How Multiple Offers Work in BC | A Buyer’s Guide
How a Multiple-Offer Situation Actually Unfolds A BC multiple-offer situation is a blind auction. You submit one sealed offer, you don’t see anyone else’s price, and the seller picks. There’s no bidding round, no chance to counter the other buyer, and no obligation on the seller to tell you where you landed. The sequence: Property […]
North Vancouver Short-Term Rental Rules | Owner Guide
Can You Airbnb a Property on the North Shore? Only if you live there. That’s the whole answer, and it’s the one that catches investors out. Across BC including both the City and the District of North Vancouver short-term rentals of under 90 days are restricted to your principal residence, plus at most one secondary […]
Why Your BC Assessment Doesn’t Match Your Home Value
The Two Numbers Measure Different Things Your BC Assessment is not what your home is worth today. It’s an estimate of what it was worth on July 1 of the previous year, produced by a mass-appraisal computer model that has never been inside your house. Market value is what a real buyer will actually pay […]
Speculation and Vacancy Tax in North Vancouver Explained
Do You Owe It? Probably not but you absolutely still have to declare. If you own residential property in North Vancouver, West Vancouver or anywhere else on the North Shore, and you live in it as your principal residence or rent it out long term, you’re exempt. But the exemption is not automatic. You claim […]
North Vancouver vs Coquitlam | Where Should You Buy
Who Should Buy Where If your budget is tight and space matters more than location, Coquitlam wins. You’ll get more square footage, a newer home and a lower entry price, especially on townhomes and detached. If you work downtown, want the ocean-and-mountains lifestyle, and can stretch to the higher price, North Vancouver wins. The commute […]
North Vancouver School Catchments & Home Prices
Do Catchments Really Move Prices in North Vancouver? Yes, but less than most buyers assume, and not evenly. The best evidence we have on this comes out of UBC, where researchers tracked what happened to home values when Vancouver school boundaries were redrawn. Homes that got a big upgrade in secondary school quality rose roughly […]
Bill 44 and SSMUH in North Vancouver | What Multiplex Zoning Means If You’re Buying
Since the Province brought in Bill 44, every second listing for a North Vancouver house seems to mention “multiplex potential” or “SSMUH ready.” Some of those claims are real. A lot of them are not. Overstated listing copy is one of the red flags in Vancouver home listings that buyers learn to spot. North Vancouver […]
City of North Vancouver vs District of North Vancouver | What Home Buyers Need to Know
If you keep seeing two different “North Vancouvers” on listings, you are not imagining it. There really are two separate municipalities sitting side by side, each with its own council, planning department and bylaws. For a buyer, the differences that matter come down to four things: what kind of home you can afford, what you […]
Commuting from North Vancouver to Downtown | Real Travel Times by Neighbourhood
Two bridges and a passenger ferry connect roughly 150,000 people to the rest of Metro Vancouver, and where you live on the North Shore decides which of those you are stuck with. A Lower Lonsdale commute and a Deep Cove commute are not slightly different, they are different by close to an hour a day. […]
Leaky Condos and Building Envelopes on the North Shore | A Buyer’s Due Diligence Guide
The leaky condo crisis is not ancient history. It cost British Columbia an estimated $4 billion across more than 900 buildings and 31,000 units, and a large share of the affected buildings are still standing on the North Shore today. Some have been fully repaired. Some have not. And the difference between those two shows […]