Vancouver’s single family detached housing ‘quickly becoming a unicorn’

The increasingly unattainable single-family detached home is still the ideal for many buyers, but a new report suggests that style of housing is “quickly becoming a unicorn” in major urban markets like Vancouver.

The analysis from RE/MAX Canada points to everything from densification and infill housing to all the renovations Canadians made through the pandemic — almost $300 billion worth between 2019 and 2023 — which have helped push up prices.

The report argues those renovations are actually one of the most underestimated factors driving prices for single family detached homes across Canada.

RE/MAX Canada president Christopher Alexander says all of this is quickly turning single-family detached homes into a unicorn.

“Density has really increased in most urban centres in Canada, but especially in Vancouver and Toronto,” Alexander told 1130 NewsRadio. “A lot of properties are even looking at multi units within a single-detached so you have multiple families living in multiple units.”

“It’s been harder and harder to attain [single-family detached] and if you look over the horizon and into the future it is going to be more and more coveted.”

Alexander says that means the trend of increasing prices and scarcity will only continue.

“This is an evolution of our major cities. Most major world centres went through this a long time ago and it’s very rare a single-detached even exists,” he said.

“Look at New York, for example — they have those massive brownstones in Manhattan but there’s not a lot of detached, if any. I think over time, and with further densification and intensification, we are probably on the same pathway.”

Alexander calls it a monumental metamorphosis that will “unquestionably impact housing inventory and composition” for the next generations of homebuyers.

The report finds renovation, rehabilitation, and infill “continue unabated in Vancouver proper, with new buyers and existing homeowners embarking on renovation projects and builders looking to increase densification.”

It says the trend has been particularly evident in neighbourhoods in East Vancouver including Grandview, Renfrew, Napier and Hastings-Sunrise, where laneway homes and coach houses have proliferated, adding that the market is seeing more duplex, triplex and sixplex projects as builders move to fill the so-called missing middle.

“Much like the changing landscape itself, the policy framework that guides the evolution of the City of Vancouver is still taking shape, with growing pains evident in Canada’s largest markets. One thing, however, is certain: maximizing square footage and density on existing lots will continue to be a growing trend.”