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The crash doesn’t mean housing is suddenly affordable

October 10th, 2008 · 2 Comments

For many people, the news that house and condo prices are dropping and that developers are even offering things like mortgage payments for a year, discounted mortgage rates or free upgrades on finishes is great. But the reality is that, even though prices are softening, they still haven’t — and won’t — drop down to where they were three years ago. For those of you who follow real estate, you’ll know that prices pretty much doubled in a three-year period. That means that housing prices are still disconnected from local wages.

People have been hunting for decades for ways to make housing affordable to working-class and middle-income people in Vancouver. I have a story in BCBusiness here this month that takes a look at some of the solutions that are being tried locally and what might be in store for the city, if politicians and planners decide to get even more aggressive on this issue.

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