REW.ca Real Estate Consumer Survey, Q4 2011

January 5, 2012

The Metro Vancouver/Lower Mainland real estate market is about as wild as they come. This region offers the most varied market in Canada, with some areas averaging over $2 million for a detached house and others offering the same (or bigger) for under $350,000.

At REW.ca we wanted to find out how the housing market affects buyers and sellers in their search for a place to call home in Vancouver Lower Mainland. These are the results of our survey.

First, we took price out of the equation and asked where people would live if they could afford it. One-third chose the City of Vancouver, with the west side seen as most desirable, which is reflected in the $2 million average price tag for a detached home there. However this also reflects the demographic makeup of the sample -- 13 per cent of the respondents lived in Vancouver West.

We further broke down the answers to see how many would like to stay where they currently live... and in all cases the majority of respondents are happy to stay put, with over 80 per cent of Vancouver and the North Shore residents choosing their own municipality as their ideal location. The sunny south -- Richmond, South Delta, Tsawwassen and White Rock -- was next with 68 per cent.

It seems that people in this region don't want to be totally dependent on their cars. Regardless of where in the Lower Mainland they choose to live, home buyers want proximity to shopping and amenities (41 per cent), to their friends and family (33 per cent) and to their jobs (22 per cent). We were surprised at the relative lack of importance of schools. "Quality of schools" and "Close to schools" rated only 8 per cent and 4 per cent respectively. That may reflect the fact that only 25 per cent of the households interviewed have children.

We asked what would be the maximum commuting time that people would accept and the average was 30 minutes, which exactly matches the average commute time for Metro Vancouver, according to Statistics Canada. (It's the third-longest commute time in Canada, after Toronto and Montreal.)

Next we looked at what type of home our respondents preferred. From the results it's clear that future home buyers aspire to a detached house, but most of those who have bought have decided on attached properties, likely for reasons of price.

The style (type) of home was one of the two most important factors in selecting a home (43 per cent), particularly for future home buyers. And of course the number of bedrooms (39 per cent) is one of the first things home buyers decide on. We were surprised to see that a mortgage helper was not a big factor, even though rental revenue can help buyers get more home or a better location than they could afford on their own.

The highlighted region shows the Boomer influence: half of the future buyers/sellers are 55+, and downsizing is important to them -- 30 per cent of our respondents in that category cited a smaller place as one of their two most important factors.

Now for the nitty-gritty -- where will people make compromises in order to get what they want? Only a small percentage said they would not or did not compromise at all. For others, finding the perfect home is a matter of trade-offs.

Those who have purchased in the last three years were willing to sacrifice some space , put up with a longer commute, and put in a bit of effort to upgrade the condition of the home they bought. For future home buyers, size doesn't matter. They're willing to go smaller on the home itself and the lot size. And again, for purchasers, schools were lowest in importance -- probably a compliment to our school system.

Further results

If you're looking for a home in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland you've got a vast range of choices. You have to decide what's truly important to you and what would be nice, but you can live without it if you have to. Searching online with REW.ca, reading Real Estate Weekly, visiting open houses and doing drive-bys are all part of the process, but when it came time to buy, 94% of our respondents used a Realtor.

Future buyers may not have engaged a Realtor yet -- they may be too early in the process, which CMHC says takes about 11 months on average.

Buyers agreed that the greatest value a Realtor offers is in dealing with the thousands of details and negotiating the best deal -- tasks that require industry-specific skills and experience. But though the other services didn't rate as highly, it's worth remembering that a Realtor knows the market and can help buyers and sellers get what they want without making as many compromises as they might have to make on their own.

REW.ca is the local portal for real estate listings and information for the area covering Hope to Pemberton, including the Sunshine Coast and Gulf Islands. We interviewed 349 people throughout the region who had bought or sold a home within the last three years or who plan to do so within the next three years. More demographic data here.