The return of a hot housing market

Good morning,

I made a quick trip over to the Island this weekend. It’s no Vancouver, but Victoria isn’t that bad! I even made it as far north as Campbell River in what was a very long day of driving.

A big thanks to my colleague Robert who pitched in on today’s newsletter.

Today we’ve got:

• Potential tax changes to help first-time home buyers 🏠

• Childcare waitlist problems 🧒

• Some events, this weekend, including pinball!

Onwards

— Geoff Sharpe, Vancity Lookout newsletter writer

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WEATHER

Monday: 20 🌡️ 14 | ☀️

Tuesday: 23 🌡️ 13 | ☀️

Wednesday: 24 🌡️ 13 | ☀️

HOUSING

Tax changes could make getting your first home easier

What happened: The 36-year-old Property Transfer Tax (PTT) needs to be reviewed to make the housing market easier to enter for first-time buyers. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) said the tax burden of buying a home keeps many people stuck in the rental market and unable to own their homes, Urbanized reported.

• The board recommends moving the threshold for a tax exemption for first-time buyers to $750,000, up from its current level of $525,000. The REBGV also said the transfer tax exemption threshold should increase to $755,000 for new and resale homes.

How it would help: In an example provided by the board, someone buying a starter townhome in Maple Ridge would pay about $747,000 for the home. Because that’s well above the current $525,000 threshold, they’d be on the hook for about $13,000 in taxes.

• The board also recommended that if the government adopted a new PTT threshold, it should tie changes to the amount to inflation.

The advantage of moving the tax threshold is it wouldn’t require a new program to be designed and implemented.

• "The government is out there saying, ‘Hey, we want to do everything we can do move the needle on affordability.’ And here's something they already have in place, it's a program that already exists,” REGBV’s economics director Andrew Lis told CTV.

Easing the rental market: The board also told provincial legislators a provincial rebate program for the GST charged on new rental construction could help increase the supply of units, CTV reported. The vacancy rate in the city was 0.9 percent last year, according to the CMHC.

• The provincial government will drop the two percent Property Transfer Tax added to purpose-built rental buildings in the province.

Market heating up again

What happened: The slow start to the housing market this year is turning around as buyers get used to higher interest rates. The number of home sales is up, and prices are once again on the rise, CTV reported.

Moving on up: Last month, there were 3,411 sales in the region, a 15 percent increase from May 2022’s 2,947. Sales were only 1.4 percent below the seasonal average of 3,458. Prices increased 1.3 percent from April to May to $1.19 million. Despite being up month over month, that’s still 5.6 percent below prices in May last year.

• The price increases are already above REBGV’s forecasts for the year, Urbanized reported. The board expected prices to only rise by about two percent by the end of the year, but halfway through the year, prices are already up about six percent from January.

Supply down: A low supply of homes on the market is what is pressing home prices up. The number of homes for sale dropped 10.5 percent to 9,283 from May last year. The supply of apartments dropped 11.5 percent to 5,661 from a year ago.

VANCOUVER BY THE NUMBERS

🐠 5,578: The number of species researchers found inhabiting a future deep-sea mining site in the Pacific Ocean. About 90 percent of the species were new to science. [CTV]

🥃 $228,000: This is how much an 81-year-old bottle of The Maccallan The Reach scotch sells for. A person from BC had the chance to buy the bottle after winning a draw, but backed out. There are only 288 bottles of the scotch in the world. [CTV]

🚙 45: A BC couple have been waiting this many months for a hybrid vehicle they put a deposit down on in August 2020. The dealership doesn’t know when they’ll finally get their new car. [CTV]

CHILD CARE

Fees are going down, but good luck with the waitlists

What happened: The good news is a federal program is bringing down daycare costs for young children. The bad news is there still aren’t nearly enough spaces to keep up with demand, the Vancouver Sun reported.

Throughout the province, there are about 250,000 preschool-aged children but only about 80,000 licenced all-day child care spaces. About 64 percent of the kids live in a child care desert, communities where demand for child care is high enough that there are at least three children for every space.

• BC is well above the rest of Canada, which averages about 48 percent for the number of kids in child care deserts. The province is fourth-worst in the country, behind Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Manitoba.

Vancouver and Abbotsford only have enough child care spots for one out of every four children. In 2018, the government announced a plan to open almost 32,000 new child care spaces, but is still 20,000 short of the goal, the Sun reported.

One mother’s story: The Sun spoke to a new mother from Penticton, one of the deserts in the province, who started signing up for waiting lists when she was only eight weeks pregnant. Her child is now six months old, and she’s no closer to getting a child care spot.

She’d hoped that by signing up a year and a half before her maternity leave ended, she’d have plenty of time to get a space. So far, not good. On one waiting list she’s on, there are still 200 people ahead of her.

