Vancouver real estate housing market has been a solid investment despite recent ups and downs in the past 10 years. With compound gains of 7.8%, Vancouver real estate has shown to be a more solid investment by beating out the national Canadian real estate average at 6.8% and even the TSX which topped out with a 6.64% increase.
According to a report issued by RE/MAX entitled, Housing Barometer Report, a Vancouver house valued at 6,000 in 2000 had more than doubled itself and was worth 6,000 in 2010. In a recent interview RE/MAX's executive vice-president for Western Canada, "Real estate is a sound investment, and should always be looked at as a long-term investment."
But with recent struggles in the market, more and more people are turning their eyes towards the future and wonder where the Vancouver real estate market is headed.
With today's high housing prices it seems almost impossible for the market to repeat itself with its past success.According to Murry Leith, vice-president and director of research for Odlum Brown Ltd, "I can pretty confidently say that it's going to be tough for returns to be as good over the next 10 years, in Vancouver anyway. Vancouver real estate started the period being quite a bit more affordable than [at] the end of the period.
Real estate prices tend to follow income growth and for the past 10 years Canadian income growth has not be strong. Though the Vancouver real estate market, much like the rest of the Canadian real estate market, was able to flourish due to low mortgage rates, lower down payments, and an increase of amortization rates which was able to offset the lower income growth.
Complicating the predictions even more, as Murry Leith mentioned, the Vancouver housing market is especially difficult to predict what it will do with the influx of foreign investments coming in from Asia, especially from China these days.
And still, despite low income growth, changes in the mortgage rates or even the influence of outside money, the simple fact remains as stated by Leith, "You only live once and you need a roof over your head. You have to deal with the market presented to you; you don't have the luxury of timing that much."