January: A weak start to 2026
The fall saw something of an uptick in the single family side, at the very least continuing the gradual increase from the trough of activity we hit in late 2022. But December ended weak and activity in January dropped even further. Single family is still arguably in better shape than condos, but this was a pretty weak January all round.
If you’re not a fan of seasonal adjustment, here’s how January’s single family sales stacked up to the previous couple decades. Not a record low, but pretty bad.
New lists have turned up again after several months of sliding downwards. Seasonal adjustment in low-activity months plus endpoints is sometimes a little unstable but it’s a departure from the previous declines.
Inventory trend is flat after taking out seasonality. Down slightly from the peak we hit late summer.
Healthy new listings and weak sales means meakening market conditions, both for months of inventory and the sales to new listings ratio.
The sales to new listings ratio actually hit the lowest point we’ve seen in 2 years.
Combining the two measures shows a fairly substantial weakening from December’s market balance. One month (especially a low-activity one where noise is more powerful) is not a trend, but we’re on the verge of a true buyers market, and the weakest print on market conditions in two years.
No real change to the price trajectory though, and it would be very difficult to see a price decline into the spring where we usually see more upward pressure due to newer and better inventory hitting the market. However it’s an interesting turn from the fall.
Remember, if you’re interested in the data behind any of these charts, it’s available in full here.
Bonus chart: I updated the long run single family price chart with data to 2025. That means we have 65 years of house price data for Victoria, and it’s been a hell of a run at an average appreciation rate of 3.8% after inflation. Right now we’re below trend.
15%? I feel like my miss in February was the worst miss I’ve had in many years, and I was off 7% and got called out on it. I don’t have time, but I think if I reviewed my 3rd week predictions I am within 5% 9/10 times.
I also have the advantage of the on the ground feedback, which is not always perfect, but I’ve used it before to adjust my predictions. If I go book 10 places to view and eight have accepted offers than I can interpret that there will be pending sales coming through later in the month.
No different than hearing BNN guests top picks 🙂
Is +- 15% very accurate? I’m not seeing it.
The guesses are all some variant of “draw a line from the start of the month to today and project it to the end” and there is too much noise week to week for that to be a useful method. More importantly, it doesn’t matter. There’s a lot of noise month to month so even a full month’s data has almost no meaning. Once you get to the weekly level there’s even less signal there. It’s fun to guess, but that’s all it is.
looking back at some third week guesses, the old method was fine if the sales pattern continued in the last week or two of the month the same way it had been going in the first half of the month. But if it didn’t, then the guess was significantly (10%+) off. So the estimate is dominated by noise and not worth much.
A prediction is merely a prediction. 99% of predictions are wrong. Analysts were forecasting (predicting) that Microsoft was going to $600-650 after its last earnings report . It fell to under $400, so much for predicting the stock market.
I don’t know about no basis….I fee like I’ve been very accurate (imo, a lot more accurate then you were using your per day sales methodology). I go on gut feel and basic math for my predictions. For example. If we are at 300 sales mid-month March and we just had a 160 sales week and there are two full weeks left I’ll add 350 (to account heading into spring and sales volume picking up, for example) and project 650 for the month.
The most difficult part is making a prediction in the first or second week of the month. That is essentially a guess.
A number of years ago I would make a prediction with every weekly data update on what the sales would be by month end. Eventually I realized there was no basis for making the prediction and stopped. Where any given week lands says very little about whether that trend will continue. There is a ton of noise especially because these are reported sales, not actual sales. That means in addition to market noise, you get noise from how busy realtors and whether they are entering their deals or not.
Its almost as though he’s not a psychic. Marko adds a lot of value to this forum and I appreciate his Monday updates – its nice to get some perspective from the realtor perspective.
Ya not sure about government but typically it’s a two stage process where there are salary bands and also movement within the salary bands depending on performance. Salary bands are adjusted periodically via studies/surveys to be competitive with market and movement within the salary band is more at discretion of your group. Didn’t hear exactly what is being offered to the non union employees yet but they will be getting something.
I suggest you take a look at my last 10+ years worth of predictions. Yes, I was a bit off this month.
BS vs Reality
February 9th: Sales same as last year (528)
February 16th: Predicted sales 520
February 23rd: Prediction revised to 500
March 1st: Actual 465
Yah, i was assuming less.
Not sure, but I don’t see it being more than unions. Should be coming out shortly.
Provisional approval received from the short-term rental license 🙂
“What is a Provisional Approval?
A provisional approval means your application appears to meet the registration requirements, but your supporting documents have not yet been fully reviewed. The Registrar will conduct a full review of your registration at a later date. You may operate your short-term rental using the registration number above unless otherwise notified.”
got any details on this? same amount as the union? when is that announcement coming?
Much more effective to decrease demand rather than increase supply, something that is impossible. Especially an affordable supply.
Month Feb Feb
Year 2026 2025
New Unconditional Sales 465 528
New Listings 1,175 1,154
Active Listings 2,903 2,631
Rolling into a 5th year of slow sales. The way things have started could be the 5th year in a row under 7,000 sales.
Various demographic changes are behind the drop in rent prices, Liv.rent said. B.C. posted negative population growth in 2025 for the first time since 2012, according to Statistics Canada data cited by the report.
Part of the reason is that 19,628 people emigrated from B.C. in 2025, up 32 per cent year-over-year—the largest increase in emigration from B.C. in more than a decade, said the report.
B.C. also recorded a net loss of 48,943 non-permanent residents in 2025, down from a net gain of 53,797 in 2024—”one of the sharpest reversals in the country,” said the report.
The province attracted 13 per cent of Canada’s immigrants in 2025, trailing Quebec (15 per cent) and Ontario (43 per cent), said the report.
“All of this has really lowered rental demand
Yep, folks cheer on higher prices , and complain how expensive things are , lol. How do u fix a problem , more regulation and tax’s
Renewing my Short-Term Rental Registration for the year with the province and what a s***show. Just paid and they send me a receipt/total amount that is $30 than what I actually paid, I checked my Visa and I was charged the higher amount in relation to the receipt. I can’t recall last time I paid someone and was sent me a receipt that wasn’t in-line with what I paid. How the government manages to screwed everything up is mind-boggling. Now I have to spend an hour on the phone on Monday getting the receipt sorted out, great.
Wonder how many people they’ve hired to review all the documents we have to upload every year for the renewal.
That being said not sure why I am complaining as AirBnb rates just keep climbing. Two reitred people in my building have now complained to me how their kids/grandkids can’t find anywhere to stay this summer and don’t want to be in a hotel with kids. I guess that is another potential reason for older folks to keep their SFH longer if kids/grandkids live out of town, you have somewhere from them to stay versus trying to jam everyone into a condo.
Sale has not yet been reported.
Could someone let me know what
2148 Lark Cres
Nanaimo, British Columbia V9S5J8
MLS® Number: 1024247
sold for please? Thank you.
Mortgage Delinquencies
https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-mortgage-delinquencies-just-made-a-rare-historic-jump/
Apparently rest of the non union government workers are going to get raises too.
That’s a three year fixed. Scroll down.
That’s a 3 year blend and extend from a 1.99 rate that has around 6 months left.
Improving discounts on variable mortgages right now, seeing 3.35% on the reddit mortgage megathread.
If the purpose of missing middle housing is to create a genuine bridge between condominium ownership and single‑family ownership, then the Tudor half‑duplex doesn’t qualify. It isn’t functioning as middle housing; it’s functioning as luxury housing for upper‑income buyers who specifically want to live in Ten Mile Point.
The median price for a non‑view single‑family home in Ten Mile Point is about $2.1 million. In this case of the Tudor property, the Cadboro Bay view amenity pushes the property out of the middle bridge gap. As I’ve noted before, a broad, unobstructed view from the principal rooms can add as much as $750,000 in contributory value in Ten Mile Point. Once that premium is layered on, the unit sits well outside the “middle” and directly within the discretionary luxury segment.
Taking the possibility of a forest fire is prudent. Where is the nearest fire department or water supply? Especially if you’re going to be charging a couple EVs on the property. Not that a fire truck can put the fire out.
Not many have sold, some sold in the 900k range that are townhouse style. The Tudor one isn’t a missing middle.
Looked at the Pink house today and it is a really nice lot but the house at Wildness needs a lot of work even at first glance. Sort of also got the feeling that if a forest fire broke out there then you could really be trapped but not sure about that. Beautiful views. Guessing it might need a new roof maybe or fairly soon. Poly B tubing in the house. Garage is not attached to the house which is sorta weird for a place where it rains half the year. Something about it did not strike me as cozy for some reason. But everybody has different tastes. Sorta felt tired.
Ok I thought the listing said something much less than that. 10 acres is plenty!
Missing middle was never going to be cheap, when u add up all the bills the price is the price . I’m always floored with the cost of materials and it can only go up
yikes… $2.8 million for a missing middle. Are any new missing middle unit sales “affordable”?
Looks like UBC Professor Patrick Condon was right when he warned the Victoria “missing middle” density advocates that….“ the very worst thing you can possibly do is to upzone for missing middle units without any affordability requirements. If your hope was that new supply would lower costs I guarantee you will be disappointed. Very very disappointed. And land speculators will be laughing all the way to the bank.
https://www.focusonvictoria.ca/issue-analysis/66/
I’ve seen the one on Wesley and it is effectively a small townhouse development and looks pretty normal, I see some value there in that neighborhood. That other one is something I don’t see much value in.
Missing middle product just starting to pour in, more listings today
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/29405178/3-958-wollaston-st-esquimalt-old-esquimalt
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/29405248/2-5032-wesley-rd-saanich-cordova-bay
2.2 to 2.5.
What was your call?
You are free to enjoy the AI copy and pastes if that floats your boat.
VicREanalyst attempting to triangulate everyone to help him bully Groot. Pretty bad look.
VicReanalyst – you realize I was agreeing with you that it’s plausible that rents could drift down.
It was just that your reasoning that rising minimum wages result in lower rents was flawed. Overall wage growth improves affordability, but it doesn’t push rents down. Another 40 cents an hour isn’t going to change much in someone’s life.
But thanks for following me on other sites.
Looks like I was off on the missing middle Tudor units, 4 – 2737 Tudor Ave sold today for $2,800,000.
More and more projects coming to market -> https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/29404359/1-2455-hamiota-st-oak-bay-estevan
I think you should just stop posting, everyone here knows that you are not savvy in either a commercial sense or practical sense. Time for you to stick to posting on fb platforms like Vancouver Island Housing and Save Our Saanich.
The 5% decline in rents is structurally possible even though the miniumum wage will increase. In other words, the wage increase fails to counteract the broader cooling of the rental market.
What is more likely to put downward pressure on rents is the vacancy rate, new completions hitting the market, migration, and investors distress.
Miniumum wages indexed to inflation don’t create downward pressure; supply‑and‑demand variables do.
https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2024/09/out-of-control-rents%20%281%29.pdf
Oh I see you finally caved and gave up eh? Well better late than never! With minimum wage going up to 18.25 I don’t see much more downward pressure on rents either, maybe another 5%.
Keep on waiting VicREanyst, it isn’t likely to happen.
Yup, still waiting on that big crash here in Victoria….
Fair enough — I could have been clearer. I’m comparing 30‑year‑olds today with 30‑year‑olds in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. One group can tap home equity through modern lending structures; the other had to build savings over time. It’s a comparison of financial mechanisms, not generations.
If you insist on reading that as generational commentary, that’s your framing, not mine.
lol, ya Groot sure does dream up a lot of facts based on squat.
>> A generation of recent homeowners benefited from sustained price inflation that did not exist in earlier decades.
No it’s “old timers” (aka the Greatest Generation) not “recent homeowners” that have seen the biggest house price increases.
The recent homeowners (last 3 decades 1990-2020) have seen house price increases that were MUCH smaller than the previous 3 decades (1960-1989). And it’s not even close. Prices rose to 8.8X prices during 1960-1990, and only 3.5X price from 1990-2020).
The biggest increases by far were the 1970’s (2.6X prices) and 1980’s (2.1X prices), and we haven’t seen that again in the last 3+ decades.
So someone who bought a house in 1960 (likely 90+ years old now) would have seen the biggest increase in 30 years when they saw it rise by 8.8X in 30 years.
Here’s price increase for houses in Canada by decade.
558 Wilderness Pl.- Who lived there? Barbie? I’ve never seen so much pink. Good luck repainting that monster.
Thanks, that is helpful. Is this location still under the Douglas Treaties?? or does that stop at Sooke, not sure how to look that up. I googled it just now and it seems to been under the treaties. It is a ten acre property which is more than I need. Give you an update after I looked at it.
Been up there, not to that specific house. Location is as beautiful as it looks in the picture. Not Sooke, this is Juan de Fuca Electoral area, so less services than being in the town. You’dd drive to Langford (25 minutes at non peak) for shopping or to Sooke 20 minutes. Can’t walk to anything except some hiking trails. There must be some king of organized water system there. There are water tanks on a few high spots including the summit.
Not my cup of tea. If I am going to live that remote I at least want a decent sized chunk of land.