DREAM JOB

Find your new dream job in Vancouver:

• Internal communications director at Hootsuite

• Chief operating officer at Immigrant Employment Council of BC

• Regional vice president of operations at Great Canadian Entertainment

• North American practice lead paid search at Accenture,

• Marketing communications advisor at ICBC

THE AGENDA

🚨 According to internal emails, city staff knew there would not be enough beds to house people displaced during the Downtown Eastside encampment eviction in April. [Vancouver Sun]

🔥 Fire season is probably going to be a difficult one this year, with a hot and dry forecast set to worsen the drought conditions across the province. The weather in June tends to set the tone for the whole fire season, but it appears there won’t be nearly enough rain to lessen the risk of fire this year. [Vancouver is Awesome]

🚝 TransLink ridership is nearing pre-pandemic levels. In the latter half of May, it was up to 88 percent of 2019’s ridership. Last weekend, it hit 99 percent of pre-pandemic levels. [Urbanized]

🚒 A witness said it took firefighters more than 10 minutes to get inside an Oakridge construction site where building materials had caught on fire, sending huge plumes of smoke over the city. Fortunately, no one was injured and the damage was limited. [Twitter/CBC]

🚴‍♂️ A new rebate program for e-bikes is proving extremely popular. After only one day, there is already a waitlist of more than 8,000 people waiting for their chance to submit an application. A lucky 4,000 people were able to apply for the rebate before the government closed applications. [CTV]

🪂 A BASE jumper crashed into the Stawamus Chief cliff 60 metres off the ground and needed to be rescued. It took about 30 search and rescue volunteers eight hours to get the man down to the ground. He suffered only minor injuries. [CTV]

💥 The Knight Street Bridge is once again the most dangerous intersection in Vancouver. Last year there were 242 crashes at the intersection. That’s well above the number of crashes at any other intersection in the city. [Urbanized]

🛼 The outdoor roller rink at Sunset Beach is in danger of disappearing if the city’s plans to redevelop the West End waterfront go through. In the past 20 years, the rink has become a hub for roller skaters from across town. [Vancouver Sun]

🐦 Swooping crows might feel murderous, but the birds are just protecting their nests by warning people to stay away from their young. [CBC]

🏛️ Local MP Jenny Kwan said attempts by the Chinese government to intimidate her won’t stop her from speaking out for democracy. [The Canadian Press]

🚲 The Metro Vancouver town of New Westminster will vote this month on whether to declare theirs a 15-minute city. [CBC]

EVENTS

Bard on the Beach | Senakw/Vanier Park | The ever-popular outside theatre performances are back. The first week is sold out but Julius Caeser is on next week | Tickets $30

Dumpling Fest Richmond | Mystery location | Wednesday, 6 pm | Just as it sounds - experience a range of dumplings from cultures around the world | Tickets $63

UBC Farmer’s Market | UBC Farm | Tuesday, 4 pm | Fresh vegetables, fruits, herbs flowers and more | Free

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie | Rio Theatre | Tuesday 6:30 pm | A journey through the life of the actor, from his time in movies to his fight with Parkinson’s | Tickets $11.32

Rosie & Frank | VIFF | Tuesday, 2:30 pm | A grieving widow starts to think a dog is her reincarnated husband, a feel-good movie about rediscovering happiness | Tickets $15

Replay Wednesday Pinball Tournament | The American | Wednesday, 7 pm | Come complete at the local pinball tourney, plus get a free beer with your ticket | Tickets $10

Vancouver Silent Movies: The General | Orpheum | Today, 7:30 pm | Experience The General, one of the most popular silent movies in the era, featuring Buster Keaton about a railroad engineer who must rescue his fiancée | Tickets $16

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

• The ground floor of the building at the corner of 10th and Granville has changed less than you’d think in the last 90 years. [Vancouver is Awesome]

• It’s tadpole season in Coquitlam at Minnekhada Park, and the little fellas are all swimming around. [Reddit]

• Crime fiction writer Sam Wiebe uses his PI character Dave Wakeland to explore Vancouver’s two sides — the glorious and the gritty. [CBC]

• We’re no experts, but this is… maybe not the best place to park. [Reddit]

• Redditors are trying to figure out where a house is that an episode of The Outer Limits was filmed in the city. Do you know where it is? [Reddit]

Here’s a shot from the fires at Oakridge. It was quite the blaze!

GAME TIME

Congrats to everyone who guessed the Wordle correctly. The answer was SWEET.

Here’s today’s quiz question — what is the rental vacancy rate in Vancouver?

The first five people to respond with the correct answer will be mentioned in the newsletter.