It’s relatively tranquil and not used to seeing rapid change, but those days could soon be coming to an end. Like it or not, Tsawwassen and Ladner appear poised to become the region’s next red hot real estate market, transforming the community sooner rather than later, according to those in the real estate game.
Noting the desirability of South Delta will intensify due to a number of factors, including increasing population, stratospheric housing prices in Vancouver and Richmond, and limited supply here, real estate agent Fraser Elliott said he’s seeing many prospective buyers that wouldn’t have considered moving to the area even a year ago discovering South Delta.
“We’re going to continue attracting people out here from Richmond and Vancouver and a large portion of the buyers for homes in Ladner and Tsawwassen right now are coming from north of the Fraser River,” said Elliott, who has been the top realtor in South Delta for five years running. “I would say more than half of the buyers coming out are coming from Richmond and Vancouver. They’re getting a lot more value for their money and I predict it’s going to continue on this trend. We’re only five minutes across the river once the new crossing (bridge) is in.”
House prices in Ladner and Tsawwassen, as well as the rest of the Lower Mainland, continue their upward climb, according the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, noting July sales of homes jumped 30 per cent in the region compared to the same time last year. With about 5,000 to 6,000 fewer homes on the market compared to the number available five years ago, sales of detached homes in Metro Vancouver jumped by nearly 18 per cent last year, with the average price more than $1.14 million. In Ladner, the so-called “benchmark price” of a single detached home was $753,400, a 19 per cent increase from one year ago. In Tsawwassen, the benchmark was $892,200, up 20.4 per cent from 2014.
Noting the desirability of South Delta will intensify due to a number of factors, including increasing population, stratospheric housing prices in Vancouver and Richmond, and limited supply here, real estate agent Fraser Elliott said he’s seeing many prospective buyers that wouldn’t have considered moving to the area even a year ago discovering South Delta.
“We’re going to continue attracting people out here from Richmond and Vancouver and a large portion of the buyers for homes in Ladner and Tsawwassen right now are coming from north of the Fraser River,” said Elliott, who has been the top realtor in South Delta for five years running. “I would say more than half of the buyers coming out are coming from Richmond and Vancouver. They’re getting a lot more value for their money and I predict it’s going to continue on this trend. We’re only five minutes across the river once the new crossing (bridge) is in.”
House prices in Ladner and Tsawwassen, as well as the rest of the Lower Mainland, continue their upward climb, according the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, noting July sales of homes jumped 30 per cent in the region compared to the same time last year. With about 5,000 to 6,000 fewer homes on the market compared to the number available five years ago, sales of detached homes in Metro Vancouver jumped by nearly 18 per cent last year, with the average price more than $1.14 million. In Ladner, the so-called “benchmark price” of a single detached home was $753,400, a 19 per cent increase from one year ago. In Tsawwassen, the benchmark was $892,200, up 20.4 per cent from 2014.
Saying buyers should expect those sharp increases to likely continue, Elliott said people elsewhere in the region looking for better deals are finding them here.
“A lot of young families are coming out still finding it more affordable. It’s great value even at these prices compared to Richmond, if you can find it. And in Vancouver, you can’t even buy that size of lot,” he said. The landscape-changing mega malls at the Tsawwassen First Nation and a new bridge across the Fraser River will increase that desirability even more and are already drawing a lot of extra attention to South Delta, Elliott said.
Construction on the bridge to replace the antiquated George Massey Tunnel is slated to start in 2017, while the huge mall complex, which will rival the size of Burnaby’s Metrotown, is set to open in October of next year. Long-time South Delta agent Bob Chancey said it’s a given the added attention that will come with a new bridge and major malls will result in real estate prices being driven even higher. Adding to that, Chancey said, the limited supply in South Delta will make the existing product even more expensive.
“When demand picks up with the opening of the new malls, we will only have a limited amount of product with less than 14,000 houses,” he said. “Even with the development that’s coming in and what they’re building at the TFN, you’re still less than 18,000. That’s nothing.”
Thomas Davidoff, an assistant professor with the Sauder School of Business at UBC, said generally when a place is seen as a better substitute for a downtown, buyers will start seeing higher prices.
The price for living in a suburb will become less severe because the commute time is cut down, so more will prefer to live there, he said.
Don Campbell, a founding partner of the Real Estate Investment Network, a Langley-based company that provides housing market research, said the new bridge will do for South Delta what the Golden Ears and Port Mann bridges did for once quiet bedroom communities like Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, which are seeing big increases in development interest.
Campbell said it should be even more pronounced for South Delta with its proximity to Vancouver noting that doesn’t even take into account what the malls will do for real estate prices.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen: Right now we’re seeing a lot of jump-the-gun speculator buyers that are moving in. That’s what you’re seeing right now. Then it goes quiet for a while, then construction starts and it goes crazy again for a while. It might die down during the construction period and about a year after the bridge is complete you’ll see a lot of homeowners, who measure distance in time and not kilometres, say they’ll skip Richmond and go straight into Delta. “That’s going to be the fl ow in the next fi ve or six years,” he explained.
