City Spotlight
Vancouver’s Disappearing Single-Family Homes
There was a time when detached single-family homes made up the majority of Vancouver’s housing market. From budget-busting McMansions to the humble Vancouver special, detached homes used to be the default option in almost every neighborhood in the Lower Mainland outside of downtown and the West End.
T. Jones Group drastically transformed this Palm Springs-inspired Villa while upholding its architectural integrity to bring this home into the modern day.
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"Jeffs Residences, on Charles Street just off Commercial Drive] was a large old
house that was built in the 1900's, it happened to be sitting on a large site that was
quite under utilized relative to what you could build on the site ... Under the zoning
on the site you could have demolished everything and built 10 duplexes. But /
looked at it and I thought that first, there was this grand old house that had been
kind of butchered but still retained the essential fabric and form of the original
house, and there was an opportunity here with this under utilized site. I thought
maybe there was an opportunity to add some different forms of housing through a
Heritage Revitalization Agreement which was a policy tool the City had to
encourage Heritage Retention"
But between rising land costs, a rapidly-growing population and the drive towards densification, detached single-family homes are quickly becoming the unicorns of Vancouver real estate. Now, some experts think that they may be in danger of disappearing forever.
The current housing landscape
The biggest factor driving this dramatic change is the skyrocketing increase in housing prices over the last decade or so, which has made Vancouver the most expensive real estate market in Canada. While annual increases in value in the double-digit percentages has become almost commonplace for nearly every kind of housing in the Lower Mainland, no segment of the market has experienced a more dramatic rise in prices than the traditional detached house.
According to a recent report by Re/Max, detached single-family homes in Metro Vancouver increased in value by almost 38% between 2019 to 2023. This means a detached home that was bought in 2019 for $2 million would now be worth upwards of $2.75 million.
With that kind of rapid increase, even the idea of owning a detached single-family home is becoming unrealistic for the significant majority of Vancouverites. As a result, many new buyers have abandoned detached homes entirely in favour of more affordable options like townhouses, duplexes and condominiums.
But given how much the land that Vancouver’s existing detached homes are sitting on is now worth, more and more homeowners who are looking to list their homes for sale are getting together with their neighbours to create land assemblies – a process that lets homeowners combine multiple adjacent properties into a single listing that can be developed into condos or multiplex housing.
The impact of government policies and priorities
While the reasons for the dwindling stock of detached homes in Vancouver are both varied and complex (including everything from immigration rates and changing demographics to the geographical limitations that come with being nestled between the mountains and the ocean), one of the biggest recent drivers behind the trend is doubtless the recent push by the provincial government to enact new rules and policies to encourage greater densification throughout B.C.
B.C.’s new provincial Housing Plan, for instance, requires most of the province’s municipalities to make changes to their zoning and bylaws to allow developers to construct buildings of up to four or even six units on properties that used to be zoned strictly for single-family homes. In response to this new legislation, nearly all of the municipalities in the Lower Mainland have changed their zoning to allow multiplexes (or multi-unit buildings) to be constructed on properties that were previously zoned as single-family lots.
This past summer, for example, the City of Burnaby essentially did away with single-family zoning altogether, paving the way for any eligible detached lot or house to be redeveloped into small-scale multi-unit housing. And in Vancouver itself, City Council recently voted to allow for even greater density levels under the already-controversial Broadway Plan.
The City of Vancouver has also committed to reduce permitting times and fast-track the development timelines for many multiplex applications in 2025 through its newly-streamlined Development Building Permit pathway. The goal is to make it easier for developers to create more of the “missing idle housing” that is so desperately needed across the region.
The pros and cons of densification
The proponents of this drive towards densification say that, given Vancouver’s limited available land, growing population and affordability challenges, we simply have no choice but to build more homes for all the people who will be moving to our region over the next five, 10 or 25 years. And the reality is, multiplexes and condos can offer more homes – and more affordable options – in the same physical footprint than even the most modest detached house.
But of course, it wouldn’t be Vancouver if there wasn’t some spirited disagreement. According to the opponents of densification, many parts of the city just don’t have the services, transit and infrastructure in place that’s needed to keep those communities livable for the number of people who will be moving into all those new homes.
They also say that, with the loss of so many detached houses, the city will also lose some of the character and history that makes it such an attractive place for so many of us to call home.
What does it all mean for you?
Love it or hate it, it seems likely that the drive towards greater density – and the continuing scarcity of detached homes in Metro Vancouver – is here to stay for the foreseeable future. So whether you’re a homeowner or buyer, if you’re curious about how all this will affect you and your family, talk to your REALTOR®, or contact us for a free consultation.
