 | Saturday, February 06, 2021
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday. | | Home prices are back up, but the outrage hasn’t returned | | |  | | | Hey, remember when we used to talk about the price of housing a lot?
In the middle of the last decade, the average selling price of detached homes in Greater Vancouver surged from $1.2 million to $1.8 million in just 18 months.
The region has generally been expensive compared to the rest of Canada, and the rental market had also seen low vacancy rates for a while, but suddenly, something snapped.
Rallies started happening across Vancouver, with previously unknown people quickly becoming housing activists. Researchers and investigative journalists dug into what was behind the surge in prices. Local and provincial politicians, after initially defending their approach, started admitting there was a problem and created new taxes and regulations — though too late for their parties to hold onto power.
For a few years, housing prices did go down slightly. But according to data released this week, the benchmark price for homes across the board is now at record highs in the Fraser Valley and Greater Victoria, while the average price for detached homes — which can fluctuate more — is the third highest ever in Greater Vancouver and has risen for six months in a row.
In other words, we’re right back to where we started. But today, there’s no rallies, little outrage building on social media — and no politicians in hot water, or promising to make significant changes.
Why the change? Well, a few reasons.
The first obviously is the pandemic: it consumes everyone’s attention and energy, from politicians to the public, making any rallies or immediate change unlikely.
Another is that while detached home prices are up, more affordable apartments are still slightly down from their peak, and vacancy rates for rental apartments are up.
In other words, there’s less pressure at the lower end of the market right now than in 2015-2016, which is where much of the political pressure came from in the first place.
Yet perhaps the biggest reason is the change in governments. A lot of the people who were most critical about the rise in housing prices are now in positions of power and aren’t about to start criticizing themselves.
Meanwhile, the politicians on the outside are now more inclined to look at home prices through the lens of equity as much as affordability, or focus on different issues entirely, like crime or taxes or social issues.
Things might change — the price of detached homes could go down again, the rental market could stay relatively soft, and this six-month surge could be a short-term blip.
Or prices could continue to go up, and what looked like a watershed political moment for housing could end up being yet another cyclical chapter in a long story. | | |  | | | 1. Vancouver | Another housing debate could soon pick up steam, as Vancouver is beginning long-awaited consultations on the future of the South False Creek lands. It’s one of the biggest continuous areas of public housing in all of Metro Vancouver — with some of the most attractive views — a debate over status quo vs. more density may become inevitable. Meanwhile, the controversies around the NPA board continue.
Read more in the Globe and Mail | | | | |  | | | 2. New Westminster | Speaking of things that we used to talk about and now don’t, remember the debate over reducing police budgets? Well, it turned out virtually no B.C. politicians were interested in pursuing that, and now one of the two municipalities that looked at freezing the budget (Vancouver is the other) have done a U-Turn after pushback by the police board. We'll see where more consultation leads.
Read more | | | |  | | | 3. Cranbrook | One debate that does continue across the province is homeless shelters — hundreds of people turned up on Cranbrook’s council livestream as they eventually voted for a rezoning, allowing one near downtown. The mayor voted against and also got angry that Attorney General David Eby wrote a formal letter in favour of the project.
Read more in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman | | | | | |  | | | 4. Chilliwack | Advanced voting began this week in the most contentious school board byelection we’ve seen in quite a while, as it serves as a political litmus test given all the controversy in Chilliwack. Which may be why the leading progressive candidate in the race is under fire for a 2014 Miley Cyrus music video parody. Yes, it’s confusing.
Read more in the Chilliwack Progress | | | |  | | | 5. Pickleball! | Humour comes in many shapes and sizes, but one of its most fertile forms is the contrast between a group of people doing something you wouldn’t expect from them. Which is a roundabout way of saying we greatly enjoyed this story about city council figuring out what to do with complaints around rowdy late night pickleball players.
Read more in the Saanich News | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | | Check out the latest headlines at cbc.ca/bc and follow our municipal affairs reporter Justin McElroy on Twitter. And if you have any questions, you might want answered in a future mailbag, drop Justin a line at metromatters@cbc.ca. | | | |