Does anyone know anything about 558 wilderness Place in Sooke, good or bad about the general location. The water seems to come from a small lake? Thanks
Very true. A generation of recent homeowners benefited from sustained price inflation that did not exist in earlier decades. By contrast, prior generations operated in a low‑growth environment where saving—sometimes literally in household flour containers—was the primary accumulation method available to take a trip to Portugal.
Wait too long to take the trip and you might have to drag an oxygen tank around with you. Try the Madeira.
Well whats the point of having equity if I can’t go to Portugal?
Accessing the equity in your home does not make you a “bad borrower.”
Your position seems to define a “bad borrower” as anyone who uses the equity in their home—a characterization that’s both misleading and unsupported by any lending standard. The real issue is how the equity is used, not the simple fact that it’s accessed.
On that basis, I reject your imagined definition of a “bad borrower.”
I believe that fits the definition of a “bad borrower”
In this day and age, if a buyer wants to see or put an offer on a house with lower co-operating commission, what can the buyer’s agent actually do? Like tell them the house is crap when it isn’t?
Ya unless you are in Rockland proper or a few select parts of Fairfield, I don’t see COV being diserable.
interesting -> https://realestatemagazine.ca/greater-vancouver-realtors-targeted-in-competition-bureau-investigation/
“ And you are upgrading in the core? Great time to do it”
Yes. Bought just before Christmas and moving out of COV (can’t run away fast enough).
Not quite, I know a wide spectrum of people from all walks of life. But what you need to understand is that in the current society making lots of money very quickly via technology and scaling has been never been easier. This is something that was not possible even 10 years ago.
Of course you do VicREanalyst. Everyone you know makes over six figures and non of them have debt.
How did your daughter come to that conclusion? I know of quite a few 25 year olds that can afford several 75k trucks no problem. The world has changed, I suggest you teach your daughter to embrace the advances in society or else she will be left behind just like you.
When home prices rise rapidly, households must take on larger mortgages to participate.
But if incomes don’t rise at the same pace, the debt‑to‑income ratio balloons, making households extremely sensitive to:
-Rate increases
-Income shocks
-Employment volatility
This is exactly the dynamic Canada has been living through.
If you’ve held your mortgage for a while and you haven’t been repeatedly drawing on a HELOC, you’re in a materially stronger position than many recent borrowers. The reason is simple: your effective leverage has been falling while theirs has been rising. Even if your rate jumps at renewal, the absolute dollar increase is typically far more manageable than for someone who bought at peak valuations with a large, high‑ratio loan.
I see this in refinancing work: someone who bought their home for $350,000 now carries a $500,000 mortgage. The original purchase price becomes irrelevant at that point. What matters is the current leverage, not the entry point. If the debt load has grown to $500,000, that household is effectively in the same risk category as someone who bought later at a higher price. The advantage of buying early disappears the moment equity is repeatedly extracted through HELOCs or top‑ups.
This is the quiet vulnerability in the system. People assume they’re insulated because they bought years ago, but if their leverage has crept up, they’re exposed to the same renewal shock as recent buyers.
And this isn’t a fringe phenomenon. As Equifax notes. The issue isn’t “bad borrowers”; it’s a decade of cheap credit, rising asset values that lead to the normalization of using home equity as a revolving credit source.
My daughter puts it even more plainly:
“When you see a 25‑year‑old driving a $75,000 truck, he isn’t rich — he just has a lot of debt.”
Housing is similar.
The outward appearance of prosperity can often mask a highly leveraged position, and that quiet leverage creep is one of the reasons Canadian mortgage debt is likely to exceed $2 trillion.
How is that a problem for those with mortgages?
And you are upgrading in the core? Great time to do it
“Where was the house?”
Oaklands area
Groot and lots of folks made money and that’s all that matters , The putz standing on the sidelines watching will always be a lifelong putz , every generation has them
RIP Westshore commuters to downtown for the next week.
I’m not saying that the previous post is due to “bad borrowers” Although some regular commenters will want to pivot the narrative to one that I am anti home ownership. I still believe that one should buy a home when it is right for them. And I am still cautiously optimistic for 2026. I expect the sales volume to noticebly increase this year but due to eastic demand the prices will remain stable.
The previous post is a story about how we got here:
-A decade of ultra‑low rates
-A housing market treated as a wealth‑creation engine
-A banking system optimized for mortgage volume
-A population whose incomes never kept pace with asset inflation
According to Equifax, mortgage debt is on track to exceed $2 trillion by 2026, a level that leaves households highly sensitive to even modest rate movements.
This year alone, 1.2 million mortgages are set to renew at higher rates. The average payment increase is projected at 6%, but some households will face jumps of 15–20%, forcing difficult cash‑flow reallocations.
Borrower behaviour is already shifting. Lender switching has climbed from 30% to 40%, a sign of households searching for relief rather than optional optimization.
Stress indicators are rising as well. The 90‑day delinquency rate is up 30% nationally, with Ontario surging 54.5%, reflecting its higher leverage, greater variable‑rate exposure, and concentration of investor‑driven borrowing.
However, Equifax remains cautiously optimistic for 2026, noting that current stress levels are emerging from historically low delinquency baselines. The increases are still within normal levels.
The broader pattern remains clear: the renewal cycle is exposing the vulnerabilities created by years of cheap credit, rapid asset inflation, loose lending regulations, and stagnant incomes.
There may be roughly 500 condos for sale in the Victoria Core, but once you apply a real‑world filter like immediate occupancy, the usable inventory shrinks fast. Only about 30% of those listings are advertised as ready for quick possession, which means anyone who needs to move right away is effectively choosing from a much smaller pool.
About half of the total inventory is owner‑occupied. Those sellers are often open to negotiation, but they also need time to pack, secure their next home, and coordinate their own move. They may negotiate on price, but not necessarily on possession dates. So while the headline number suggests plenty of choice, the practical selection for buyers who need immediate occupancy is far more limited.
I completely understand the impulse: once someone decides to buy, they want a home they can move into right away. After months of searching, the idea of waiting another one, two, or even three months for possession can feel intolerable. But that emotional urgency doesn’t change how the inventory is structured or how sellers actually live. Immediate occupancy is a narrow slice of the market, and anything outside that slice requires patience, negotiation, and a realistic timeline.
When I’m looking for a place, an empty home with no disclosure statement always gives me pause. In my experience, it usually means the tenant has moved out and the seller hasn’t been successful in getting the property sold. That kind of vacancy can signal uncertainty, and I suspect other buyers pick up on the same thing. An empty home isn’t automatically a red flag, but it does make me slow down and ask why it’s sitting there.
So what choice do the sellers have? Lower the price or take it off the market and rent it?
https://www.bctenancylaw.ca/post/bc-tenancy-law-faq-rtb
.>>> What buyer is looking in February hoping to move in in July? Or looking in September looking to move in the following year?
Well, one obvious type of buyer remaining is an investor buyer (like Frank), who wouldn’t be moving in and evicting the tenant. So it looks like the odds of that happening go up, which would be an ideal outcome.
I had a buyer client of mine email back today to cancel two tenanted property showings we had lined up….after I explained to her that early July was the first possible vacant possession date.
The NDP change from two months to three months notice seems innocent enough but has a fairly big impact in real life. What buyer is looking in February hoping to move in in July? Or looking in September looking to move in the following year?
Great thread going.
Marko: “As I said my advice in most situations for my seller clients is to try and reach a mutual end to tenancy before we hit the market. Where my sellers have listed to such advice all of those properties have sold.”
I think this is great advice, and that will be my plan when I list my Peninsula property. Fantastic tenants in place, probably the best ever, and I think they will be my last. I’ve had the property going on 15 years and with substantial equity it’s getting time to be done with the landlord gig. This BCNDP govt can’t make it any less attractive.
The campus is quieter, but it’s not empty. It’s more like a research institute in the summer: fewer undergrads, more labs, more co‑op, and a lot of year‑round academic activity.
Maybe 4,000 to 6,000 post graduate and co-op students on a year round basis durring the summer term. With the drop in year round international students, the occupancy rate would likely fall to not less than 30 percent during the summer term.
When the rental vacancy rate was lower, most undergraduates simply held their leases through the summer. They couldn’t risk giving up a unit and trying to find something again in September. That behaviour kept student‑occupied housing effectively locked in place year‑round, regardless of how quiet the campus felt
In discussions with various property managers, this September was a reversal of past years as the city wide vacancy rate increased and for most people it was easier to find a rental. I would say that I am seeing an increase in better quality rentals available this year relative to last year.
Yes but no where near the occupancy during the regular semesters. Mcgill university even rents out their dorms as hotel rooms in the summer.
Where was the house?
Just crop it out, its a quick and simple fix.
Damn good eye! Unfortunately based on a 8:42 pm call on Friday night asking if I had a floorplan for Parkwood I don’t thinkg people are scrolling that far long into the photos 🙂
A 2,100 sq.ft. home today on a 4,000 sq.ft. lot was listed with 87 photos. Perhaps our 20 photo max was a little low but I think MLS should set a max to 50 photos, imo.
Frank, I’ve never found it necessary to inventory my life for strangers. People who are comfortable don’t need to advertise. When people broadcast their possessions, it’s rarely about wealth; it’s about insecurity.
My grandmother taught me this. The family was having dinner and my sister’s husband began to brag about his money. My grandmother slapped him across the face and told him that at the table we don’t talk about wealth.
We were all happy when my sister divorced him and got more than half of what he owned. He ended up being a dead beat Dad. My sister years later told the family at dinner that he got run over by a bus in Edmonton. All my grandmother said was “pass the potatoes please”.
” I think market is showing a few signs of life. Showed a SFH last night that went into multiples right away.”
We feel very fortunate as we listed and sold (accepted offer with conditions removed) very quickly this month. It seems like a very mixed market with some stuff moving and some sitting still.
My mother worked in housekeeping at UVIC Housing for 20 years and pretty sure they rented out during the summer? I know we had visiting family stay there a number of times.
100%, instead of building student housing our government has bloated bureaucracy and created a massive deficit.
There is an entire department at BC Housing that impedes the construction of single family homes (at a time when SFH construction has collapsed to 80 year lows) while at the same time not providing a single documented benefit. This is where the tax money is going.
In my opinion, the government should do everything they can to put the foot to the floor in terms of housing construction right now. However, because the market has cooled and rents are dropping they are going to take their foot off the floor and guess what’s going to happen in 5 to 10 years?
There are literally 100s of levers the government could pull right now to prop up housing starts and keep them elevated. For example, make permit fees/DCCs/etc., payable on occupancy verus upfront. Just this alone would put a few shovles in the ground that otherwise might not start. A ton of other common sense levers to pull.
That’s government for you. I stopped by a fairly large multi-unit project on Sunday where the actual developer was hanging microwave hoodfans by himself. He said the first one took him 1 hr and he had each one down to 15 minutes. Then of course, he is labelled as the “greedy developer.”
I think the government should financing things such as UVIC Housing but as Leo says…minimum code building and put it out to the private sector for tender to actually build. Once stakeholders get involved in design, etc., it’s going to be ridicolously expensive.
Not owning a house is like working for a company for 40 years and retire without a pension. A terrible waste of time.
Groot- I assume you’re a renter?
If the private supply can already over serve the student rental demand, why do we need public input on it?
Huge problem with student housing economics is the vacancy from May to September.
It feels like a very shortsighted move. However I’d love to see the financials on this. Other than taking on the debt, how much subsidy were they projecting it would take over the life of the building?
I refuse to believe that they can’t make student housing revenue neutral on free land (and no need to put in full kitchens or fancy finishings). Problem is, a ton of money gets spent on the process. Not everything has to be a showcase. Pick a site, send out a couple surveys for a month, then put up a code minimum rental building.
So it is not allowed to talk about Uvic student housing project delay? With rental vacancy already in 30 year high, rent going down and there is no rental shortage around Uvic any more? So disappointed.
I agree with Marko. There’s no reason to load the original contract with speculative clauses about an uncooperative tenant. The seller is obligated to deliver vacant possession — full stop. If they fail to do so, that is the moment to negotiate a mutual agreement. Until then, keep the contract clean.
Victoria Real Estate Board
Month Feb Feb
Year 2026 2025
New Unconditional Sales 349 528
New Listings 885 1,154
Active Listings 2,818 2,631
Revising my projection to 500 sales for the month.
No Frank, in cities like Victoria, renting a comparable home can be much cheaper over purchasing. Such as the previously discussed townhouse in Vic West. One can rent a townhome at $3,700 a month or buy a similar townhome in the area for a million.
https://www.insauga.com/renting-a-home-is-cheaper-than-buying-in-these-canadian-cities/
yes it would – in this scenario of using this clause, there wouldn’t be a breach – you’d close either way. So this clause would just be intended to avoid controversy & get you a discount on closing that approximates your cost of getting rid of the tenant yourself, assuming you’re moving in. And maybe 3 months isn’t exactly the right amount, not sure.
