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Comment by Tiktaalik | Hacker News Reader

The average price of a detached home in Metro Vancouver (includes suburbs of Vancouver) in February was $1.76 million. That's down from $1.82 million a year earlier. 99.7% of properties in the City of Vancouver proper are valued at more than $1 million. The average price for a detached home in the City of Vancouver in 2016 was $2.77 million.

I've had some trouble finding closely comparable values but it seems like the median SF detached home price is ~$1 million. Even considering the exchange rate, it seems like Vancouver is more expensive.

Certainly when one compares typical incomes Vancouver is dramatically less affordable than San Francisco.

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Quick fact check returned this: "In all, 745 detached homes sold in Metro Vancouver last month, a massive 58.1 per cent drop from February 2016. The benchmark price for detached homes was $1,474,200, unchanged from the previous month but down 6.5 per cent from the past six months."[1]. Also [2].

And that's CAD, not USD. In USD it's $1,092,000. Still very expensive but not $1.76mln.

[1] http://news.buzzbuzzhome.com/2017/03/metro-vancouver-home-li... [2] http://www.vancourier.com/news/sales-average-detached-home-p...

Yeah those are "benchmark" prices, which is a special MLS measurement designed to value a "typical" home. I decided to ignore that valuation method and instead use average prices because I'm not sure if a similar or comparable measurement tool as the benchmark exists for SF home valuations.

http://www.rew.ca/news/benchmark-vs-average-vs-median-what-s...

The housing price has deflated substantially in the past year because of a one-two-punch of a foreign buyer's tax and the Chinese government cracking down on rich Chinese people smuggling their money out of the country into foreign real-estate systems.

Vancouver's market had a reputation of being driven by Chinese cash... and whether that's true or not, perception is reality when it comes to markets.

Are you only counting detached homes? There are very few of those in Vancouver proper. If there are any, they are mansions. Do the same comparison with condos? And apartments?

No you are very incorrect. 81% of the land area of the City of Vancouver is zoned for detached homes and most of these are simple, cheap post war houses or cheap 60s era "Vancouver Specials."

The houses in Vancouver are so crappy someone even made a joke quiz about it, in 2010, when the prices were a lot lower: http://www.crackshackormansion.com/

This is false. There are lots of small, old crappy houses in Vancouver. It's just that they cost a ridiculously large amount of money.

Here's a pretty typical example: https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/17409318/55...

Before you ask, no that's not even in a really desirable part of Vancouver.

That will cost you another million. See this as an example: https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/17850427/31...

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