Metro Vancouver’s hot housing market has many wondering how they are going to afford to own property in the region, but one Surrey family is cashing in on the demand.
The Ngo/Chen family is taking advantage of the astronomically high home prices by selling their Surrey house to wander the world for a year.
Natalie Chen said originally they were planning to move closer to their daughters’ school, but they couldn’t find anything they really like.
“So we said, why don’t we just take a break, why don’t we just travel, why don’t we just take a pause and enjoy life with the kids?” she said.
The family is planning to go to Europe first, starting at Disney Paris in France. They will then try to go to Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and then spend Christmas at Disney World. In the new year they hope to hit Hawaii, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.
“If we don’t like a place we’ll move on and if we do we’ll stay longer,” said Natalie.
Their five-bedroom house in Surrey sold for over the asking price of almost $1.3 million.
“We’re hoping to spend some on our travels, put some away for the girls for school and we’ll have something left over for a down payment on something,” said Natalie.
They do realize they may be priced out of the market when they come back, but Natalie said they are looking forward to seeing how people around the world live and how they don’t need such a big home.
“We’ll just take the break and start looking when we come back,” said Natalie.