I guess some things hold their value better than others.
The most recent figures from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver show the typical Ladner home now tops the $1 million mark. A 5.7 per cent jump in May alone has pushed the benchmark price to a whopping $1,026,600, meaning if your mortgage is paid off, you're now an honest-to-goodness millionaire.
Given much of Ladner's housing stock was built during a time of unprecedented growth after the George Massey Tunnel opened, it's now 40 or 50 years old and, quite frankly, is showing its age in a certain light. Yet in spite of the wrinkles, the love handles and the thinning hair, it's never been more valuable than it is today.
Cars, clothes, furniture, appliances, electronics... there's not much that we buy that increases in value as it gets older, but a steady rise in house prices, punctuated by a significant spike in the last year or so, certainly lends credence to that old adage about not making any more land these days.
Just for a chuckle, I decided to flip through the binder that holds all the Optimist issues from 1976 to check out these places when they were relatively new. I figured I'd find prices we could only dream about, and I certainly did, including listings of $62,500 for a nice four-bedroom Cape Cod on one-third of an acre and the mid-60s for a fivebedroom place on a quiet cul-de-sac near Ladner Elementary.
Yes, you can only shake your head at those prices, but what really struck me is the disparity between housing costs and other goods. Back then, a 10 per cent down payment on a home was roughly the cost of a Chrysler Volare wagon or a Dodge Charger, both of which retailed for a shade under $6,000.
In other words, a down payment on a home that was likely no more than a decade old was the cost of an average car, yet today, a similar percentage down payment is the equivalent of a luxury vehicle, and that's for a house that's no longer 10 years old, but one that's pushing 50, if it's not there already. That doesn't even factor in the $900,000 mortgage that comes with the place, complete with monthly payments well in excess of $4,000.
It's just a shame that 20-inch colour TV you bought in the '70s for $749 didn't appreciate at the same rate.
