BCBusiness

R E N N I E G R O U P S P E C I A L F E A T U R E The Real Estate Report Shedding light on the stats, facts and subtleties of Lower Mainland real estate Y ou need only listen in on the chatter at your local microbrew- ery to get a sense of the role that real estate plays in our lives in B.C: as a topic of conversation, it's second only to the weather. Economists mention how much it contributes to employment and gross domestic product; the planners talk about issues related to zoning, land use, and density; the engineers cite the associated need for services and infrastructure above and below the ground; and the real estate agents and developers collect data on current per-square-foot values. And everyone else talks about it in terms of community. It is these notions of real estate—the land, the buildings, and the infrastructure that supports it all—that knit us together into what we call a community. From the local microbrew, coƒeehouse, community centre or park, real estate is one of the binding factors in our community interactions. Considered more broadly, real estate also re„ects our national character as it ties not only our local neighbourhoods together, but our cities and regions together. Issues related to real estate can also cause great tension. In the Lower Main- land, where 59 per cent of the province's population lives on less than two per cent of the provincial land base, housing accessibility, aƒordability and suitability are among the top concerns.‡ This feature, with BCBusiness partner- ing with Rennie's Intelligence team, was sparked over a lunch between Canada Wide Media founder Peter Legge and Rennie Group. The goal is to provide insight into the‡current state of the market with an examination of some of the pressing issues concerning housing, densi'cation, rentals and ownership. Myth-busting: The Flight of the Millennial Data show the net outow is in fact Gen-Xers—and it has been going on for decades Speculation that Vancouver's high housing prices are forcing young people out of the city seems to make sense. After all, who but only the highest income earners and those well established in their careers can possibly aƒord to live in the city? Surprisingly, Canadian census data show that the truth is stranger than 'ction in this housing-demographic narrative. An examination of this narrative using the most recent census data on population by age group reveals which segments of the population grew and which declined. But this can be considered in two diƒerent ways: 'rst by the change in the number of people in an age group over the last 've years; and second by tracking each 've-year age cohort over a 've-year period. For example, tracking 30- to 34-year-olds in 2011 who then became 35- to 39-year-olds in 2016. In Greater Vancouver, the data show all of the under-45 age groups saw net growth when considered on a cohort basis, indicating positive net in-migration to these age groups. Conversely, all of the 45-plus cohorts declined between 2011 and 2016, re„ecting a combination of net out-migration and mortality for these older groups. This is similar to other Canadian metro regions; in addition to Greater Vancouver, millennials continue to „ow into Montreal, Ottawa-Gatineau, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria and Kelowna, among others. For Greater Vancouver, this is also a pattern that is re„ected historically if previous census counts are considered. With the change in housing prices over the last couple of years—which varies widely across these regions— the uniformity seen in the pattern of mobility both historically here in Greater Vancouver and recently between other metro regions in Canada could lead to the conclusion that home prices have not signi'cantly in„uenced the regional pattern of mobility.

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