What are rentals like in Vancouver, BC?

July 7, 2005 6:34 PM

My mom is interested in moving to Vancouver, BC. She would like to know about the housing market there: what are rents like? Are there a lot of rentals available? What are rentals like? Houses or apartments, yards, ect. Any information about finding a place to live there would be great!
posted by slimslowslider to home & garden (7 comments total)

The housing market is nutty and the average detached house in Vancouver goes for around $500k. If she's willing to live an hour or so outside the city it gets more affordable. I'd say average rent for your typical contractor-beige one bedroom apartment is $750 - 850 a month anywhere in the city. The rental market has tightened up a lot lately, and it's rarely pro-renter. However, it's certainly not impossible. Your best bet here is craigslist or the Vancouver Sun classifieds. Hope that helps. This page of real estate reports will help in researching housing values.
posted by Salmonberry at 8:17 PM on July 7, 2005

Vancouver housing market blog.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:26 AM on July 8, 2005

The Greater Vancouver area has a ton of "basement suites" - I have never come across another city with so many of them. We rented a 1000+ sq. ft. basement suite in a gorgeous new home for $750/month. then we rented a first-floor suite (the first floor of a house, the owner lived upstairs) for $700/month. Both were outside of Vancouver, in the Langley/Walnut Grove area, which I would recommend. It's a good balance between being not too far from downtown, but far enough that it's not all urban. The beach (White Rock/Crescent) is about a 15 minute drive which is nice.

The Abbotsford area is nice, too, and the rent is often quite a bit cheaper (500-700 range). You're close to mountains and the area is gorgeous, though it's farther away from Vancouver, hence the lower rent.

The yards are typically small, even away from the city (at least smaller that I'm used to being from the midwest U.S.).

If you're looking for a place right in Vancouver, or pretty close to it, then craigslist/Vancouver Sun are good places to look. If you'd like to get a little further out from the city, check Langley Times (classifieds>rentals) or VanNet Classifieds.

I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me.
posted by shawnmk at 7:54 AM on July 8, 2005

Having just moved back to Toronto from Vancouver a couple of months ago, I can recommend an awesome landlord in the West End (NOT West Vancouver; I couldn't sell enough body parts to live out there). I was a student, so the actual accomodations may not be to your mother's liking (I thought it was a great, spacious studio apartment, but it's no condo unit, though they're putting a gym in), but my landlords were the exception to the rule, "Everyone has a story about a great West End landlord, but it's never their own." If you're interested, drop me a line (website's in the profile which leads to email).

As for the rental market in general, the rule is that lots of apartments pop up on the market... and then promptly disappear. But it seems to be pretty easy to rent almost any time of the year, so long as you're not too picky (otherwise you'll wait a long time for the "perfect" place). Good neighbourhoods to live in include South Granville (a fair amount of good boutique shopping but no nightlife), Kitsilano (see above, but more upscale/yuppie), the West End (the highest-density neighbourhood in Canada, but you'd never know it to live there because it's so lush) and Commercial Drive (cleaned up recently, probably a better bet for those willing to put up with a bit of grunge).

If you're looking to buy, all I can say is that there are a hell of a lot of condos going up in Coal Harbour and Yaletown these days. This probably indicates a seller's market (but isn't everything in real estate these days?) but also quite a few options should you proceed down than route. You won't find many houses downtown; they're scattered through the southern and eastern neighbourhoods. There are also quite a few cute low-rise condos out there; my friend has one not too far from West 4th in Kitsilano.

On preview, shawnmk's right on re: the outlying areas of Greater Vancouver. But watch the traffic; Langley's an hour out from the downtown core, and White Rock's even worse. Plus the transit system isn't as robust as, say, Toronto's, so you're looking at greatly diminished service outside rush hour. Hence the beauty of living close to downtown—you can walk everywhere, and yet avoid most of the downsides of living in an urban core because it's Vancouver (very good air quality, not too bad for noise, 15 minutes from Stanley Park).
posted by chrominance at 8:09 AM on July 8, 2005

More sites to check out:
Canada.com classifieds

BC Classifieds
posted by GeneticFreek at 9:09 AM on July 8, 2005

Having lived in Abbotsford, I have to counter it as a recommendation. You're way too far out from Vancouver to really drive in and out unless you're planning to make a day of it, the smog is awful in the summer and Abbotsford itself has zero to recommend it, unless your mom is big into church services. I wouldn't look any farther out from Langley and I'd consider that a reach.
posted by Salmonberry at 3:42 PM on July 9, 2005

Another recommendation from a Lower Mainlander is to live somewhere on the Skytrain line, since it is a convenient, and relatively frequent running, transit system. I live in Burnaby, and it's a 15-20 minute train ride into downtown, when I go. Rents and house prices go down (not much, but still) the farther you get from the center of town (with the exception of the downtown eastside, but I don't think your mom wants to live in the twilight zone).
posted by birdsquared at 11:03 PM on July 15, 2005