BCBusiness

6 B C B U S I N E S S . C A S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 5 DESK DITOR'S e P o r t r ai t : E v a a n K h e r aj ; o u t f i t p r o v i d e d b y M i n e & Yo u r s lu x u r y c o n s i g n m e n t ; i c o n s , t o p t o b o t t o m : A l e x B l o g o o d f/A d o b e S t o c k ; B u r b u z i n /A d o b e S t o c k ; A l e x B l o g o o d f/A d o b e S t o c k PROS AND CONDOS When my now husband and I bought our first property together—a two-bed- room fixer-upper townhouse in Vancouver's Cambie Village—I had a trusted friend tell me we were crazy to jump into the real estate market because it was going to crash "any day now." That, and the purchase price, $559,000, was far above what the tired 1990s property was worth and it would surely lose value. That was the year 2012 and, well, I think you know where I'm going with this. The price of real estate in B.C.—and particularly in Vancouver—has skyrocketed for decades, to the delight of speculators, developers and those lucky enough to get in and build equity, and to the chagrin and heartbreak of some less-fortunate locals that have been priced out of the place they call home. The search for "affordable" condos in Van City is the subject of Frances Bula's column this month, digging into the true wildness of the city's market. She found many under $400,000 (far lower than the $757,300 Metro Vancouver benchmark for apartments at publication time) but each had its own, shall we say, quirks. High maintenance fees, sketchy locations and unusual ownership regulations all make these properties not for the faint of heart, whether you're a Vancouverite trying to enter the market or an investor trying to make some money from it. As for my own real estate journey, we sold our townhouse after five years and made the rather stereotypical move for people in their 30s wanting to have a baby: a dilapidated century home in East Vancouver (we are suckers for renovation punish- ment, apparently). My senior neighbour told me he bought his Craftsman cottage for $78,000 back in 1978 ("had to fight off the hippies") and did I know that houses in Mount Pleasant were now selling for $1 million? Yes, sadly, we did. While Ron passed away several years ago, he would have been thrilled—and probably gobsmacked—to see that his wee old house just sold for $1.75 million. It was promptly knocked down by developers to make way for an imposing three-storey duplex—we can only speculate what those shiny new units will sell for when they hit the market later this year. DARCY MATHESON Editor-in-Chief bcb@canadawide.com | @bcbusiness Follow BCBusiness on IN THIS ISSUE BY THE NUMBERS $282,000 The cheapest apartment that real estate columnist Frances Bula found in Vancouver for our feature on snagging affordable real estate. Find it on page 18. $5,963 One-way ticket price for Cathay Pacific's new Aria Suite business class service from YVR to Hong Kong. Read our honest review of the service on page 64. $145+ million Collective total that Ryan and Cindy Beedie and their foundations have given away to charity. Look inside the Beedie empire on page 22.

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