VANCOUVER -- Carson Farrell put an offer in on a townhouse his pregnant wife had never seen in person.
And about a week ago, he said goodbye to 12 years of renting and they officially moved into their first home.“We’re still unpacking,” Farrell said. “There’s painters in as we speak.” It wasn’t the couple’s first offer on a place. And it wasn’t an easy process to get to the point of becoming homeowners.
“A lot of the, I guess, nicer places, were out of our reach,” he said. Farrell says he would have loved to stay in New Westminster or move closer to family in Surrey, but prices forced them farther out into the suburbs. His predicament is not unique in Metro Vancouver. A new study by the Angus Reid Institute found the average price of a home in B.C. is higher than anywhere else in the country. Couple that with bidding wars and escalating prices, and some realtors say buyers are opting to take a break.
“Now, they’re just sort of fatigued about the entire situation and are hitting pause and saying, ‘Well, we want to look when prices are more stabilized,” explained Shante Sidhu of Solon Real Estate Group. She says it takes a lot out of potential buyers to be outbid repeatedly. She had one client who put in nine offers over asking price before finally getting an accepted offer the 10th try.