Part of the Solution

Welcome to the inaugural edition of LOCUS. It’s the first of a number of initiatives we intend to undertake in the coming year to ensure our voice, representing over 5,000 REALTORS® from the Fraser Valley, is included in the dialogue and debate surrounding housing and real estate issues across our province.

Real estate has always been a hot topic in these parts—try and think of the last time someone at a social gathering you attended didn’t mention a new record home price in the neighbourhood or exorbitant rents. But over the last several years, the conversation has shifted from something anecdotal to something more urgent. Home prices trend higher in BC compared to other jurisdictions, but the perfect storm of the pandemic, rapid interest rate hikes and dwindling inventory has seen the situation enter crisis mode. We see it throughout the province. The Fraser Valley has always been a region where the real estate dollar could go further, but that’s changing: five years ago the ‘benchmark price’ for a detached home in the Fraser Valley was sixty per cent of that in Greater Vancouver. Today it’s around seventy-five per cent. Unaffordability is the Achilles heel of economic and social well-being for the province.

As the Minister of Housing, Ravi Kahlon, infers in this issue’s interview (p.8), the magnitude of the crisis is greater than any single entity can address. All stakeholders must pull together to solve one of the biggest threats to face this province in recent decades. As real estate professionals we need to be part of the solution. Yes, we owe it to our members, but more crucially, we owe it to the citizens we serve, and for a viable, affordable future for the next generations.