It is possible that you’re right in the sense that leaving it out and then negotiating from a position of seller breach would get you a better result. But it’s also possible seller might still not budge in terms of $. We had this on a condo we bought that was supposed to have parking legally assigned as part of the unit. Sometime before closing our DD showed parking was actually just common property loosely “assigned” to the unit at will by the strata. So we argued for a price reduction, and were told no, sorry, close or don’t close. We closed as the price was right – probably this showed we had already beaten then down on price as much as was feasible, or at least that’s what I told myself.
Maybe try for a clause that is just a bit more than the 3 months rent, say 4-5 months rent, so that (a) the overall amount is not so huge that seller just refuses to engage, (b) it leaves just enough incentive, properly explained to seller, to convince them they’d better make a deal to get the tenant out, and (c) either way, it achieves certainty at closing and avoids lawsuits. I hate lawsuits.
But you’re probably right when you say there are many, many sellers who just wouldn’t get into it in the first place. And those might well be the same people whose place never sells, but if you really want it, that becomes your problem.
If I were your client, I think I’d listen pretty closely to your advice.
The government has identified a housing crisis, and it’s clear that everyone can’t afford to buy a home. So long term renting seems like the next best solution. Definitely better than the desparate idea to freeze Canada’s population by kicking out foreign students and workers.
Canada used to build a lot more apartments (PBR) than we do now; hopefully the recent surge of PBR apartment builds will lead to more long term rentals.
In European countries, like Germany, long term renting is the norm. Tenants have lifetime (indefinite) renting contracts, unless the tenant terminates with 3 months notice.
“Long-term renting in Germany is the norm, with over half the population renting and many staying in the same home for decades. German law heavily favors tenants, offering indefinite contracts . These are standard. They have no end date and continue until the tenant gives notice (typically 3 months) or the landlord has a legal, just cause to terminate (which is very difficult) “
I don’t think many families are looking for long term rentals. Single people, a growing demographic, retirees, may be best suited to renting long term. Everyone knows that renting is a waste of money and owning is the only way to ensure stability for a family. Kids don’t want to change schools, you establish community relationships, go to a neighborhood church, maintain lasting friendships, like the good old days.
> it a privilege that someone is renting … I can’t tell you how many tenants I’ve had since 1994. They come and go as they please.
Sure it’s a privilege to rent from you, and congrats on providing that since 1994. But for families looking for long term rentals, it’s likely seen as an even BIGGER privilege to be renting a secure apartment rental (PBR) where they ALSO can’t be evicted. That factor might explain why you’re getting so many “come and go” tenants.
Marko, I am calling your listing on Parkwood to transact somewhere between 1.45 and 1.475. the elevated rocky backyard is the value killer. The pic of the wooden deck also shows the broken fence, maybe swap that pic out and do a quick fix on the fence?
I think my answer to this scenario is a bit different. I am not a lawyer, but having a 3 month compensation clause if tenant doesn’t vacant wouldn’t that limit your argument, as the buyer, that the seller has breached the contract? I think a better approach, as the buyer, would be to leave the 3 months out and negotiate on the spot from a position of a seller breach.
Context is very important to all of this as well. Are we talking tenants with two kids in a SFH that have been renting the home for 11 years and are 40% below market value on rent, or is it a single tenant in a studio they rented three years ago for $2,000/month and now there are 100s of studios available in purpose-built rentals for $1,800 per month?
On average, in certain scenarios you can get a lot more pushback from the tenants. You can also tell quite a bit by the way the rental unit presented on showing.
I timed myself walking, but you are right Google says 19 minutes. Given 10,000 steps/day is a recommend target per day even if your work downtown is 30 minutes walk you still aren’t close to 10,000 steps back and forth to work walking.
I’ve never used a house inspector, in a hot market there usually isn’t the luxury of time, especially in this circumstance. I think the realtor should do a basic inspection of the product they are selling. Sellers should be on the hook for a recent inspection. Like selling a car with a recent safety inspection. Basically it’s buyer beware when buying a house. I wonder if a sewer clean out inspection is on their list. Most inspections miss a lot of problems.
Marko- That 16 minute walk is misleading, 16 minutes for you would translate to 25-35 minutes for most people.
Or an older SFH with a suite
Surface parking in-between the two structures. Every spot is EV wired.
$3700 a month is not bad rent. The alternative is to buy a new(er) townhouse that might cost around a million.
Frank, it’s always best to commission your own inspections rather than rely on reports prepared for the seller. An inspector’s duty of care exists only toward the person who hired them, unless they formally extend that duty to you.
A seller showing you paperwork from two years ago isn’t a substitute for a current inspection, and it creates no obligation from the original inspector to you. An inspection is a point‑in‑time assessment, not a warranty or a guarantee of future performance. A lot can change in two years — moisture, wear, DIY alterations, and slow‑developing issues that wouldn’t have been visible at the time.
Marko-What about parking in that missing middle?
I’d rather have proof that the sewer had been cleaned out in the last 2 years. Also would like to know where the clean out is. I had water backup in the downstairs bathroom shower and I had a hell of a time finding it. Usually located at the front of the house near the water meter. Someone had cemented over it and laid carpet in the room. Luckily the guy that came knew exactly where to look and it was found in a few minutes.
Thank you. I understand all of your post, and I think the way you describe things there shows you know how these dynamics work. And as seller and as buyer, I’ve been on both sides of the issue of feeling slighted over some even minor clause, either one I put in that I thought was totally reasonable but that proved to be a bridge too far, or dealing with the other side’s weird clause. And yes, I’ve often seen agents putting in clauses that really benefit the other party, only because they’re cutting & pasting from their last deal.
A good agent is worth the commission in my view. I have sold a property one time privately to the tenant & it worked out just fine, but I sure wouldn’t recommend it to most people.
You would think that an offer with a clause asking for a more reasonable amount (3 months rent or whatever) if tenant didn’t vacate should be reasonable. As a buyer, I’d probably ask my agent what they think about that. But I can hear you answering the question already. OTOH, yeah the sellers who would refuse to accept that, being the same sellers who aren’t willing to offer the tenants a couple of months rent to sign a mutual end of tenancy, are also the same sellers whose places never seem to sell. Now that’s real life!
At the end of the day, if you’re going to move into the place yourself, presumably it’s a relatively manageable money issue and hassle issue even if you’re the one that has to deal with it. But if you’re wanting to rent it out and just don’t want the current tenants, well then that’s of course a much bigger issue. And maybe that’s fair enough to the current tenants.
Yesterday, I had a look at the first missing middle project ever approved in Victoria -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtz7vfQDM6M
Why not ask for $200,000?
There is theory and there is real life. Most people don’t see the real life from both perspectives. In the last two months I’ve had to calm down two of my seller clients who were very upset/annoyed that the buyers’ agent put a clause into the contract that the property had to be professionally cleaned prior to completion with receipt. On the surface this seems like a super simple common sense clause, right? Why would you want to take possession of a home that is dirty as a buyer. Not only did the sellers instruct me to cross out the clause, but also given they were upset they didn’t come down much on price on the counter.
Four years ago on a listing of mine in multiple offers a very harmless clause the buyers’ agent put into the contract was the reason the sellers opted to go with a different offer that didn’t have such a clause. Offers otherwise were identical.
I can tell you 100% of my sellers would not respond to an offer asking for $100,000 off if tenant didn’t vacate. These are the same sellers who are not willing to offer the tenants a couple of months rent compensation to sign a mutual end to tenancy before listing.
I recently made a video somewhat on this topic. I have an entire database of oil tank clauses and in my career I’ve represented real estate lawyer clients who have modified these clauses so I have some very sophisticated clause pertaining to such; however, when representing a sophisticated businessed minded (looking for the best possible value) I don’t use these clauses, I make it extremely simple of the seller/listing agent (in order to secure the best possible purchase price with a “clean” offer) while still protecting my client. Explained here -> https://youtu.be/Yz6KeNoj2WU?si=lMsN3HHlMMoNGRRz&t=306 “Contract Clauses vs Concepts: Difference Between Drafting and Understanding | Real Estate Victoria BC”
First of all you have to understand who you are representing (buyer or seller) as often I see agents using clauses that are to the benefit of the other party. Second of all, you need to understand your client and their level of sophistication, appetite for risk, etc. I approach contract writting very differently when it comes to first time buyer versus savvy investor/buyer. A few weeks ago I had a client buy a condo downtown unconditional (that was my 7th transaction with him and he trusts me that I know the building and strata documents inside and out). Would I suggest a first time buyer write an unconditional offer? Absolutely not.
My experience also
I can’t tell you how many tenants I’ve had since 1994. They come and go as they please. What’s the big deal about insecurity? The owner has less security as the stress of finding a new tenant can occur any month, even when the rental market is weak. Tenants should consider it a privilege that someone is renting a SFH, with no guarantees or long term commitments. Try getting a month to month commercial lease, you’re looking at 3, 5, even 10 year commitments and you’re responsible for the entire amount from day one. As usual, the government has it backwards.
The previous amount of notice was 2 months, and this was increased to 3 months. Yes, that’s an additional month, but not sure why that’s being described here as such a big deal. From the tenant’s perspective, eviction is a big problem and 3 months is much better than 2. The notice period is longer in other parts of Canada, such as currently 4 months notice in Winnipeg. Winnipeg sets the period to fluctuate yearly, based on current vacancy rate, and ranges from 3-5 months.
These type of evictions don’t occur with purpose built rentals, only with “mum-n-pop” landlord rentals. Tenants in such rentals find them insecure, and this worsens the housing crisis as these tenants see home ownership as the only solution for secure accomodation. So the rise of purpose built rentals may help to solve the housing crisis, by providing secure rentals where tenants can treat them as their permanent home.
https://www.uvic.ca/campusplanning/current-projects/student-housing-expansion/index.php
Surprised that no one mentions Uvic student housing being delayed by the recent BC provincial budget.
OTOH, wouldn’t the seller have to hope the buyer is just as much an idiot buying without a clause like that & just taking on the tenant when he doesn’t want one & being incredibly compromised? I mean, yeah breach of contract that’s fine, but what does that really get you other than ability to back out and/or a lawsuit?
The gov’t created this mess. People are just trying to deal with it.
And that just sort of speaks for itself I’m thinking.
mutual end to tenancy works in most of the cases… ( money talks afterall)
there are a few exceptions that tennatats decides not to move out.. decide to stay… there are not much owners can do about it..
How big and how many washrooms? Separate laundry? One of my 2 bed 1 bath 800 sqft unit with shares laundry in the core is currently rented for 2k. Shared utilities, but internet is included.
Rental update
We dropped the rent 10% after I canvassed the blog and researched comparables. $2000 all-incl. For our 2-bedroom suite and had a lot more interest towards the end of January vs. when we listed originally in late December which I believe was mostly due to Christmas being a non ideal tind to move. Most people wanted March 1st possession and some April 1 possession. We went with some absolutely fantastic tenants that wanted February possession. I’m still watching some comparables on marketplace that didn’t drop and are still vacant heading into March.
As I said my advice in most situations for my seller clients is to try and reach a mutual end to tenancy before we hit the market. Where my sellers have listed to such advice all of those properties have sold.
However, most sellers don’t want to take that advice as they don’t want to pay the tenant to leave plus the lost rental income. The properties just sit on market most of the time without success. When inventory is higher and climbing why would the buyer want to deal with buying a tenanted property when they can just find a vacant or owner occupied one. If you are writing an offer today on a tenanted property earliest vacant possession is July 1st.
Not really, just last week during an inspection with my buyer the tenant asked my buyer if he would be going on title.
The minute a property hits the market many tenants start hitting reddit, phoning the tenancy branch, etc. Just look at how many 12 monts’ compensation to tenant decisions are coming through across BC these days.
I bet a decent % of tenants record showings just to make sure when they get notice the buyers intent is legit.
Marko- Are you seeing many investors looking for a SFH? Given the onerous restrictions a landlord must abide by, it certainly must be turning them off. I would rather have my money rot in a bank than deal with this BS. I also think the prospect for significant appreciation is not there.
Lol sounds like a movie.
I guess, you would have to hope that the seller is an idiot and has a complete idiot for a real estate agent. Seller would be so incredibly compromised for so many reasons (buyer and buyer’s agent, for example, discuss this during showing and tenant records them and then asks for “cash for keys” from the seller prior to completion), etc., too many other scenarios to list. Government also for a while there made it so seller had to provide the contract of purchase and sale to the tenant with the notice. Luckily they got rid of that but they could bring it back anytime as the government is fairly dumb.
Right now the market sucks so I advise my sellers to accept “vacant and free of any tenancies” subject to section 49 of the Residential Tenancy Act, if they want to sell.
However, when the market was better (favoring sellers) and if I was representing the seller I would cross out the “vacant and free of any tenancies” and replace it with “subject to tenancy” to put my seller in a better position. Problem right now is market is favoring buyers and using that type of negotiating strategy throws up red flags and the buyers don’t want to deal with tenanted properties as is.
Practically speaking
Representing buyer – “vacant and free of any tenancies” and delay completion/possession one week from when the tenant needs to move out.
