Metro Vancouver housing market leaving many feeling miserable, new poll finds

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The vast majority of people in the Metro Vancouver region believe home prices are unreasonably high, according to a new survey.

The situation has gotten so severe that the Housing Pain Index, a poll from the Angus Reid Institute, finds most people are falling into categories labelled “uncomfortable” or even “miserable.”

“It certainly continues to show that in Metro Vancouver housing pain is no longer a new phenomenon and turning into a way of life,” said Shachi Kurl, Angus Reid Institute president.

“It also shows that the ongoing dissatisfaction that British Columbians feel toward their provincial government on this file is not so much something that comes up election cycle to election cycle, but is also turning into a political way of life,” she added.

The pollster has found that 60 per cent of us identify as falling into one of those two aforementioned categories.

Nearly two in three people surveyed by Angus Reid as part of its Housing Pain Index say they feel 'uncomfortable' or 'miserable' about the situation in Metro Vancouver.
A significant percentage of people want to see the market drop by 30% or more.
We have details on @NEWS1130.

— Amanda Wawryk (@AmandaWawryk) April 7, 2021

Only about 15 per cent of respondents from across the region say they fall into the “happy” category, while about a quarter of people surveyed say they’re “comfortable.”

Kurl says when it comes to who is feeling what, the Housing Pain Index has found those who identify as “miserable” tend to be younger, lower-income earners.

“They are most likely among those four groups to be renters, and among those who do have a mortgage, and who own a home, or who are trying to pay off a home among this group, the miserable, they’re most likely to say that they’re feeling very squeezed and very pressured by the amount of the mortgage payment that they’re making,” she explained.

There is another side to this. The index has found there are a number of people who say they’re “doing okay” when it comes to housing and who aren’t feeling a lot of stress.

“These people tend to be older, they tend to be higher income, and — most importantly — they’re people who most likely purchased their home more than 15 years ago and have succeeded in paying it off,” Kurl noted.

“So when we talk about the haves and the have nots in Metro Vancouver, and indeed across the country, we’re talking about people who really are part of that demarcation line between having purchased their homes sort of pre-Olympics, or who are people feeling the realities of trying to rent in this market or get into this housing market since 2010,” she told NEWS 1130, adding we saw this happen over the past five or six years.

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It did cool down for a while, Kurl says, but she points out it’s come right back up.

Low interest rates and government relief measures are some of the factors in recent months that have had an impact on the housing market here, fuelling sales and interest.

Kurl notes nearly half of people surveyed in Metro Vancouver are hoping for a significant housing market decline.

“I think it shows that so many people want such a large reduction in terms of the average cost of homes — that’s what they’re hoping for, that’s what they’re hoping to see — certainly gives us some indication of, I think, some level of desperation,” she said.

March marked the hottest month on record for residential home sales across the region, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

In fact, home sales were 72.2 per cent higher than the 10-year home sales average for that month, with demand greatest in suburban and rural areas.

With demand still high, the market is showing no signs of slowing down across the Lower Mainland.