Bing Thom Architects recently published a blog post looking at the property values of single family homes in Vancouver. The data was taken from the City of Vancouver Open Data Catalogue and is based on British Columbia Assessment data.

The precise timing of the data is likely a bit off, but here’s how the city looked in 2015:

23% of single family homes in the city had an assessed value over $2 million.

A year later, this number increased 32% of all single family homes:

It’s interesting to see how divided the city is along Main Street. But the big takeaway – thanks to BTA – is that $2 million seems to be the new $1 million.

Conor Maguire introduced me to an interesting site today called Airbnb vs. Berlin. The site does a deep dive into Berlin’s Airbnb market with the hope of answering the question: Is Airbnb contributing to a shortage in affordable housing?

The site is very well done. It’s filled with lots of great market stats and diagrams such as this one here: 

Of course, the impetus for a site like this is that cities all around the world, from San Francisco to Berlin, are grappling with rising home prices. If you happen to live in a successful, growing city, that’s probably what is happening.

But when this happens, we seem to want to look for something or someone to blame. In San Francisco it’s the tech workers. They’re the ones driving up homes prices. In Vancouver, it’s the foreign Chinese buyers. And in Berlin, it’s those Airbnb users who are just out to make a profit. In all of these cases, we like to tell ourselves that if we could just get rid of “X”, everything would be much better. 

But I think sometimes we forget that this is also the result of doing many things right.

If Berlin wasn’t a brilliantly cool place to visit, then tourists wouldn’t come. And if tourists didn’t come, then Berlin wouldn’t have, by far, the largest Airbnb market in Germany. If Vancouver wasn’t one of the most enjoyable places in the world to live, you wouldn’t have the same attention from overseas buyers looking to snatch up properties. 

So in a way, we should be asking ourselves: How do we, as a city, manage our own awesomeness?

The other thing that Airbnb vs. Berlin reminded me of is the viewpoint that profits are some dirty little secret. I hear it all the time in the real estate development business. People will say: “That developer is just out to make money.” Of course she/he is! They operate a business. And like all for-profit businesses, one of the objectives – it may not be the only one – is to make money.

I say all this not as a direct response to the website. They remained fairly neutral in their analysis. Instead, I raise it as an alternate viewpoint in the seemingly universal battle against “X.”

In case you’re wondering about Berlin’s Airbnb market, the site estimates that there are roughly 11,701 Airbnb listings in the city out of a total of about 1.9 million flats. Of these listings, it is estimated that somewhere around 30% are by “professional users” who are only out to make a profit and are not participating in the “sharing economy” in its purest sense. That equates to about 0.18% of all Berlin flats.

Based on this number, I’d say that Berlin’s cool factor probably has a lot more to do with the city’s rising rents than do the profit seeking Airbnb users.

One aspect of the Toronto housing market that I’ve been paying close attention to is the adoption of multi-family dwellings by both long-term end-users and families. 

I’ve written about this before (here and here, over a year ago) and have argued that here in Toronto we are at an inflection point. Multi-family dwellings – both rental and condo – are evolving to now target these new customer segments. Whereas previously, the new construction multi-family housing market was heavily geared towards investors and first-buyers. And often it was simply a stepping stone towards a single family home.

Now, every city and real estate market is different. And I have heard many people in U.S. cities say that Millennials are simply deferring what we saw with previous generations. At the end of the day they (or we, I’m a Millennial) are going to move to the suburbs and buy that car. The current trends we are seeing around city living and reduced driving are just that – short-term current trends.

But I think it’s worth reiterating: I do not believe that the status quo is what’s happening right now in Toronto. And I’m sure it’s also happening elsewhere. Time and time again I speak to developers in this city who are starting to shift at least some, and in some cases all, of their focus towards end-users, families, and larger units – particularly for new mid-rise product in the “neighborhoods.”

And if you think about it, this makes perfect sense. 

The average price of a detached single family house in Toronto is well north of a million dollars. So when a developer brings to market a 1,200 sf family sized apartment at $600 psf ($720,000) or even at $700 psf ($840,000), that home now becomes a relatively “affordable” option in many desirable areas of the city. Particularly if you value location amenities and your time (i.e. shorter commutes) over raw quantity of space. I know I certainly do.

I know this isn’t going to appeal to everyone. But there is a big market here. Get ready.

What are you seeing in your city? Let us know in the comment section below.