Representing seller – replace “vacant and free of any tenancies” with “subject to tenancy.”
I received an offer recently on a tenanted property I have listed with subjects until Feb 28th and a completion of May 5th 🙂 Buyer’s agent 100% does not understand how notice works under Section 49. You need to deliver notice before 28th, practically speaking, and even if you delivered it before the 28th three months’ notice means June 1st earliest vacant possession so doesn’t understand either component.
Or you can just say if the property isn’t vacant then 100k will be deducted from the purchase price.
I always delay the completion/possession (closing) one week after tenants are suppose to move out. For example, if tenants are suppose to move out by May 31st I’ll make the completion/possession June 8th for my buyers that way we can verify that tenants are gone and if they aren’t then you get lawyers involved as completion hasn’t occurred.
Depending on how the contract is written the seller would be in breach of contract if the tenants didn’t vacate and seller was not able to deliver vacant possession.
Selling tenant properties these days is such a pain and can negatively impact market value. Coaching a lot of my sellers, that are willing to accept advice, into mutual end to tenancy agreements before we list.
Buyer sent offer with vacant possession. Offer accepted and financing and inspection conditions removed so unconditional accepted offer now. Seller gives tenants 3 months notice of closing date. If tenants don’t leave before closing date, what are the options? Do buyers lose deposit?
7% is likely more applicable to Victoria as most of the ministry workers are here, so it’s not insignificant. I am assuming the higher paid ones are more likely to have a target on their back and those are probably the ones that are most in position to buy a house. But maybe people don’t care, who knows.
15000 from the broader public sector. So that is 15000 out of something like 500,000, so call it 3%
2500 from the core public service (basically the ministries and some directly affiliated agencies). That is 2500 out of 37500, so call it 7%
I had a friend that bought a whole section for privacy, five years later someone bought & built on the ridge above his barn…nothing is forever.
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Thought it was 15000
It’s kind of ridiculous that government caved to GEU and did the 4 year 3% which is likely to be well above inflation. I’m not at all anti public service but it seems a bit ridiculous to be giving above inflation wage increases to the same workforce you are trying to downsize. you are trying to downsize.
What they gave the GEU will be replicated across the civil service and according to the BC budget documents every 1% increase in Public Sector compensation adds 557 million in spending. So just holding the lineat 2% would have saved half billion in the first year and well over two billion per years by the end of the contract.
Sorry man but i don’t hold onto any sales histories but 2 recent sales on Fairfield and. Runnymede over 2 mil. I’m not a buyer of residential properties so not really keeping that close an eye on the market.
I don’t know anyone that is worried about their job; moreso, worried about less promotion opportunities. One person I know has been offered 6 months’ compensation and no early retirement penalty. She was planning to retire in a year, so she is seriously considering it. It’s only 2,500 people over the next three years.
Care to share some examples?
They definitely don’t have a life.
Have a buddy that’s a retiring eye surgeon on the island , made good money but I sure wouldn’t want his life . Too much sacrifice
Would luv to c the Vancouver market get going , always good for economies when housing is firing
Great!
Eye surgeons are the highest paid doctors. Canada just scored to take the lead with 35 seconds remaining.
It’s only February and I’m cing some listings coming and going fairly quickly. Seems to be busier with properties listed over 2 mil
Hearing similar things in Vancouver. It’s interesting as most higher earning government workers are worried about their jobs.
I had a good experience with an eye issue as well five years ago but an optometrist you can see like you can see a dentist (easily) and then the referral is to a specialist professional that is the most motivated in terms of compensation, this guy billed $4.9 million in a year -> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/harry-dang-suspended-nl-9.7008702
My family and friends experience with health care has been very positive. They all have family doctors. And they’ve got nothing but good things to say about the times they needed major care (cardiac surgery, pacemaker, knee replacements etc.). Waiting lists are long for elective surgery, but were very short for emergent situations. If you look at other countries, they have many of the same complaints we hear in Canada.
In the past 6 years, GP availability has gotten worse, but we have tele-medicine which now has short waiting times of less than a day. How cool is that, using your iPad from the couch you can get medical care, doctor’s assessment and a prescription, for FREE. Without leaving your couch. Would I want to wind the clock back 6 years, when we had more GP offices, but no tele-medicine? Absolutely not!
The point being, people tend to focus on what’s worse about health care (finding a GP), and ignore the improvements (convenient access to tele-medicine, free within 24 hours in many cases)
I also had a torn retina that needed an operation ASAP. If it can’t be treated in a week, you’re blind in that eye. The surgeon, highly specialized, worked like a dog, booked me in at the end of the day, no delays. Would have gladly paid for it out of my own pocket. If I felt that I had a serious problem, I wouldn’t waste my time here, probably go directly to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, my money won’t do me any good when I’m dead.
Canada just tied the game.
While I find the lack of access to primary care deplorable I can see from my experience and that of friends that once you get into the system, care CAN be excellent. For example I had a recent eye issue. less than 18 hours after the optometrist looked in my eye and said “that looks worrisome” I had an appointment with a retinal surgeon who fixed it up with no complications.
Buy a quarter section of land and most neighbour problems disappear
I went to book six condo showings for a client this weekend and five have accepted offers which is a little unusual. I think market is showing a few signs of life. Showed a SFH last night that went into multiples right away.
My father had a heart attacked a few years ago, stents, high cholesterol, etc., bla bla. Last week goes for a check-up at the cardiologist office and the tech/nurses sees him, but his cardiologist isn’t in the office. The other cardiologist doesn’t want to see him (not his patient?) and the tech/nurse has some concerns with the results so suggests he goes to emerg. Goes to emerg at the Jubilee. Waits 12 hours, the emerg doc can’t access the database for results that the cardiologist use and after doing bloodwork/ECG can’t really figure out why he was sent to emerg. Still waiting to talk to his cardiologist.
The system is absolute crap. My parents are going to Croatia for the spring shortly and I just booked him at the private cardiac clinic in Zagreb.
I know everyone is saying private is possible in Victoria, but hasn’t been my experience when I’ve tried. I ended up on a waitlist for a suspicious mole referral to a dermatologist a few years ago and when they gave me the approx. wait time I just flew to Europe, had is examined, biopsied and removed within a couple of days. Not taking my chances with the non-sense here.
My friend took in his 2-yr old son last year with a fever of 40 to VGH and waited 13 hrs and then simply went home unseen
In Croatia (a country of less than 1/2 GDP per capita compared to Canada) you get a public health pediatric assigned at birth until 7 years of age with regular check-ups. The pediatric clinics are nicely setup. You have one room where you wait if you have an pediatrion (check-up, vaccine shots, etc.) and you have an adjacent room where you can drop in with your sick kid without an appointment and then the pediatrician alternates taking in patients between the two rooms. If you show up with a kid with a fever of 40 they also take it seriously and do appropriate investigations or send you to emerg if warranted.
Then if you aren’t happy with the public health system for whatever reason you just call a private pediatric clinic and book a specialist for 75 Euros +/- within 48 hours most times. Typically, after hours appointments at private clinics are between 5 and 9 pm as most of the specialists at private clinics work in the public system during the day. I asked one doctor why he was working so much and his goal was to help both his daughters buy condos to take care of their housing situation.
The crazy thing is we have enough resources in society/economy in Canada but as a society we are opting to put our resources into bike lanes and useless bureaucratic positions at all three levels go government. Inclusion officers, sustainable environment officers, tree preservations officers, etc., at the CIty of Victoria all making 100k/year somehow are more important that opening a few pediatrics clinics and other health care services.
Agree hospital waits are unbelievably bad. However they triage. I did mean severe/urgent health issues. Family members with heart attacks have been treated quickly. Once you are admitted care can be quite good. Anything less than life threatening and you are stuck in room of contagious people on hard chairs in pain and no recourse for ten hours often.
The exact one I’ve been on the waitlist for for two years. It is not private pay, it is by referral from your doctor only.
SFH starts in complete collapse, yet BC Housing enforcing a useless exam where the local authority doesn’t require permits!
“I’ve watched a bunch of your videos and will be watching more and more to get caught up. As I believe.i have to do the owner builder exam.
I have a property up north and it’s in the regional district of xxxxxxxxxxxxx. I’ve called the district office and the area where my land is – doesn’t require permits. It’s too far out of the way apparently – not in any town etc.
I’m hoping to start digging this year to build something.
Thanks so much and I appreciate your time!!”
I agreed with most of your post but was surprised you think access to urgent things in hospital is good, as I’ve found the opposite. Sure, I guess if you walk in with a gunshot wound to the head you will have good access, but anything much short of that and you have the 6-8 hour horrible, debilitating wait that makes you want to just leave and suffer the health consequences. I think the day-to-day doctor access I could get through telehealth or urgent care clinic is badly insufficient in terms of continuity of care, but there’s nothing like a visit to the emergency department to hit you over the head with the realization that our whole system is just third-world broken. Just my view.
Imagine how easy your research would have been now with AI. Doctors are human like every one else, actually most of them aren’t that intelligent in the first place, just have a good memory. That’s why a lot of them are horrible with money and have trouble retiring comfortably at a decent age.
Yes, in Victoria there is an excellent skin clinic for yearly screening and treatment. Private pay. State of the art – mole mapping etc.
https://www.victoriaskincancerscreening.com/
My point was exactly as I stated in my first sentence, which is repeated here.
“ Well that’s my point, in that you need to ALSO have a health practitioner in Canada to “bring these records back to”.
It doesn’t sound like you disagree with that, and you pointed out that you have practitioner options in BC (e.g. your NP and ‘ telehealth or a walk in clinic’ ), so I’m happy to leave it there.
You don’t. You can follow up through telehealth or a walk in clinic with results requiring medically necessary treatment. It’s not great care or continuity but you will get treatment based on urgency. Not sure what your point is. Don’t get tested or screened when you can if you don’t have a doctor?
Odd and pompous attitude. I’m not going to another family doctor to challenge my doctors advice. I’m getting tests and specialist consults I can’t get in Canada or can’t get within a reasonable time and paying privately for this which saves the system money. My NP gave me a list of recommendations for this purpose.
In terms of second opinions, there is zero chance I won’t seek this out if I have concerns. Foolish not to given the stakes. And the only way to do this currently seems to be abroad.
FWIW my husband was told by a specialist in Victoria that his life altering condition was not treatable, he had to live with it, and was dismissive of his questions. We researched and found this was incorrect advice. He had it successfully treated in Amsterdam seven years ago.
If you want to be proactive about your health, I suggest getting in to see a dermatologist. It will probably take over a year but once you’re in, keep a yearly appointment. If you go over a year, you have to start the process all over again. When you get older, all sorts of things appear on your skin, and some can be deadly. Start in your 50’s. He’s the only doctor I see, I avoid GPs like the plague, and rarely take any medication which my dermatologist finds unusual.
And when do we have expect AI to disrupt the family doctor scam?
.>.> If you receive care or testing outside Canada, you can bring those records back to your health care practitioner
Well that’s my point, in that you need to ALSO have a health practitioner in Canada to “bring these records back to”.
Also, when you do this you may discover that many Canadian doctors don’t respond well to patients who have multiple unaffiliated primary care doctors, and may be dismissive to your “doctor shopping” Malaysian reports. They’ve got a long waiting list of patients with NO doctor, and don’t have time for patients who treat them as “an extra doctor”. I say this from decades of experience working in medicine. Not all, but a typical Canadian doctor expects you to follow their advice and doesn’t want to hear “well I went to another family doctor and they disagree”. You may hear them simply say “well I think you should go to them from now on. Bye”
I haven’t found it to be true that I can easily get all the medical services I want in BC. Some are good, like access to mammograms and really urgent things in hospital. Dentists are a whole different free market easily available category unless you are trying to get services covered by the government.
Recent data indicate that approximately 1.2 million British Columbians are waiting to see a specialist. The Consultant Specialists of BC, in partnership with Doctors of BC, surveyed 1,000 specialists and described the situation as a “waitlist crisis that is severely compromising the health and well-being of British Columbians.” The trend has been worsening rather than improving.
Given that context, a dismissive or blasé response does not reflect the harsh and life-threatening realities many patients are facing. https://globalnews.ca/news/10987687/bc-specialist-wait-list-survey/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Also, private clinics like La Vie can offer longer appointments, preventive testing, and faster access to certain wellness or non-insured services. But they can’t legally sell quicker access to publicly insured hospital care or jump you ahead on specialist wait lists for medically necessary services. And some of those waitlists are super long. I know people who have gone to the states for treatment at a huge cost rather than wait years on these lists for a hip replacement or not have access to the best treatment in life-threatening circumstances.
If you receive care or testing outside Canada, you can bring those records back to your health care practitioner – most Asian countries give you it electronically. In Canada the practitioner can review the results, and decide whether any follow-up is medically necessary here. They can order additional tests if needed and refer you to specialists or hospital care within the public system. I don’t see the issue with prescriptions or medical continuity as if you have concerning results and medication or other treatment is medically necessary the doctor here can prescribe or make additional referrals.
