Whether at a Squamish coffee shop, out for a hike up the Stawamus Chief or doing the downward dog in yoga class, sooner or later talk turns to the real estate market in the district.
From buying to selling to everything in between, housing is a hot commodity in Squamish.
It turns out there are plenty of facts to back up the chatter about a hot real estate market in the community hardwired for adventure.
In fact, Squamish is outperforming Metro Vancouver by a huge margin in terms of overall real-estate market combined figures.
In Metro Vancouver the total number of overall housing sales so far this year is up 17 per cent, while in Squamish sales are up 62 per cent, based on the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board area, according to Robyn Adamache, senior market analyst with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
“I would say it is fairly unusual,” Adamache said.
The total number of Squamish annual sales hasn’t broken 500 since 2007 when 679 units sold, yet this year, at the end of October, the total number of Multiple Listing Service sales in Squamish was already at 479.
Since 2007 the total number of sales for Squamish has often been below 400, Adamache said.
“This is looking like a pretty good year,” she said, adding it seems certain Squamish will easily surpass 500 units sold by the end of December.
The last few months there has been more demand than supply, but it can’t yet be called a “seller’s market,” though it is moving that direction.
“I would like to see a couple of quarters of consistent data before I would say it is a sellers market,” Adamache said.
The recent supply and demand imbalance may be raising prices in Squamish, but not dramatically.
According to Adamache, in Squamish there is an overall four per cent increase in prices and it is single detached homes that are driving that increase year over year.
The average price of a single detached home is up 10 per cent, townhouses are up two per cent and apartment condominiums have seen almost no change.
Yvon Sevigny just bought in Squamish and his story supports the figures.
“I felt that I was lucky to get a place there,” said Sevigny, who was in the midst of packing boxes in his home in Canmore, Alta, before heading to his new townhouse in downtown Squamish when he talked to The Squamish Chief by phone Friday (Nov. 28).
Sevigny got a job working for a company in Britannia Beach last month and immediately started looking for a townhouse in the district. He said he was surprised to find that the cost of homes in Squamish was lower than what he was used to seeing in Canmore, a community of about 12,000.
“The place I bought in Squamish is close to half the price I would have paid in Canmore,” Sevigny said.
He said though he got a good deal, there wasn’t a lot to choose from. “There were maybe five or six that fit my criteria,” he said. “I was very lucky. I feel sorry for the people coming in now.”
Sevigny’s Realtor, Lisa Ames, said he paid full price, $364,900 for his Eaglewind townhouse, and she said while there wasn’t a bidding war over the unit, there was some pressure to buy quickly.
“There were other people looking and only two units are left in the project,” she told The Squamish Chief by email.
Realtor Lisa Bjornson, who has sold homes in Squamish since 1990, said that buyers know their stuff and price
compare before they even call an agent.
“Buyers are very well educated,” said Bjornson, managing broker with Royal LePage, Black Tusk Realty.
Josef Sadowski and his wife Eva represent buyers who knew what they were looking for.
“We have been watching the real estate market since probably last fall,“ said Sadowski, who bought a condo in the downtown’s Marina Estates in the summer.
The Sadowskis are retired empty nesters who sold their $1-million-plus property in East Vancouver and downsized to a condo home to be mortgage free. They say they are avid outdoor adventurers and the move has made their dreams come true.
“I tell my friends it is so darn hard because in the morning I have to figure out what I am going to do today. Am I going to rock climb or kayak or am I going to mountain bike or hike, and I can do it all from my doorstep. It is a huge dilemma,” he said with a hearty laugh.
Bjornson said the vast majority of housing sales, 60 per cent, are internal moves within Squamish, while about 25 per cent are from the Lower Mainland, like the Sadowskis, about 10 per cent come from within the corridor and about five per cent come from other areas.
