that housing has overtaken transportation as the regional issue of top public concern.

But there is another group, not often given much thought, that is also hurt by our hyper-inflated real estate market — people who bought homes years ago who now want to move due to changes in their lives. My wife and I are in this group. Before I begin, let me say at the outset that I am not comparing our situation with what younger people face, nor do I want to appear to be whining. Older folks who invested in Vancouver real estate two or three decades ago in most cases have done very well. We are privileged. (But don’t try to tell us that we also didn’t work hard or do without certain things paying mortgages all those years.)

Having said that, here’s what my wife and I have discovered in recent months in exploring whether to sell our little bungalow in Kitsilano (now worth an absurd amount of money) and to move to something less expensive and be debt-free for the first time in our lives — there are very few good options.

Granted, our housing needs remain a bit complicated. We have two kids at UBC who, for now at least, live at home, a large dog, two cats and need a home office and, ideally, a garage so I can keep my workshop.

With more money than we ever thought we’d have (although chump change by Vancouver standards) it’s shocking what little it will get you in Vancouver, Richmond and Burnaby — reasonable commuting distances to UBC and downtown Vancouver where we work.

I’ve spent hours looking at listings on realtor.ca while trying to remain within our budget only to find what look like crack houses on busy truck routes or small, old, depressing condos that haven’t been updated since well into the past century. We’re not fussy, but for the kind of money we’d be spending, is it too much to expect a home without pale fuchsia toilets, kitchens that haven’t been updated since the first Trudeau government and yards that look like they were used to park front-end loaders?

Realtors for many of these properties listed for more than $1 million won’t even share interior pictures of the homes, so sad is their condition.

And here’s what it is like to go to open houses these days. Properties are listed for usually $200,000 or $300,000 below what the agents know they will sell for to lure in and then torment those of us foolish enough to think that an “asking price” is connected to what a seller wants for their home.

They hold two, two-hour openings on Saturday and Sunday (normally always from 2 to 4 p.m., preventing you from seeing enough properties to make an intelligent decision) and then they take offers Monday. Many are sold by Tuesday.

And good luck being the winning bidder if you have any conditions, such as getting the place you are about to sink most of your wealth into inspected. Cash without conditions is what you are up against. OK, maybe I am whining. But in most markets, if you buy a place and pay a mortgage for 20 years, if you haven’t paid it off, you are in a position to use your increased equity to move into a better home.

In Vancouver, average people are forced to give the banks everything (including, as I have joked, the lint in their pockets) on down payments to squeeze into home ownership to then live their lives with so much debt that they can’t afford things Canadians in other cities take for granted or to save. For many, that means that it is hard to move on from your “starter” home, especially if you want to stay close to the downtown core without needing a helicopter.

Vancouver, with its insane house prices and low wages, is losing young professionals like Fox who are moving elsewhere. But it is also losing older, longtime homeowners who are finding that their best move if they sell is to take their cash to another community. Neither trend is good for the city of my birth.