Not for everyone of course but things are annoying/dysfunctional enough in Canada that I’m motivated to seek alternatives because health is a priority.
That’s exactly why these people aren’t happy and are publicly opposing these developments. If they had the financial means they would just move. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next government rolls back bill 44 now that vacancies are up.
You’ve discovered the issue, you’re not rich enough to buy the land next to you. Become more rich and then you can solve your own problems. Just don’t expect society to entertain your desire to control land you don’t own forever. That idea had a good run but it’s ending
You’ve discovered the issue, you’re not rich enough to buy the land next to you. Become more rich and then you can solve your own problems. Just don’t expect to society to entertain your desire to control land you don’t own
It’s crazy expensive. Not of money so much, but of time, which is the main thing that matters to me.
I don’t want to travel to Malaysia (not on my bucket list) and cool my heels in Kuala Lumpur getting tests and follow up
Can’t say I’ve looked into it. But a general doctor and a dentist, no problem.
When we’ve needed a specialist we’ve found we’ve gotten appointments with little issue so haven’t had the need to investigate alternate pathways on that
Yep, Marko can’t resist a deal and is there anyway so I get it, but you can easily get those services here. Obviously it will cost more
Having a gp helps but ya if u can’t c a specialist then the what the fruk. U would have to be a real putz to wait around for a freebie appointment, just buck up
> Malaysia is good for this and very affordable
Malaysia?….. No need to go out of country for private-pay medical care. There’s over 900 private clinics in Ontario, including GP, specialist and surgical care.
e.g. https://laviehealth.com/private-health-clinics-ontario-expert-care-for-your-well-being/
“ One of the frustrations with the public health system is the long wait to see specialists. Private health care clinics Ontario eliminate this issue by delivering faster access to specialized care, often available within days.
“From cardiology to dermatology, these clinics ensure that patients don’t have to endure delays that might worsen their conditions. For instance, La Vie Executive Health Centre is known for its network of expert specialists, strategically streamlining referrals and treatment plans.”
btw) no need to travel to Ontario either. there are private pay GP clinics in Victoria, and elsewhere in BC. I go to a great private-pay clinic in Vancouver for comprehensive care.
Going to a Doctor in another country might seem like a good idea, until you realize that you can’t fill your prescriptions in Canada, and he can’t refer you to specialists or hospital care in Canada – you’d be “starting again” if you get sick in Canada. Best to stick with a doctor in BC if you live here.
If you piss off enough home owners it will be curbed. That save or saanich group seems to have a pretty loud voice within the municipality.
Wouldn’t the SFH have a lower maximum height than the multiplex?
I haven’t seen too many neighbour properties severely impacted, but I have seen some for sure. The end-unit townhome on St. Patrick nicely overlooks the yard of the adjacent $2.5+ mill home -> https://maps.app.goo.gl/1y6q2ErasLz1pYNT7
If I was in the adjacent home I wouldn’t be super thrilled. That being said someone could also build a monstrostey of a SFH next door that impacts privacy as well.
Will be interesting to see which muncipalities curb missing middle (it can easily be curbed despite BIll 44, just see View Royal’s bylaws – 1,000 sq.ft. max per unit).
I am good rather not have that next to me if I can help it.
Speaking of the BC NDP introducing policies to encourage purpose-built construction, looks like they are doing the opposite -> https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/homebuilders-real-estate-experts-thrown-by-provinces-tax-plan-for-housing-11895395
I think the missing middle impacts of no parking are real and foreseeable and should be managed well in advance through a permit system (anyone with a vehicle needs a permit including tenants), or a requirement for off-street parking in many areas.
For the rest, we’ve had issues with barking dogs at a nearby SFH, but no issues with noise from the condos or plexes nearby. I think multi-family can be quieter than SFH because other occupants of the same building are going to complain. We are not Mexico or VIetnam, people don’t spend much time outside their homes in general and we have noise bylaws that can be enforced.
Also, there are very expensive SFHs and condos built in dense areas. A lot of people want the amenities.
I think the tangible impacts are a bit overblown. Fix-plex (re-zoning before missing middle) built near my parents’ house 10 years ago and I’ve literally seen one person leaving the complex in 10 years and based on the MLS photos/sales kids have defintively lived in these units.
I live on a cul-de-sac with 500 units (majority larger 2-beds with lots of dog owners) and every day when I step out for a walk/run I barely see anyone. See Google Street View on a July day -> https://maps.app.goo.gl/nAXUHBTpGHnMt8f17
I then go down to the Songhees Walkway and 90% of the time I’ll pass no one getting to the walkway. 8% of the time I’ll pass one person/couple and 2% of the time I’ll pass two people/two couples.
Then sometimes on nice days I’ll film a YT content video while walking on the Songhees Walkway and during the entire video I’ll pass no one, example -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PGos-FSFA0
In my opinion, I little missing middle density is not going to impact anyone’s life in a tangible manner.
It’s not “fine” if you have been on the list nearly five years
De facto property tax is really a consumption tax, because it’s a tax on the use of RE based on its market value. The enhanced tax at the high end could be considered a luxury consumption tax.
It’s pretty far from a wealth tax, given that the portion of one’s net worth in one’s principal residence can range from many hundred per cent to well under 50%. What do you think it is for Jim Pattison or Chip WIlson?
Having said that, I would consider an actual wealth tax a bad idea. It would encourage all kinds of evasion legal and otherwise, and in particular would have negative effects if principal residences were exempted.
Many people in Victoria have been waiting for more than 5 years for a doctor. We eventually got one who was trained outside of Canada and is not very proficient or available – two weeks wait to see them – but there is no option to choose someone else. I pay privately for a nurse practitioner. I’ve been waiting two years for a dermatology referral btw. And yes, I checked, I’m on the list.
I’m with Marko, if you can afford it and are healthy enough to do it overseas medical is the way to go. You can choose your tests and have them done same day with results same or next day. Results requiring specialist referrals or treatment get speedy service too. Malaysia is good for this and very affordable. English is spoken and many of their physicians and specialists were trained in the US.
Good luck getting that removed in broadmead or dean park to build a multiplex. The neighbors will take you to court the minute you submit a permit to Saanich wanting to do that.
I wouldn’t want that next to me or around me and I bet most home owners wouldn’t. Why would I want 4 families next door instead of one? Almost certainly more noise, more cars plus a bigger and higher structure possibly blocking sunlight and looking into my house/yard. Why do you think all the expensive homes have tons of privacy and no bullshit adjacent to them?
Twice now I’ve been at the St. Patrick townhomes and both times boomers walking their dogs stopped and looking at the project in disgust commenting.
How sad and boring is your life where a three story multiplexes triggers you…you could just continue walking your dog down to McNeil Bay.
As my parents live on Scott Street parallel to Shelbourne there is now very little parking on their block (city put in bike lanes on Shelbourne so those people now park on Scott). As a result my parents now use their driveway more often to park. The tenant and I park 30 seconds away on Ryan Street. Life goes on, it’s not the end of the world. I don’t think my parents have ever commented on it. I get a few more steps parking a bit further away.
I get it people don’t like change but the world is not ending.
But like give me something tangible on the provincial level in terms of policy. For example, on the COV level they have put in policies if you are building a rental you need less parking.
The province could use a lot of different levers like you get a PTT rebate on the land acquisition if you get a building permit for a rental within two years, etc.
Feds have done all the heavy lifting by waiving GST on rentals, CMHC, etc. It’s not by random luck that for the first time ever in history of BC more rentals than strata units were built.
Then add reduced immigration and magically rents are coming down.
Btw Leo, what are your long term market thoughts going forward in terms of housing being built going forward mostly being rental? Does that put upward pressure on prices (in terms of purchasing) in 10, 15, 20 years?
1919 Sooke Rd recently had a “single family home only” restrictive covenant removed from title but I can’t find the court case. Same covenant was registered to a track of homes in the area, not sure if removed on all of them or just the one property.
Why is it stupid? It does it’s job of preserving the look and feel of a neighborhood as originally envisioned by the developer. People buying there would also know exactly what they are getting into.
Province needs to find a way to scrap those. Totally stupid system.
“ Coquitlam Coun. Craig Hodge said by email that property owners in an entire Coquitlam neighbourhood that was built in the 1960s have been unable to assemble and redevelop their properties because the original builder of the single-family homes is no longer alive to remove a covenant on the titles.”
Luckily new ones are basically not allowed
“ local governments should not pursue new covenants or statutory building schemes that would prevent densification under the new legislation, though such covenants could still be requested for health, safety, and the protection of the natural environment.”
https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/restrictive-covenants-not-wiped-out-by-new-bc-housing-law-province-9348885
Lol missing middle freak outs on save our saanich. Hopefully now it’s clear why restrictive covenants is a valuable tool for a master planned community.
BC wildly outbuilt ontario on Strata too. This isn’t even close. There has been a pretty focused effort on lots more rentals across both municipalities and the province for quite a few years. (chart is completions per 1000ppl)
Yup that was never achievable
And suspension of funding too.
https://todayinbc.com/2026/02/18/b-c-quietly-suspends-major-affordable-housing-fund-leaving-proponents-holding-the-bag/
In Vancouver you need around $4/sqft for rent to make a highrise rental viable given current market conditions.
This year will be interesting in terms of housing starts. SFH/strata have slowed and now rents are dropping too which may put some purpose-built rental projects on hold as well. Somehow I don’t think we will be trending towards Carney’s 500k/year in 2026.
Exactly what provincial policy has put BC in better shape? I would think there are many other market factors in play beyond provincial policy such as Ontario has 10s of thousands of strata units under construction; therefore, even if you are doing a purpose-built project you have to take that into consideration in terms of potential vacancy rates in your proforma, etc.
Sure there is missing middle legislation but doubt that has brought more than a few hundred rentals to market. I guess BC Housing partnering with developers to bring projects to market (sale and rental) and that’s been a complete sh1t so for all the ones I am aware of -> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/affordable-home-vivid-problems-1.7136152
Let’s say I need a pediatric dermatologist, how would I go about getting one privately if I am willing to pay?
Of course not. But BC is doing a lot better with rental construction than Ontario despite them having access to the same CMHC loans. Lots of factors of course but provincial policy matters.
Cost aside (obviously cheaper overseas), it’s very easy to get a doctor here if you want to pay. You don’t think wealthy folks are waiting outside the walk in clinic…
Oblio, was that a work email, and who wrote it
That is likely true, but allowing our current government to draft laws & negotiate would be swinging the pendulum far to the other side of fair. As an example of the perspective within government, take a look at this suffix on a Patient Care Quality Office email:
*I respectfully acknowledge the privilege I have of residing on the stolen traditional territories of the SNUNEYMUXW people…
Here on the Island, we have the Douglas treaties, covering significant portions of some of the most settled land. If you really look into it, most of those treaties were done for laughable consideration with native groups that at that time probably had very little idea of what they were really signing and were perhaps doing so under some duress – I don’t know, but in this modern age, it seems kind of ludicrous that the end result of whether we do or do not have private property rights is going to come down to whether we happen to live in a part of the Island ceded for a few hundred British pounds and/or equivalent goods. Nevertheless, that’s the road we’re going down if we keep accepting as a society that these issues should be solved by the Courts.
Personally I doubt these Douglas treaties represented full, fair, peer-to-peer treaties. But at the same time, I also don’t think the various Indigenous peoples (around 5% of the population in BC if you rely on their self-identification as such, and apparently with the Cowichan at around 5,500 people representing the biggest group) should be able to perhaps end up holding hostage private property ownership or land development in a Province of almost 6 million people. We need government leadership to break through this knot, not relying on the Courts and their piecemeal adjudication of never-ending claims for the next hundred years based on reading of the tea-leaves of history to “solve” anything. As a society, we should accept the reality that “we” took this land from the people that were here, and decide what’s an “ok reasonable way” to address that & true historical grievances without ceding more and more of our Province or development rights to a minute proportion of the population.
In my view again, our government is failing us here, and the constant land acknowledgements and things of that nature at any event or dealings with any gov’t institution are not contributing to reconciliation so much as growing expectations destined to result in greater conflict. This is not the way forward without a clear plan that treats everyone fairly.
We have our share of issues, but I think BC will do relatively well.
But a significant issue we have here, and this is in part a “real estate issue” worth considering, is a lack of treaties with the Indigenous people. Here again, I don’t think Eby’s approach has been useful. You could argue his enshrining of DRIPA into law, the giant title recognition to Haida Gwaii (and then saying it serves as a “template” – like, really??), then enshrining it constitutionally, and then the vetoes granted to various indigenous groups over mining etc. etc. have only encouraged the mess of indigenous land claims in Richmond and elsewhere, challenging the very notion of private property.
Do you remember voting for any of that?
And is that what you want to see for our province? Because if so, we will not be able to move forward.
Eby cannot be blamed for all of this, but in my view he’s been leading us more into a morass and again cannot be trusted to get us out of it.
