In Vancouver, and outside of it, single-family homes run red with the forsaken dreams of home ownership.
That’s if you look at newly-built maps released by Andy Yan, director of the SFU City program on Monday.
Coverage of Vancouver-area real estate on Globalnews.ca:
Yan spent as long as two weeks combing through data from the 2018 assessment and found that 73 per cent of single-family homes across Metro Vancouver are worth $1 million or more.
That was up from 66 per cent in 2017, and up from 23 per cent in 2014.
The trend was illustrated in the following maps, which gradually turn more and more red to illustrate properties worth more than $1 million:
But housing alone doesn’t nearly capture the cost of living in Metro Vancouver, Yan told Global News.
“Once you factor in things like transportation and child care, the fact of the matter is we could easily be the $1-million region,” he said.
“Where the areas are blue today, once you factor in transportation costs and child care, everything is going to be red, like the net affordability.”
WATCH: Metro Vancouver’s ‘million-dollar sprawl’
Yan said the maps show the degree to which housing has become a regional, even a provincial issue, rather than just a local issue in more expensive areas like the City of Vancouver.
READ MORE: In Metro Vancouver, 43 per cent of renters are living in homes they can’t afford: Census
“The recent change in provincial government proved that it was beyond the City of Vancouver,” he said.
“I haven’t done Victoria yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me that on scale, you’ll see parallel patterns of unaffordability.
“I think that has effectively shaped who’s in provincial government today.”
Various causes have been identified for the erosion of affordability across Metro Vancouver.
One is supply: many have argued that not enough homes are being built, and many that are are not single-family homes.
Another is demand: a recent release by Statistics Canada showed that non-resident buyers owned homes with much higher values than residents.
READ MORE: John Horgan promises housing tax changes ‘that will affect demand’ in February budget
A single-detached home owned by a non-resident in the City of Vancouver, for example, was worth $3,638,500 on average, 26 per cent more than a resident’s home.
LISTEN: Three-quarters of all single family homes in Metro Vancouver are now worth more than $1M
The provincial government is set to introduce its budget in February, and Premier John Horgan has said that it will “make tax changes that will affect demand” for housing.
Yan said there’s a fundamental discussion to be had about demand, and “what kinds of demand we want to curtail or discourage.”
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