Presented by some as Vancouver’s challenge to the Manhattan’s Soho, Yaletown is a thriving district which is emerging as an area for hot property deals thanks to its enthusiastic start-up culture and increased number of popular recreational service providers.
New Condominium Boom in Yelowtown
This is also due in no small part to its new immersion in condominium culture. With many new condo projects like, 1335 How (Onni), The Charleston(Onni) and 8X On The Park, both pre-sale condos, the emphasis is on uber-urban living spaces that provide proximity to social watering holes, new-age entertainment and recreational facilities, while also granting aesthetics of residence as high a priority as luxury. Yaletown, in other words, wants to live beautifully and busily, nudging its social spaces to rise up to the challenge.
This emphasis on aesthetics is by no means superficial and transient. Yaletown has always been a district careful of appearances and the impressions they generate. Real estate developments just prior to the current phase would focus on maintaining the old logic of stepping, adhering to the natural slope of the region and aligning heritage cornices with newer structures. For instance, Amacon’s project, the 118-150 Robson, proposes to rework the Northern Electric Company Building, a structure from Yaletown’s ‘heritage’ period as a warehouse district, into a new high-end structure offering above four thousand acres of commercial space, apart from 125 condominiums and a hotel.
Rise in Price/Square Feet
As for hard figures, the average cost for condos in Yaletown was last recorded in the range of $800 to $ 1000 per square foot, with one bedroom condos starting at $340,000, while the price of the average condo hovers around $555,000. After reaching an April ’17 peak of $890.000 in median price for condos, recent figures have stabilized in the sub-$830,000 region. And the fact of the neighborhood’s immersion is reflected in the fact that these figures are only slightly higher than the median figures for all housing in the same period.
A boom-buyer shift is imminent in Vancouver in general, and in sites such as the condo-rich Yaletown in particular, with millennial residents likely to stay while most of the residents who are older are planning moving out into smaller, even rural, areas, so long as they offer certain securities, such as focus on healthcare. Again, the millennial urge to stay on in Yaletown is down to its thriving youth culture, centered around new enterprises and the choicest varieties of recreational services. All of this, nonetheless, is leading to an alarming gap between sky-rocketing estate costs and relatively sluggish incomes.
But none of this stops the average millennial from either retaining condominium property in the area or purchasing new condo estate: listings for one- and two-bedroom condos dropped between April and June, while new listings for three bedroom condos increased by more than 50%. indicating both the relish with which customers lapped up relatively affordable condos, depleting demand, as well as the aspirational tendency for higher buys speculated by home-owners and property agents. All of which leads to a number of new pre-sale condos all with unique features: 1121 Seymour Residences, the Arc Vancouver, and 498 Drake Street, among others.
The condo wave, in other words, is still riding high.