Do we get 26,000 purpose-built rentals built in BC last year without CMHC? -> https://www.bchousing.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/New-Homes-Registry-Report-January-2026.pdf
I tried, gave up and now I get everything done overseas. Top notch service, cheap, and I can see a specialist within a couple of days. Every year I get a full physical examination for 300 euros (full bloodwork, tumor markers, Abdomen US, carotid CD-US, examination by ophthalmologist, clinical examination, etc.). You see four different specialists in one clinic in less than two hours and then an internist writes up a report and goes over it with you.
Dental work also dirt cheap compared to here and we are talking state of the art clinics with dentists with expeience abroad. I just had a dental implant installed over New Years holidays for a small fraction of the quote in Victoria and this is my dentists bio
“Dr. Bago has been an “opinion leader” for Neodent implants by the Straumann company since 2015 and continuously conducts educational sessions and workshops for other dental medicine doctors. He is a guest lecturer at various conferences in Croatia and abroad. He continually advances his knowledge through various professional courses, mainly abroad, including the “Master’s Program in Esthetic Dentistry” at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the “Cadaver Course” at the Medical University of Vienna titled “Implant Dentistry and Anatomy.”
No, capital doesn’t run up the tab that much as only the interest expenses hit the operating budget. Depreciation comes only after the projects are completed and they are amortized over 30 plus years.
Mostly lots of capital spending.
Did you get on the list? After our GP retired it didn’t take us long to get connected to a clinic. Been fine.
Wouldn’t be so sure about that one. Ontario has managed to squander the same economic conditions and CMHC programs. Haven’t looked into it in detail but last time I did BC was doing a lot better on construction rates.
Go woke go broke is a real thing unfortunately.
That’s the thing, taxes keep going up and I haven’t had a GP in over 10 years.
Add CMHC for purpose-built rentals, yet another thing nothing to do with the BC NDP.
What’s worse is they’ve ran up the huge tab without any visible improvements in the quality of life for most people. They are trying to take credit for house prices and rents declining but that’s mainly due to macro economic forces and immigration policies. Without those the STR ban and the blanket zoning would not have moved the needle one bit.
I think the taxes one pay should to a degree dictate how much their vote counts as they are the ones funding the system.
That’s the conclusion I had the minute I saw him in those protest videos during the 2010 Olympics.
Great hockey game Canada squeaked out a win over Czechia 4-3. They had to comeback to win in overtime.
I’ve never liked any NDP government. All they know is spend, spend, spend. Anyone who supports them is a loser looking for handouts.
Horgan did a good job, but ya eby really is a loser. I think Canada as a whole is on its way to greater prosperity but I think b.c will get left behind unfortunately. We have a host of problems here that will not be going away any time soon . If u own a business or are an investor of substance it would be wise to shuffle the cards away from b.c , as opportunity will lay elsewhere
That’s certainly one way to go, but the enhanced property taxation is already effectively a wealth tax, and our progressive income taxation already has the wealthiest paying by far the highest overall tax burden, so at what level is it “fair enough”?
I don’t know if these numbers are correct, but according to the internet, the top 20% income earners in BC already pay 65% of all personal income taxes and 57% of total taxes collected by all 3 levels of government in BC, while the middle 20% pay 10% of personal income taxes and 13% of total taxes (and the bottom 20% apparently pay less than 1% of personal income taxes and 1.7% of total taxes). Still not fair enough? As far as I’m concerned, I’m tapped out, thanks.
It’s always really easy to say hey, let’s just tax the rich more. It’s certainly the tried & true method, but let’s not bother with the pretense of saying “fairness” has much to do with it.
Ultimately, there’s no getting around the simple fact that the current government under its current leadership inherited a sound fiscal position and managed in an extremely short time to run up deficits that all agree are totally unsustainable. The answer to that is not the tired tax-the-rich approach, it’s to get rid of this government. They simply can’t be trusted to right this ship.
And yeah, we all have our biases, including me, but this isn’t about conservative vs. socialist – I was fine with John Horgan and his policy decisions, and outcomes. This guy now is just off the rails and cannot be reasonably expected to rein himself in.
Don’t they have to hire thousands of health care workers to fix healthcare?
Also seems like a tool that motivates people to proactively quit and look for greener pastures elsewhere.
No but it will decrease the overall payroll compared to what typically happens.
Drastically reducing chances for a promotion. However, that won’t negate the 3% per annum. It just means the actual increased costs won’t be (much) more than 3%. Any union staff already at the top of their pay scale will still get 3% more $ next year, the year after and the year after
Looks like they did a bunch of other things limiting promotional opportunities so they would negate some of that 3% raise.
Getting rid of 15,000 will be a meaningful savings, order of 1.5 billion dollars. On the other hand it will be more than cancelled out by the 3% per annum raises that government agreed to and that will likely be replicated across the public sector
It is unfair for current income earners to shoulder high taxes while also struggling with high rent or mortgage payments. A wealth tax could be an alternative approach for the government to help balance the budget and reduce excessive or discretionary spending.
Agree. But political calculus is at odds with good government. They gave everyone a tax cut by cancelling the carbon tax and forgot to increase other taxes to compensate. Now we have structural deficits with no clear plan to reduce them. Cutting a couple public sector jobs isn’t even a rounding error
When the Home owner Grant program was created, the vast majority of homes were well below the threshold, so almost every homeowner received the full grant. It functioned as a broad affordability measure. As prices rose, the province periodically raised the threshold, but not fast enough to keep pace with real estate inflation, especially in Metro Vancouver.
The result:
A program meant to be “universal for homeowners” became selective by accident. In the 1990s, it could meaningfully offset a homeowner’s tax bill. Today, it’s a modest reduction on a much larger number. Equivalent to one to two trips to CostCo.
A politically sensitive relic that no government wants to eliminate. Any government that eliminates it will be chalenged by the opposition to bring it back in the next election. It’s the classic fate of legacy programs: too small to matter, too symbolic to kill. Eventually it will fade and become irrelevant.
>>> give everyone an income tax cut.
With a $13.3 billion deficit, and forecasts to stay that way for foreseeable future…. may as well forget about the idea of “tax cuts for everyone”
It would torpedo their election chances but yes. The grant is silly. Even if they do it revenue neutral, kill the homeowner grant, give everyone an income tax cut.
Dude with a $4m uplands house gonna move to Calgary? Doubt it. That’s the advantage of taxing land over other forms of wealth. Land is much harder to move.
>> they could just get rid of the nonsense homeowners grant
Agreed. That’s costs BC $1 billion per year that they need to borrow, and our kids will have to pay it back some day.
Sure but rather than all these boutique tax rates they could just get rid of the nonsense homeowners grant. I’d 100% support that IF they made equivalent cuts to income tax
Patrick, agree that won’t fly . Wealth would just leave
>> Better to tax property than incomes. Overall we should cut income taxes and increase property taxes. Can’t hide property, and we want to encourage income
If they wanted to do that, they could have taxed all property, not just piling on taxes to “foreigners with vacant homes ” or “homes over $4 million”. That will generate very little tax revenue. And probably will motivate some rich (job creating) people to move away or not come to BC in the first place.
Hmm maybe still a chance of a no confidence vote ? Conservatives will have to act fast .
Better to tax property than incomes. Overall we should cut income taxes and increase property taxes. Can’t hide property, and we want to encourage income.
Anyone with a home assessed at $4m+will see property taxes rise by an additional $8,000+ per year. (additional 0.2% of assessed value).
A foreigner owned “vacant” home subject to spec tax will now be spec taxed at an absurd 4% of value per year ($40k spec tax on a $1 million home). Most examples I’ve seen of people caught up by that tax are not simply “foreigners” – rather they complicated situations either people moving to Canada or living in the home but one spouse not being Canadian etc.
Lots of goodies in this budget 🙂 If 5% PTT above $3 million wasn’t enough here is a bit extra once you take possession
“B.C. is increasing the Additional School Tax rates from 0.2% to 0.3% for property values between $3 million and $4 million, and from 0.4% to 0.6% for property values above $4 million, effective for the 2027 tax year.”
New loans only it says
In only 4 years, Eby govt has taken BC from a balanced budget (2022-23) to a $13.3 billion deficit.
Fraser Institute calls that a “Disastrous Record”
“ After inheriting a balanced budget from his predecessor John Horgan in 2022/23, Eby quickly ramped up spending to new record levels, running large budget deficits and accumulating debt at an unprecedented pace. In 2026/27, the Eby government is set to record the largest projected budget deficit on record at $13.3 billion”
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/bc-government-continues-disastrous-record-2026-budget
Re deferring your property taxes
Anybody know if this is retroactive? Not some thing I was doing but I would be some ticked if I had been doing this and they changed it retroactively.
BC govt figured out how to generate revenue from the spec tax program from people whose homes are not vacant. Anyone filing the declaration one or more days late will now be charged $250 (per property).
“ Starting Jan. 1, 2027, the BC government will introduce a non-refundable $250 late fee for homeowners who fail to file their Speculation and Vacancy Tax declaration by the [March 31] deadline. ”
I’d predict a couple more years of stagnation. But don’t wait for ever. History shows that these periods of price stagnation (when nobody wants to buy) are the time to buy. Recent example 2011-2014
Taxpayer-supported debt to GDP ratio to climb from 26% this year to 37% – 2029
This is not an austerity budget that’s for sure
Wellll governments don’t really mean what they say , they just throw crap out there . But that is one eye watering deficit with no end in sight
This is what the brains in the provincial government predict (provincewide)
15000 over the broader public sector (including health auth, schools, crown corps). About a 3% cut to that very large number
2500 in the core public service (basically ministries and a few agencies) . The budget says core public service is at 37500 now, so roughly 7% cut over the next 3 years. Not nothing, but not at all draconian either. They aim to achieve a lot of that by strengthening the hiring freeze and counting on attrition. Also offering very modest early retirement for excluded (non-union) staff.
BC Budget:
Changing the interest rate structure for the Property Tax Deferment Program from simple to compound and adopting a prime plus 2% rate for new loans.
So now the deferment goes from 2.45% simple interest (great deal) to 6.45% compound. Basically phasing out the property tax deferment program without actually phasing it out. Good idea IMO. Rich homeowners can already access cash using a reverse mortgage. Zero point in the government subsidizing this.
In diserable areas and lots of the core specifically. Given the mostly older stock there and most teardowns there will be replaced by missing middle and you don’t want a SFH adjacent to those so even less inventory for true good SFH in those areas.
bc budget out, 15,000 jobs to be cut over 3 years.
New SFH collapse continues -> https://www.bchousing.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/New-Homes-Registry-Report-January-2026.pdf
Last year was the fewest new SFHs started on record and Jan 2026 is a big dropped in relation to Jan 2025.
Jan 2025 – 489 SFHs
Jan 2026 – 314 SFHs
Broken record, but if a SFH is something you aspire to own one day I would definitely buyer sooner than later.
So where does the consultant come in? It’s not difficult to access plans for any construction project, you shouldn’t need a consultant to show you what buttons to press. Unless of course you’re that stupid. Getting someone to do the work is a much larger problem.
There still needs to be some human in charge, putting it together and maintaining it. By analogy, AI can tell someone how to build a deck, but they still need someone to build it. (Unless they’re Frank, who can DIY).
Assume the target is a dentist office or a restaurant. They might poke around with chatGPT and get some ideas. But they likely don’t have the time or interest to actually implement and maintain the software/hardware required. As I’m sure you know, things change very quickly with AI, and there’s lots of potential downside. For example, customer data needs to be protected properly. I doubt that the average dentist or restaurant owner is going to implement something substantial themselves.
Can’t AI provide better consultant expertise than any human?
> The real question in my mind is how do we help our kids not be immediately obsolete when they’re ready to join the work force.
One area in high demand right now is “AI consultant”. To help businesses transition from AI experimentation to implementation. AI consultant is considered a ‘high leverage, high income’ opportunity. Requires a combination of skills, bridging the gap between AI technology, cyber/data safety and business needs. Not many people can do all that.
The Manitoba NDP are way ahead of creating AI bureaucracy. See below.
Build Canada Homes Act February 5, 2026
https://www.youtube.com/live/795iux_j2no?si=qux2SF_VviuWI1cZ
The legislation tackles Canada’s housing shortage squarely from the supply side, and it does so by improving the economics for the people who actually build homes by putting more money into their pockets. The model leans heavily on private equity, REITs, and other institutional investors, creating more opportunities for them to take equity positions in new developments
The logic is straightforward: if you want more units, you need more capital willing to take on construction risk. The Act is designed to pull that capital in by making development more financially attractive and more scalable.
I wouldn’t expect home prices to fall in the near term. In most major Canadian cities, demand for new housing suitable for end users remains highly elastic. This is a long‑horizon capacity‑building strategy, not an immediate affordability fix.
A core problem with a build‑new‑homes strategy is that it does almost nothing for the resale market, which is far larger, far more active, and far more influential in setting overall price levels.
New construction adds capacity at the margins, but the resale market is where most households actually transact, where most price discovery occurs, and where affordability pressure is felt most acutely. When policy heavily incentivizes new‑build activity, it inevitably reshapes the competitive landscape for existing homes.