“People will fi nd that that Ladner corner of the world is a pretty amazing part of the Lower Mainland and it won’t be fl ying under the radar anymore. Most people don’t know about it and haven’t gone there and the tunnel has protected it amazingly well.” Campbell said his firm is in the process of doing an updated report on South Delta and what it’s already finding is that a change in outlook will be needed when it comes to densifi cation.
A red hot market for the bedroom community, which is pretty well built out, likely means a cavalcade of redevelopment applications. It’s a fact of life in the high-priced neighbouring cities of Richmond and Vancouver, but that change is on a collision course with the sensibilities of many of South Delta’s 50,000 residents.
Even in the past couple of years residents have appeared before municipal council arguing against higher density housing developments, as well as seemingly radical changes to area plans, saying they moved to the area because they prefer its lifestyle and character. Detached housing now makes up about 80 per cent of the stock, while apartments account for about 15 per cent and townhouses around five per cent. That spells bad news when it comes to future affordability, said Vancouver-based real estate agent and consultant Bob Bracken.
A South Delta resident, Bracken said the Corporation of Delta’s historic reluctance to allow more housing types has now left people stuck with an extremely limited supply that is constrained by the Agricultural Land Reserve. Delta had the chance to allow greater variety over the years but now fi nds itself built out with a limited supply that will drive up prices. The fact it’s predominately single-family houses with big yards will keep a lot of home buyers out of South Delta, Bracken said.
“Delta is not ready for what’s about to come. The problem we have down here is that the planning department is stuck in the ‘70s and basically all the major planning that’s happened in South Delta has been developerdriven. Century Group and Shato Holdings put forward projects and caused the planning department to follow them. They set the agenda with the projects they got approved and the Corporation of Delta’s planning department has had to scramble to keep up,” Bracken said. “What is lacking, in my opinion, in Tsawwassen, and a lesser extent Ladner, is affordable, semi-detached townhouse and rowhouse-type development which can be produced and sold at an entry level cost for young families” he said. “I don’t see any real evidence of real planning or anticipating the scale of growth and growth pressures that we are going to be under within five to 10 years.”
The “no growth” argument is an old one in Delta, which didn’t see its fi rst condo project built until 1969. Area homeowners fought hard to block passage of that zoning amendment and, later that year during a council discussion on a study on the effects of condominium housing, then-mayor Dugald Morrison remarked, “What most councils are afraid of is that they will become slums.”
Later that year, during a council debate about another condo proposal that was defeated, then-alderman Harold Savage warned, “Condominiums would mean five times the number of children per acre.” The arguments against higher density, which have created a division in the community, could still be heard with the more recent Southlands and Marina Gardens applications, which had their fair share of support and were eventually approved.
Still, many other projects that could provide much needed variety and affordability get a rough ride, showing how South Delta has the most entrenched NIMBY attitude in the Lower Mainland, said Bracken, who was a strong supporter of the Century Group’s Southlands proposal.
“We are going to see all kinds of opposition pressures because Tsawwassen is basically the NIMBY capital of Canada and nobody ever wants anything to change. Anyone on council who wanted densifi cation, that was basically the kiss of death. We’ve never really had the leadership and the planning department is caught between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “They’re caught between the NIMBY factor on one side and uninformed politicians on the other. So they rely on (Shato Holdings president) Ron Toigo and (Century Group president) Sean Hodgins to lead them and battle to get something built one way or the other.”
Mayor Lois Jackson, who has been on council since the early 1970s when Delta still had plenty of room to grow, said Richmond was very much like Delta in that they were both fishing and farming communities, but so much development and densifi cation in Richmond occurred so quickly many have said they had to get out. People moved to South Delta, and Ladner in particular, for the lifestyle because it reminded them of what Richmond used to be, she said. Jackson said she hopes that whatever changes come, future councils continue to stand firm on the farmland issue, including not allowing parcel splitting that would make them less viable. As far as speculators, the concern about them holding onto parcels of farmland hoping for redevelopment is not a new one, she added.
“A lot of young families are coming out still finding it more affordable. It’s great value even at these prices compared to Richmond, if you can find it. And in Vancouver, you can’t even buy that size of lot,” he said. The landscape-changing mega malls at the Tsawwassen First Nation and a new bridge across the Fraser River will increase that desirability even more and are already drawing a lot of extra attention to South Delta, Elliott said.
Construction on the bridge to replace the antiquated George Massey Tunnel is slated to start in 2017, while the huge mall complex, which will rival the size of Burnaby’s Metrotown, is set to open in October of next year. Long-time South Delta agent Bob Chancey said it’s a given the added attention that will come with a new bridge and major malls will result in real estate prices being driven even higher. Adding to that, Chancey said, the limited supply in South Delta will make the existing product even more expensive.
“When demand picks up with the opening of the new malls, we will only have a limited amount of product with less than 14,000 houses,” he said. “Even with the development that’s coming in and what they’re building at the TFN, you’re still less than 18,000. That’s nothing.”
