Millionaire boomers are zooming out of Vancouver

Jonathan Baker is the first to admit he shouldn’t be complaining about foreign investors driving up prices in Vancouver’s red-hot housing market. They helped the retired lawyer pocket millions.

Baker and his wife sold their five-bedroom home for $3 million in December, a 100-fold gain from their purchase price in 1970. The house went for $300,000 over asking after an offshore investor bid up the price and was later flipped several times to other buyers. Now the home sits empty in the westside Dunbar neighbourhood, the telltale sign of a buyer who lives abroad, he says.

“You can’t be too critical when you’ve benefited from it,” Baker, 78, said by phone from his 4,200-square-foot, $1.5-million seaside home in Sechelt, bought using proceeds from his Dunbar sale. “But the city has become a commodity. One group like myself has bought early — we were lucky. But we no longer knew our neighbours. It’s empty.”

Baker’s generation is cashing out as an influx of foreign demand pushes up the average detached home price in Vancouver to a heady $1.8 million. They’re taking the profit and injecting it elsewhere, exporting higher prices to retirement enclaves across the province. That’s pushing up sales and price growth in these small towns beyond even Vancouver’s torrid pace.

“All these prices are crazy — it really is crazy,” Baker said. “I can’t imagine this thing continuing.” That’s why he sold last year, fearing a rapid price drop if offshore demand dries up.

Seniors are leaving Vancouver at a record pace, with 2,322 people over the age of 65 leaving the city for other parts of B.C. in 2014, tying with the prior year as a record high, according to preliminary data from Statistics Canada. That’s coincided with a jump in home sales and prices where they typically settle.

The dynamic is also seen in Canada’s No. 1 retirement hub: Qualicum Beach, the Vancouver Island town of about 10,000 people. Half the residents are over 65, the highest proportion of any city in the country, according to Statistics Canada. Home sales in that area and nearby Parksville, the No. 2 retirement haven, almost doubled to 63 transactions in January from the yearago period, and the average price of a home is up 24 per cent to $444,856 over that time.

Baker’s home is in Sechelt, the fastest-growing retirement community in Canada according to Statistics Canada. The inflow of residents aged 65-plus increased seven per cent in the last five years, the most of any municipality in the country.

The quiet town now faces bigcity housing issues: construction, bidding wars and historic sales. Prices jumped 42 per cent to a record $510,839 in January from the prior year, according to data compiled by Gary Little, a realtor who’s been selling real estate along the Sunshine Coast of Vancouver Island for a decade.

“It’s just been startling,” Little said. “People are coming in from the Lower Mainland area, and they do have money. They are cashing out there.”

There are also more Vancouver agents coming into town with moneyed clients, snapping up properties over the asking price, he said.

The sky-high home costs in Vancouver have a downside — some retirees can’t find another place in the city that meets their budget after selling.

“I can’t afford to stay here anymore,” said Linda MacAdam, a 69-year-old who recently sold her century-old Vancouver home for $2.7 million.

She’s now looking for a home in Victoria, something private, close to theatres and near the water so it’s easier for her to sail.

“It’s just a fluke,” MacAdam said, in the midst of preparing for a weekend trip to a nearby island with friends. “I’m never going to use all that money.”