If buyers are drawn toward new product—because of financing incentives, institutional capital, or simply the appeal of modern construction—the resale market absorbs that shift.
The effect isn’t immediate price erosion, but it can soften demand at the edges: longer days on market, more selective buyers, and a wider spread between well‑maintained homes and aging stock. In other words, incentives aimed at stimulating new supply can have a downstream influence on existing home prices, not by flooding the market, but by subtly redistributing buyer attention and altering the balance between old and new inventory.
In the unlikely event that our robot slaves take over all our work, those will still be useful skills to make their life of leisure more meaningful.
Will need to do a 14-billion-dollar study first followed by another new ministry to oversee AI implementation in a inclusive and environmentally friendly manner.
Industry and business will be rapid deployers of AI. Ultimately reducing the work force. You know who won’t be? The Government.
Victoria Real Estate Board
February 16th, 2026
Month Feb Feb
Year 2026 2025
New Unconditional Sales 249 528
New Listings 570 1,154
Active Listings 2,722 2,631
I am predicting 520 sales for the month of February, ore matching last year +/-.
As far as Active Listing predicting we end the month at 2,875 +/- or approx 250 more than last year.
We are focusing on languages, sports, music/arts, travel, and being adaptable. Just being fluent in multiple languages has opened a ton of doors for our household. Not for tangible reasons, but when you can speak to someone in their own language and know their culture, etc., they are more likely to do business with you. My partner works for a pharmaceutical company which was bought out by a big global generic drug player and she got a job promotion right away as she was able to communicate with their team in their language, versus everyone else had to revert to English (the entire team from the global company speaks English so it isn’t a tangible issue, but there is that human connection). AI won’t be able to replace the human connection, imo.
Similar concept in terms of sports. I was at a listing presentation last week where the sellers have tickets for a couple of world cup games in Canada/U.S. and they cheer for a particular country and were happy I could name a few of their players 🙂 They were also in Russian in 2018 for the world cup and so was I so right away you have a bit of a talking point about Kaliningrad.
Also, I can’t see staple jobs like nursing, plumbing, etc., going extinct in my lifetime. I can’t see Elon’s robot plumber coming to replace plumbing on the 17th floor of my building. Seems like too much could go wrong there for the time being.
I had autopilot on my Tesla more than 10 years ago and even thought I don’t know much about automated driving it was obvious this would be a massive engineering challenge. Tesla has now given me maybe 4 or 5 30-day free trials in 11 years of ownership and I am still not feeling it with the latest one. I felt like I was going to die every time at the Cedar Hill/Cook Street Intersection while on full self driving.
I’ve been using it to read title covenants and easements and I am impressed!
Certainly doesn’t look like we are moving towards Carney’s 500,000/year.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/cmhc-reports-january-housing-starts-142342391.html
>> Ironic that the programmers were so confident they could automate driving, which turned out to be a substantially harder problem to solve than automating programming.
And now we have Elon musk making similar wild (and dubious) predictions about how fast he’s going to develop, “within 4 years” robots that will perform any surgery better than any human surgeon. And four years from now he will tell us that it’s turned out to be a harder problem than he expected.
True that.
Vicre, not just yet, retirement gives me the hebeez
Aren’t you trying to retire anyways?
Groot, meh robotic sheathing stations have been around for a few years already . They are very low tech and I wouldn’t call ai. Some will do just nailing of 2x4s together and others will do sheathing too. Too many prefab / modular companies that are fabricating all sorts of claims
“The real challenge for the next generation will be acquiring experience. The routine, foundational work that articling students once relied on to develop their instincts is increasingly being offloaded to AI. Yet that so‑called mundane work was never trivial — it was where judgment, pattern recognition, and confidence were built. Without it, we risk producing trainees who leap straight into complex matters without ever having mastered the basics.”
It’s this level of thinking that Matt Shumer is warning about. Wake the F**K Up! The only thing worse than being a lawyer today, is spending the $$ to become one in the future. All cognitive work performed by humans will be replaced by AI in a time frame that most of us cannot or will not comprehend.
It seems to be working in LA
https://youtu.be/WajPqtMH1GY?si=4qV1cyQcEGaMUZBD
Groot, there’s nothing today that’s moving the needle when it comes to building homes faster and cheaper. I think there is some room for ai but I couldn’t tell u where it will fit in .
AI and robotics will likely change the design and way we build houses. If AI can’t swing a hammer – we just get rid of the hammer.
https://youtube.com/shorts/mSQv_qBSly8?si=TZBJzZD3Bs4A61Fc
Too bad AI wasn’t around when our government wasted millions on an App during covid.
The real challenge for the next generation will be acquiring experience. The routine, foundational work that articling students once relied on to develop their instincts is increasingly being offloaded to AI. Yet that so‑called mundane work was never trivial — it was where judgment, pattern recognition, and confidence were built. Without it, we risk producing trainees who leap straight into complex matters without ever having mastered the basics.
I must be old cause I’m not seeing the big deal with ai, I’m sure it will effect some folks but it hasn’t learned to swing a hammer and I’m not sure if it ever will. I’m guessing I’m safe for along time
Some of those currently in the workforce should worry that for themselves first.
Leo, not sure what model you are using but I would strongly encourage everyone to wake up, humanity has entered the singularity. The excerpt below is from a essay written last week by Matt Shumer, called “Something big is happening.” From this post the stock market reacted violently last week, taking down software companies and even commercial real estate companies.
“I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job. I describe what I want built, in plain English, and it just… appears. Not a rough draft I need to fix. The finished thing. I tell the AI what I want, walk away from my computer for four hours, and come back to find the work done. Done well, done better than I would have done it myself, with no corrections needed. A couple of months ago, I was going back and forth with the AI, guiding it, making edits. Now I just describe the outcome and leave.
Let me give you an example so you can understand what this actually looks like in practice. I’ll tell the AI: “I want to build this app. Here’s what it should do, here’s roughly what it should look like. Figure out the user flow, the design, all of it.” And it does. It writes tens of thousands of lines of code. Then, and this is the part that would have been unthinkable a year ago, it opens the app itself. It clicks through the buttons. It tests the features. It uses the app the way a person would. If it doesn’t like how something looks or feels, it goes back and changes it, on its own. It iterates, like a developer would, fixing and refining until it’s satisfied. Only once it has decided the app meets its own standards does it come back to me and say: “It’s ready for you to test.” And when I test it, it’s usually perfect.
I’m not exaggerating. That is what my Monday looked like this week.”
Even belligerent humans can be replaced:
“AI Bot Gets Mad at Human for Rejecting its Code, Writes Scathing Blog Post”
https://mishtalk.com/economics/ai-bot-gets-mad-at-human-for-rejecting-its-code-writes-scathing-blog-post/
Pay-walled original:
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/when-ai-bots-start-bullying-humans-even-silicon-valley-gets-rattled-0adb04f1?mod=hp_lista_pos1%27%27
I needed my sewer roto rooted yesterday, $400. It’s hard work. Tell your kids to get off their asses.
As I type this Claude is working away on my other monitor. It’s bananas. The real question in my mind is how do we help our kids not be immediately obsolete when they’re ready to join the work force.
Sounds like we’ve invented a higher “life” form, making humans unnecessary. Probably better for the environment.
One year ago AI was a useful coding tool that still regularly screwed up something basic when asked to write more than about 20-30 lines of code at a time.
Today on average it’s probably better at coding than I am. I’m still needed to think about the bigger design problems and requirements, but I wouldn’t be at all confident that it won’t take over much of that in the next year.
Pretty wild to watch this all unfold in real time.
This video is over 10 years old and still probably the best overview of what is happening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Ironic that the programmers were so confident they could automate driving, which turned out to be a substantially harder problem to solve than automating programming.
I suppose BC Assessment will have to change their web site now regarding parking
https://info.bcassessment.ca/Services-products/Understanding-the-assessment-process/valuation-of-residential-strata-properties
You should market that. Something like x% of homes sold within x weeks within x% of asking price.
I try to as best as I can. Easier with condos than SFHs.
I was also a little shocked how little knowledge both the panel and BC Assessments appraisers had when it came to parking. Fortunately, I uploaded strata plans for each building (registered at BC Land Title) and had to guide them through it to explain how one can verify if a unit has parking or not.
You would think they would get a crash course on different parking spot designations ((part of strata lot, LCP (limited common property), CP (common property, etc.)) and the difference and legalities between all of those.
After my explaination all three panels accepted my parking explaination and didn’t buy the BC non-sense that you can’t verify parking. It’s not that you can’t, it is that they don’t have the skillset to do so, or don’t want to. Not sure.
PARP (Property Assessment Review Panel) members are appointed by the Minister of Finance, not BC Assessment, and they operate independently. They are drawn from the public through an open application process.
BC Assessment can challenge a PARP ruling. The next level is the Property Assessment Appeal Board (PAAB), which is the second and final level of appeal. PAAB is an independent tribunal staffed by professionals with appraisal and assessment expertise.
https://langleyadvancetimes.com/2025/11/24/ai-hallucinations-mar-land-assessment-case/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/artificial-intelligence-appeal-property-9.6950415
It’s frustrating when the panel doesn’t seem to understand their own mandate
Right so you are only taking on realistic sellers where some other agents don’t have that luxury.
Assuming minimum level of competency is met 95% of the equation is the price. The next second biggest factor after price would be is the unit tenanted or not; however, you can compensate for this by lowering the price further (if tenanted).
I’ll list pretty much anything, but I have more business coming in than I have time to service so I can be honest with sellers about the market and pricing. I don’t have to buy listings by suggesting unrealistic asking prices. It can backfire thought. I told a seller downtown last spring $399k. They went with a different agent at 500k (weren’t happy with my opinion obviously) and now 9 months later they are down to close to 399k asking price with the same agent they started with at 500k.
are you taking listings only in good units or are you just pricing them to market better than the other agents?
Had multiple parties waiting to see if that accepted offer would go unconditional or not so there was lots of interest at that price. Near new concrete in that location is pretty rare (the only similar building, Bowker by Abstract, is wood-framed).
The quality stuff (outside of immediate downtown) is selling. Three sales in my building in the last few weeks and very strong prices imo.
I have a few other condos with accepted offers and crazy thing is I have listings moving in buildings where nothing else is selling and my cooperating commission is the lowest of all the units listed in those buildings. It is mind boggling to me that sellers aren’t seaking out lower commission real estate services! Clearly buyers just want to buy the best unit they see fit and aren’t concerned with how much the seller is paying in real estate fees.
@Marko, your having some good luck with your condo listings. I can’t believe someone paid the 699 ask for that oakbay avenue one.
There are global pandemics every year. They just stopped weaponizing them against the public.
I encountered an unusual parking‑stall issue during the COVID period. A purchaser had entered into a pre‑construction contract that included an assigned parking stall. Before the transaction completed, the developer unilaterally substituted a different stall—one positioned beside a concrete pillar in such a way that the owner could not physically park his truck in it.
As I recall, the parking stall number does not appear on Title; it is referenced only in the Contract of Purchase and Sale. In this instance, the strata lot number shown on the plans for the substituted stall did not correspond to the strata lot number associated with his condominium unit.
Three panel hears this morning….certain helps when BC Assesments has half their information wrong
Next two went well
Assessment $381,000 – my ask $345,000 – panel decision: 345,000
Successfully lowered all six I challenged, three settled over phone prior to panel.
Everyone I interacted with at BC Assessments very nice in terms of communication, but the system as a whole is a disaster. They tried telling the panel(s) they don’t account for parking as difficult to verify so I uploaded the strata plans as evidence and was like…”hmmm, not difficult to verify, just look at the strata plan that is readily available at BC Land Title and BC Assessments.”
The short answer is that we are in a post pandemic market.
Why start in 2022? The shortage of SFH has been going on longer than that. Just look at Leo’s SFH price chart above (10X price change over 55 years).
Or simply note that 2019 SFH median was $855,000 and has risen 50% since then .
Here are the annual nominal median sold prices for single family homes in the core .
2022- $1,292,500
2023- $1,255,250
2024- $1,250,000
2025 -$1,268,250
That’s a flat-to-slightly-declining nominal trend over four years.
In real terms (after inflation), it’s even softer
If prices aren’t rising, then by definition the market is not behaving as if there’s a shortage.
So when someone still claims “undersupply,” they’re often using a moral or political definition, not an economic one:
-“There aren’t enough homes for the type of society we want.”
-“There aren’t enough homes at the prices we wish existed.”
-“There aren’t enough homes for the population we expect in the future.”
Those may be valid policy concerns, but they’re not market shortages.
If th price is compelling enough then some of us who are looking for additional investment properties will consider condos.
I note that your analysis is of “condos”. But then you conclude with a statement about “homeowners”. Almost all “homeowners” on HHV are owning/looking for SFH. As I see it, there is currently an undersupply of what people want (SFH), and an oversupply of what they don’t want (multi-units).
Borrowing Leo’s “hotdog” metaphor. We are making more “hotdogs”, but people want “steak”.
lots of discussions from public sectors employees on reddit: they are putting their money back to the stocks/ alternatives/ mainly in the US and euro market if they have access/roots there.
