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The Vancouver Life Real Estate Podcast
The Vancouver Life Real Estate Podcast
Author: The Vancouver Life Real Estate Podcast
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© 2026 The Vancouver Life Real Estate Podcast
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The Vancouver Life podcast exists to educate, inspire, entertain, add value, challenge and ultimately provide guidance to its listeners when it comes to Vancouver Real Estate.
315 Episodes
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Affordability in Vancouver has improved by roughly 37% from its 2023 peak. Monthly mortgage payments on an average home have fallen by about $1,500, dropping from roughly $5,600 to $4,100. That’s a material shift, bringing affordability back to early-2022 levels. Historically, when affordability sat here, transaction volumes were meaningfully higher. While payments remain well above pre-pandemic norms, the direction of travel matters—and for buyers watching the market closely, this is the mos...
January delivered a sobering wake-up call for Greater Vancouver real estate. Sales volumes collapsed 29% year over year—on top of 2025 already being the weakest sales year in a quarter century. That makes this not just a slow start to the year, but one of the most severe demand contractions the market has faced in decades. Against that backdrop, this episode dives into the newly released February data to answer the question on everyone’s mind: how close are we to the bottom—and could 2026 act...
The Canadian real estate market is currently trapped in a fascinating, if not harrowing, contradiction. On one hand, we are witnessing a 35-year high in completed but unsold inventory, with 19,000 units sitting vacant as of last month—a staggering 52% above the long-term average. On the other, the British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) is sounding the alarm on a 27% price surge by 2032. To the casual observer, this looks like a market in collapse; to the seasoned analyst, it looks l...
The Canadian real estate landscape in early 2026 has officially entered a period of historic structural decoupling. As we analyze the data from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to Vancouver, the "demise of the pre-sale condo" is no longer a hyperbolic headline—it is a statistical reality. In the GTA, new condo sales have plummeted a staggering 95% from their 2021 peak, reaching a quarterly volume not seen since the third quarter of 1990. This 35-year low has triggered a wave of "capital flight"...
The real estate landscape heading into 2026 may be the most uncertain we’ve seen in decades. Rising unemployment, declining population growth, global trade tensions, expanding land claims, the risk of renewed rate hikes, falling prices, and record levels of completed but unsold inventory have created a fog over Canadian housing—especially in British Columbia. This episode sets out to unpack the economic forces now shaping the year ahead and offer clear-eyed predictions for what lies ahe...
Vancouver enters 2026 at a rare crossroads. Home prices have slipped to a three-year low, annual sales volumes have fallen to levels not seen in a quarter century, and yet Canadians brought a record number of homes to market in 2025. The disconnect between supply and demand is no longer theoretical—it’s visible across prices, borrowing behaviour, and broader economic indicators. Beneath the surface, household balance sheets are doing more of the heavy lifting. While transaction activity rem...
Every year, we make real estate predictions knowing full well they’re as much a reflection of the moment as they are a guess about the future—and 2025 proved just how quickly the ground can move beneath your feet. In this episode, we hold ourselves accountable and revisit the bold calls we made last January: what we nailed, what we completely missed, and what actually unfolded in Canada’s economy and housing market along the way. We start with the big economic drivers that were supposed to sh...
As we head into 2026, population is no longer just another economic talking point — it has become one of the single most powerful forces reshaping Canadian real estate & the economy. For the first time in modern history, Canada’s population is shrinking, and the effects are immediate and profound. Ontario and British Columbia — the country’s largest and most expensive markets — are now posting negative annual population growth for the first time ever. After years of record inflows, the pe...
As we close out 2025, the data coming across the wire is some of the most consequential Canada has seen in decades—and it is quietly rewriting the playbook for real estate in 2026. For the first time in modern history, Canada’s population is shrinking, not growing. At the same time, rental vacancy rates are climbing to multi-decade highs, rents are falling, developers are pulling back, and interest rates are no longer clearly on a path down. And yet, in what feels like a contradiction, headli...
It has been just 18 months since British Columbia launched Bill 44—the Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing (SSMUH) initiative—and already the landscape of urban development in the province has shifted in ways few could have predicted. Hundreds of multiplex permit applications have been submitted across B.C., the first wave of completed projects is beginning to emerge, and municipalities that once resisted density are now formally adopting the provincial framework. Just this week, the City of North...
