The chart above shows Vancouver detached, attached (townhouse) and apartment (condo) prices. In January 2012, detached house prices shot up by over 16% M/M and added on a $147,000 one month gain to set the new Canadian record for pricing 4 walls and a roof. Flippers at the high end are skewing the data; here's one for you (thanks to VREAA). Flippers at the "low" end have problems. Prices for townhouses and condos peaked last July and April and are down 11% and 9% respectively since they peaked.

The 8th annual Demographia study places Vancouver as the second most unaffordable housing market in 325 international markets (Hong Kong is 1st). Vancouver's median house price to median income ratio is 10.6, whereas New York and London have ratios of "only" 6.2 and 6.9. We are not a world class financial center. We export our resources without finishing them, we build computer games and work for WalMart.

The average earnings in BC did tick up in November but have been trailing the national trend for 25 months and remain 3.8% below Canada's national average (Earnings Chart) and are 19.2% below Alberta earnings where they dig stuff out of the ground as well.

The new 2011 Census was just published and Vancouver's population grew by 9.3% and our "private dwelling" housing stock grew by 9% and our "occupied by usual residents" grew by 9.1%. We have not run out of housing, and according to my calculation, it now takes 4.1 average BC wage earners to buy an average Vancouver SFD.

The "Green Hornet" keeps a Youtube archive of Vancouver Real Estate News here. The VREAA aggregates the word on the street here.