I also noticed lots of developers are selling their project/land …. still asking more than what the buyer would transact at….
I am moving most of cash to euro dollars now…
It would be great if Leo can update the sales to assessment chart. In the last couple of years it has shown average sales to assessments ratios being remarkably stable and very close to 100%. If there is movement on that chart that would be HHV breaking news.
The Real Estate Board has released the new assessments, and the last 90 days of downtown condo sales show a range from 66% to 122% of assessed value. It looks chaotic at first glance, but most of that volatility comes from court‑ordered sales and units recently updated.
Once you remove those outliers, the picture is far more consistent: roughly 80% of downtown condo sales over the past three months have closed at about 90% of their assessed value, give or take 10%.
For years, homeowners have been conditioned to believe that assessments always trail market value. That’s no longer the case.
Literally every day. I have a condo right now listed for 700k and the assessment is 864k. I also have an accepted offer with buyers at 220k over assessment and it’s a great deal imo.
It’s all over the place.
This flip/resale looks like it might have actually made money, pretty rare in the current market.
https://housesigma.com/bc/saanich-real-estate/9-942-boulderwood-rise/home/wJKR7P8QVGv7XeLP?id_listing=JKdOYrBG96qY54lW&utm_campaign=listing&utm_source=user-share&utm_medium=desktop&ign=
This is a surprising amount to me! I know that assessments aren’t well correlated with actual market prices, but do people here regularly see house/condo sales that are way below their assessments?
Same thing as people complaining about how grocery prices outpace raises and somehow they are now poorer. Stupid argument.
Short answer pretty much, they have to value the assets regularly and eventually they will have to mark to market and it just flows through as a loss if the current value is lower. Some REITS can hold off writing down assets for awhile with creative appraisals and accounting but if the downturn is prolonged they will have to do it eventually. But looks like it could be reading below their current NAV so it could be a good entry point if you think the bottom is in.
I’m with you, Watcher. What I’d really like to see now is a period where expenses settle down, returns come back in line with comparable investments, and we get a couple of steady years of price appreciation.
989 Johnson has one of the lowest strata fees for what it is in Victoria. Strata fees have gone up across the board.
A lot of landlords complain about strata fee and property tax increases outpacing the maximum you are allowed to increase the rent which is true, but not in terms of absolute terms.
I have a condo I bought in 2011 where the strata fees have approximately doubled from $150 to $300 and the rent has gone from $1,150 to $1,850 so it hasn’t doubled but the cashflow has increased substantially even with strata fees and property taxes having outpaced rent (% wise). Strata fees went up $150 per month while rent went up $700 per month.
There appears to be a reasonable market for around 500k 2 bed 2 bath livable in the core in a building without any large special assessments coming up.
I’ve also sold quite a few condos in the last 12 months to out of towners buying for UVIC kids. I would have thought that market segment would be dead with vacancy rates going up and the on campus housing.
the strata fee has gone up over the years on 989.. 0.51/sqft now(from 30 cent when it was first built/market’d) -that’s not a long time ago to me.. I used to own small units and renting them out and made a little money on them( the renters were international students and paying consistently). one of them brought her mom with her from Toronto when I interviewed/DD them(DD.) 2nd year, her mom rented my 2nd unit- lived there quite long time after the gal graduated from UVic. The out-of-town( including out of province and international) have deep pockets.
sold one them to a gov employee who makes around 100k +, she moved here from toronto as well… it’s funny how local housing live on out of province money/high skill workers… locals seems are not interested in making lots of money but just getting by with what they got already..
~~~
I will not buying back again this time as the strata fee has gone up so much and I do not think I can put min. equity to make cash flow positive..
~~~~
Unless it drops done to low 300s for 1 bed at that location..( homeless are getting into the underground parking all the time and I hate saying that but I seen it too often..)
BC Assessment just cancelled another panel hearing of mine (was supposed to be tomorrow morning). Appraiser phoned me and we settled it. This particular property I asked for 570k lower and we agreed on 470k lower which I am happy with as last year I asked for 700k and the panel met me in the middle at 350k. It would appear the BC Assessments appraisers are reviewing owner uploaded evidence to the ” PARP Online Evidence” system and if it makes sense phoning the day before the panel to settle. Appraiser today was really nice and applied good logic to the situation.
Tomorrow I do have a panel hearing where the appraiser removed the best and most obvious comparable from her argument so that one will be interesting.
Looks like real estate is in a lot more trouble than we expect. Probably sitting on vacant, defunct AirBnB units.
VicREanalyst, I don’t follow this sector -> https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/allied-properties-units-fall-reports-155724701.html
Soft commercial rents to blame for a drop this big?
I thought I did well with Sienna Senior Living, but looking at the space companies like Extendicare Inc up 125% in the last 12 months, what da. Did invent a robot to take care of the elderly.
Finally something intelligent from you 😉
https://realestatemagazine.ca/failed-home-purchase-leads-to-1-8m-judgment-against-buyer/
Appraisers don’t know how to value a property when the market is hot. How are they supposed to put an accurate value on a property when the market is weak? Especially in that price range.
Failed home purchase leads to $1.8M judgment against buyer
-An Ontario court ordered a buyer to pay $1.8 million in damages after failing to complete an $8.3-million property purchase in Mississauga, rejecting arguments that the seller failed to mitigate losses.
-The court found the seller took reasonable steps to resell the property in a declining market and that the buyer failed to provide evidence, such as an appraisal, to support the mitigation defence.
-The decision underscores the high burden on buyers to prove a lack of mitigation and the significant financial risks of walking away from a deal.
An appraisal wouldn’t have “saved” the buyer, but it would have armed them with the only kind of ammunition courts actually respect: objective, contemporaneous evidence of market value at the time of breach. If the appraisal said the property was worth, say, $7.8M at breach, and the seller resold for $7.0M, the buyer could argue:
In a rising market, most purchasers never grasp how critical an appraisal can be. By the time it arrives, the deal is effectively done—financing is approved, sentiment is optimistic, and the appraisal becomes a formality, the final checkbox before closing.
But in a softening or declining market, the entire sequence flips.
The appraisal moves from the back of the file to the front of the deal, and its importance becomes structural rather than ceremonial. It becomes the buyer’s first and sometimes only safeguard: the objective measure of value in a market where prices are no longer self‑validating.
When values are slipping, lenders tighten, comparables age poorly, and the appraisal becomes the anchor that determines whether financing holds, whether the contract price is defensible, and—if the deal collapses—whether the buyer has any evidentiary footing in a mitigation dispute.
In short: in a rising market, the appraisal is a footnote.
In a declining market, it’s the buyer’s shield.
Another missing middle sale at 900k, still a townhouse style unit though.
Sounds a lot better than following in your footsteps and becoming the next “renter king”
“If that promise breaks, the entire logic of the investment breaks with it. A homeowner will endure a downturn.
A REIT, private equity fund, or large landlord will not.”
Especially when the market is producing returns elsewhere. Even some of my peers earning good incomes would rather put their hard earned after-tax dollars into an index than a residence that comes with a monthly vig.
A two‑bed, two‑bath condo at 500k is a solid find. My only hesitation with anything 15+ years old is that many of the major building components start approaching end‑of‑life once you hit the 20–25‑year mark — roofs, membranes, boilers, elevators, parkade membranes, siding systems, windows, the whole list.
To be clear, the issue isn’t the age itself. It’s the unfunded age.
The real question is whether any of that work has already been completed and how well the reserve fund is positioned for what’s left. That’s the part worth paying attention to if you’re aiming to become the next Condo King.
Not surprised as at that price point you are likely cashflow neutral as an investor also.
I sold the adjacent mirror image loft for more previously, but the market has softened.
Super weird market. Listed a different condo and we had five offers on it. There appears to be a reasonable market for around 500k 2 bed 2 bath livable in the core in a building without any large special assessments coming up.
I’ve also sold quite a few condos in the last 12 months to out of towners buying for UVIC kids. I would have thought that market segment would be dead with vacancy rates going up and the on campus housing.
Nice sale at 989 Johnson @Marko, surprised you were able to get that much for that 1 bed loft thing with no views. Is that the highest price fetched for a 1 bedroom outside of the penthouse units?
Why have rents become very important to the housing market?
A few decades ago, housing was primarily shelter. Most people bought a home to live in it, and the rental market was a small, secondary layer made up of basement suites and a handful of investor‑owned houses.
That’s changed. As home values began rising faster than incomes, housing shifted from a consumption good to a wealth‑building tool. Once appreciation became predictable, housing stopped being just a place to live and became a financial instrument — something to leverage, trade, and hold as part of a portfolio.
That shift drew in institutional players who treat housing the way they treat any other asset class: optimize yield, protect valuation, scale operations. Their presence didn’t create the financialization of housing; it accelerated a trend already underway.
The result is the market we have today: housing as shelter and housing as investment coexisting in the same space, often with competing priorities.
And that may become a problem if rents continue to decline. In a financialized housing market, the value of an investment property is no longer anchored to replacement cost or local incomes. It’s anchored to the discounted cash flow of expected rents. In many markets, the purchase price–to–rent ratio is so stretched that the only path to profitability is future rent growth. Investors weren’t buying yield; they were buying the promise of yield.
If that promise breaks, the entire logic of the investment breaks with it. A homeowner will endure a downturn.
A REIT, private equity fund, or large landlord will not.
With a large wave of new Purpose‑Built Rentals coming to market, the rental landscape has become much harder to explain. We’re no longer dealing with a single rental market but two distinct data sets: one for the pre‑1980 apartment stock and another for the newly built PBR buildings.
These two segments behave differently and respond to market pressures in fundamentally different ways. Older buildings compete directly on price, so their advertised rents closely match what tenants actually pay. Newer PBRs, however, avoid lowering face rents and instead rely on incentives — often one or two months “free” — to drive lease‑up.
Those concessions distort the data. Each one must be interpreted to determine whether it represents a true rent reduction or simply a marketing tactic. Without adjusting for these incentives, blended rental statistics become noisy and misleading, masking what’s really happening on the ground.
But – we have to take what we get. No matter how imperfect the data might be.
Victoria rental prices fall for 16th straight month.
https://vicnews.com/2026/02/09/victoria-rental-prices-fall-for-16th-straight-month/
Bear mountain? Lol
Well, hopefully it stays soft for a bit. RENOs are almost done and I wouldn’t mind picking up another rec property while things are depressed.
Month Feb Feb
Year 2026 2025
New Unconditional Sales 122 528
New Listings 317 1,154
Active Listings 2,675 2,631
Sales have picked up and now are on pace with last year. Running about 300 more active listing than same time last year.
Latest BC Assessment update, they buckled on one by $160,000 (happy with that one) and that hearing is cancelled, but I still have five panel hearings this week. The $160,000 correction down to market value is a $860 savings on property taxes.
It could be worse. Sales to list ratio in Vancouver overall was 9% and their overall months of inventory hit 11 apparently!
“With the current strong level of inventory and fewer sales, the overall market in January rested on the threshold between balanced and a buyer’s market,” notes Chair Kyne. “A single month does not promise a long-term trend, but this does mean that January offered a good amount of selection for buyers and more defined outcomes for sellers. Our market area is small but diverse, and consists of many micro-markets, all of which have their own specific market conditions. This means that some areas may be in balance, while others may trend to a buyer’s market… ”
-Victoria Real Estate Board Chair Fergus Kyne
“Affordability challenges facing many households today extend well beyond housing costs alone,” said Baldev Gill, CEO of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board. “Rising day-to-day expenses, combined with wages
that have not kept pace, have created significant financial pressure. As a result, potential buyers are choosing to be more circumspect with respect to purchasing decisions and are working with REALTORS® to
develop timing strategies that meet their long-term objectives.”
“On their own, the January sales appear alarming, but it’s important to put these figures in the context of the past few years. Last year ended with one of the lowest sales totals in over two decades, and so it’s not surprising that the January sales figures were fourth slowest in over two decades as well. Market momentum is a slowly evolving force, and in many ways, the January figures represent a market that continues slowly evolving to what may be a new normal.”
-Andrew Lis, GVR chief economist and vice-president data analytics
You can try for a rancher with appropriate land and hard scaping or detached townhouse. I can’t imagine anyone going detached to sharing walls unless they are super elderly and need care.
Your previous post specifically said you don’t want to do the yard work……
Yes, it was actually HHV that planted that idea in our heads — selling the SFH and then renting for a while (perhaps with a storage unit), both to avoid the frantic rush of buying and selling simultaneously and to make sure we like the new lifestyle/community. So if you notice that SFH home prices have abruptly jumped 15% you can say “ahh, Mooselessness must have sold and switched to renting.” 😉
A few people in the previous thread recommended 55+ communities, which are something that hadn’t been on my radar, but I’ll check them out more closely.
Also, VicREanalyst asked if we couldn’t just outsource yard work — yep and we have done so in the past. I just meant that as we windowshop, a big manicured yard is a more of a minus than a plus for us, and thus not something we want to pay a premium for.