Vancouver home prices have fallen for the 8th consecutive month, hitting their lowest level in 33 months. The December data confirms what many have felt for weeks: the market is cooling faster than most anticipated. Sales are slowing, inventory remains elevated, and both developers and institutional investors are feeling the strain. In this week’s report, we break down what’s driving this latest leg down — from stalled projects and falling rents to REIT dividend cuts, mortgage renewal pressur...
Canada is building homes at a record pace, but a closer look reveals a growing disconnect between what’s being constructed and what Canadians actually need, want, or can afford. While total units under construction sit at all-time highs, homeowner-oriented housing tells a very different story. Single-family home starts have fallen to levels not seen since 2009, even dipping below those of 25 years ago when adjusted for population growth. Over just three months, single-family starts are down m...
Canada’s housing market is being pulled in more directions than ever. Court cases, collapsing construction, political battles, and rising costs are all converging at once — and the result is a level of uncertainty we haven’t seen in years. This week, we’re breaking down what’s making headlines, what’s just noise, and what could materially reshape housing across B.C. We start in Port Coquitlam, where a decade-long Kwikwetlem land claim has resurfaced, putting major institutional sites from t...
For years, one of the driving narratives in Canadian real estate was deceptively simple: population growth equals home-price growth. Between 2021-2023, that tailwind was unmistakable — massive immigration, booming temporary residents, and a swelling demand for housing fueled price rises across the country. But that story is now changing. The latest federal budget from Ottawa projects zero population growth for the first time in modern history — a signal that the era of “Demographic Alpha” may...
Vancouver home prices just dropped for the seventh straight month, and the November stats paint a clear picture: momentum is fading, listings remain high, and the winter slowdown is now colliding with a wave of economic and policy turbulence. In this week’s episode, we break down everything from the federal budget fallout to land title uncertainty in B.C., and what all of it means for prices heading into 2026. Let’s start with Ottawa. The latest federal budget was pitched as a housing p...
This week on The Vancouver Life Real Estate Podcast — the Bank of Canada cuts rates again. But are we at the bottom of this cycle, or is another surprise still coming? As Ottawa gears up to unveil its massive 2026 federal budget, we break down how an $80 billion deficit could completely reshape Canada’s interest rate path and keep borrowing costs higher for longer. What does that mean for homebuyers, investors, and renters? We’ll unpack it all — from a slowing economy to a shifting housing pi...
According to the latest data from the Canadian Real Estate Association, national home sales declined by 1.7% month-over-month in September, ending a string of steady gains that began in the spring. Even so, this was still the strongest September for sales since 2021. On a year-over-year basis, transactions were up 5.2%, while both new listings and total active listings fell 0.8%. That left just 4.4 months of inventory available nationwide — the lowest level since January, and below the long-t...
Canada’s housing market is undergoing a fundamental transformation—not just in prices, but in the types of homes being built. From Toronto to Vancouver to Calgary, developers are hitting pause, construction starts are slowing, and the mix of housing completions over the next 3 to 5 years is shifting dramatically. Single-family homes and condos, the traditional pillars of Canadian homeownership, are seeing major declines in new construction, while purpose-built rentals are quietly surging to r...
This week on The Vancouver Life Real Estate Podcast, the question hanging over the entire country’s housing market finally takes center stage: How long will this downturn last? BMO Capital Markets has drawn a striking parallel between today’s Canadian correction and the U.S. housing crash of 2007 — a comparison that has rattled even the most seasoned market watchers. Senior Economist Robert Kavcic doesn’t mince words: Canada’s housing bubble is now in the slow-motion phase of its deflation. P...
Canada’s housing market is shifting faster than the headlines suggest—and not in one direction. On paper, “affordability” is improving as prices slip and the overnight rate eases to 2.5%, taking ownership costs back toward late-2021 levels. But the market isn’t responding like 2021 because confidence has fractured. Job openings fell 4.2% month-over-month, construction vacancies plunged 14.3% in a single month, and there are now more Canadians on EI (~550k) than there are job postings (~460k)....






