Thomas Davidoff, an assistant professor with the Sauder School of Business at UBC, said generally when a place is seen as a better substitute for a downtown, buyers will start seeing higher prices.
The price for living in a suburb will become less severe because the commute time is cut down, so more will prefer to live there, he said.
Don Campbell, a founding partner of the Real Estate Investment Network, a Langley-based company that provides housing market research, said the new bridge will do for South Delta what the Golden Ears and Port Mann bridges did for once quiet bedroom communities like Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, which are seeing big increases in development interest.
Campbell said it should be even more pronounced for South Delta with its proximity to Vancouver noting that doesn’t even take into account what the malls will do for real estate prices.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen: Right now we’re seeing a lot of jump-the-gun speculator buyers that are moving in. That’s what you’re seeing right now. Then it goes quiet for a while, then construction starts and it goes crazy again for a while. It might die down during the construction period and about a year after the bridge is complete you’ll see a lot of homeowners, who measure distance in time and not kilometres, say they’ll skip Richmond and go straight into Delta. “That’s going to be the fl ow in the next fi ve or six years,” he explained.
“People will fi nd that that Ladner corner of the world is a pretty amazing part of the Lower Mainland and it won’t be fl ying under the radar anymore. Most people don’t know about it and haven’t gone there and the tunnel has protected it amazingly well.” Campbell said his firm is in the process of doing an updated report on South Delta and what it’s already finding is that a change in outlook will be needed when it comes to densifi cation.
A red hot market for the bedroom community, which is pretty well built out, likely means a cavalcade of redevelopment applications. It’s a fact of life in the high-priced neighbouring cities of Richmond and Vancouver, but that change is on a collision course with the sensibilities of many of South Delta’s 50,000 residents.
Even in the past couple of years residents have appeared before municipal council arguing against higher density housing developments, as well as seemingly radical changes to area plans, saying they moved to the area because they prefer its lifestyle and character. Detached housing now makes up about 80 per cent of the stock, while apartments account for about 15 per cent and townhouses around five per cent. That spells bad news when it comes to future affordability, said Vancouver-based real estate agent and consultant Bob Bracken.
A South Delta resident, Bracken said the Corporation of Delta’s historic reluctance to allow more housing types has now left people stuck with an extremely limited supply that is constrained by the Agricultural Land Reserve. Delta had the chance to allow greater variety over the years but now fi nds itself built out with a limited supply that will drive up prices. The fact it’s predominately single-family houses with big yards will keep a lot of home buyers out of South Delta, Bracken said.
“Delta is not ready for what’s about to come. The problem we have down here is that the planning department is stuck in the ‘70s and basically all the major planning that’s happened in South Delta has been developerdriven. Century Group and Shato Holdings put forward projects and caused the planning department to follow them. They set the agenda with the projects they got approved and the Corporation of Delta’s planning department has had to scramble to keep up,” Bracken said. “What is lacking, in my opinion, in Tsawwassen, and a lesser extent Ladner, is affordable, semi-detached townhouse and rowhouse-type development which can be produced and sold at an entry level cost for young families” he said. “I don’t see any real evidence of real planning or anticipating the scale of growth and growth pressures that we are going to be under within five to 10 years.”
The “no growth” argument is an old one in Delta, which didn’t see its fi rst condo project built until 1969. Area homeowners fought hard to block passage of that zoning amendment and, later that year during a council discussion on a study on the effects of condominium housing, then-mayor Dugald Morrison remarked, “What most councils are afraid of is that they will become slums.”
Later that year, during a council debate about another condo proposal that was defeated, then-alderman Harold Savage warned, “Condominiums would mean five times the number of children per acre.” The arguments against higher density, which have created a division in the community, could still be heard with the more recent Southlands and Marina Gardens applications, which had their fair share of support and were eventually approved.
Still, many other projects that could provide much needed variety and affordability get a rough ride, showing how South Delta has the most entrenched NIMBY attitude in the Lower Mainland, said Bracken, who was a strong supporter of the Century Group’s Southlands proposal.
“We are going to see all kinds of opposition pressures because Tsawwassen is basically the NIMBY capital of Canada and nobody ever wants anything to change. Anyone on council who wanted densifi cation, that was basically the kiss of death. We’ve never really had the leadership and the planning department is caught between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “They’re caught between the NIMBY factor on one side and uninformed politicians on the other. So they rely on (Shato Holdings president) Ron Toigo and (Century Group president) Sean Hodgins to lead them and battle to get something built one way or the other.”
Mayor Lois Jackson, who has been on council since the early 1970s when Delta still had plenty of room to grow, said Richmond was very much like Delta in that they were both fishing and farming communities, but so much development and densifi cation in Richmond occurred so quickly many have said they had to get out. People moved to South Delta, and Ladner in particular, for the lifestyle because it reminded them of what Richmond used to be, she said. Jackson said she hopes that whatever changes come, future councils continue to stand firm on the farmland issue, including not allowing parcel splitting that would make them less viable. As far as speculators, the concern about them holding onto parcels of farmland hoping for redevelopment is not a new one, she added.
