{"id":823126,"date":"2026-07-24T13:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/823126\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T13:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:30:09","slug":"realtors-say-the-eye-catching-bargains-are-rare-but-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/823126\/","title":{"rendered":"Realtors say the eye-catching bargains are rare, but there"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

This house at 3095 Plymouth Dr. sold for half the $1,495,000 asking price.Taehoon Kim\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

The sale of a house in North Vancouver, B.C., late last year made it the envy of bargain hunters. The buyers made an extremely lowball offer and scored a real estate win. <\/p>\n

The house at 3095 Plymouth Dr. sold for $750,000 \u2013 half the $1,495,000 asking price and nearly $1-million below the assessed value of $1,724,600. Realtors and anyone paying attention were shocked at the sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the craziest thing I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d said realtor Patricia Houlihan, who\u2019s been in the business for 21 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have many buyers who\u2019d have bought it sight unseen for that price,\u201d said realtor Fred Trudeau. <\/p>\n

The property spent 106 days without any recorded price reductions before selling on Dec. 24 for $750,000 and closing in January. The buyers who snapped up the 70-year-old teardown now own a large 7,642-square-foot lot, about double the width of the standard 33-foot Vancouver lot. The home sits on a curved road with a forested backdrop, between large houses in the Windsor Park neighbourhood, where the benchmark MLS price for a detached home is $1.89-million.<\/p>\n

The land was assessed at $1,668,000.<\/p>\n

The new-build housing glut: It\u2019s not just condos<\/a><\/p>\n

Listing agent John Buchanan, of Royal LePage Sussex, declined an interview, as did the buyer\u2019s agent, Dylan McCansh of Oakwyn Realty, citing the buyers\u2019 request for privacy. Royal LePage managing broker Lawrence Putnam, who lives a block away from the property, said he couldn\u2019t divulge details because of industry privacy rules, but he said the house, located not far from a busy road, could not be lived in in its current condition. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do think somebody got a pretty good deal there, but we\u2019re in a market \u2026 where there are not a lot of builders buying right now,\u201d said Mr. Putnam.<\/p>\n

He called the sale an outlier, and said it won\u2019t impact other properties in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a sale price, certainly, that provoked a lot of discussion. But the value of any of that discussion would have to be measured against somebody\u2019s knowledge of and understanding of that particular property. I\u2019m not sure how many people have gone inside it and seen its condition, but I would suggest they have a relatively limited value to their opinion if they hadn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newcomers to Canada could feed a future market upswing, Statistics Canada data suggest<\/a><\/p>\n

The neighbourhood is filled with houses built on large lots, and is a draw for families. A house at 2996 Plymouth Dr. sold last September for $2,025,000, or $327,000 above assessed value. A house at 2984 Plymouth Dr. sold last October for $1,650,000, or $37,400 above assessed value. <\/p>\n

Ms. Houlihan couldn\u2019t comment further or speculate about the sale. But generally, she tells her clients to drop the price gradually, because each price point brings in potential new buyers. The current market is especially tricky terrain for finding the right selling price. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t really know what something\u2019s going to sell for. Places that are good deals \u2013 the buyers don\u2019t know they\u2019re good deals. It\u2019s the lemming factor that\u2019s killing me,\u201d she added. \u201cWhen prices are way too high, everyone wants to buy. But when things are selling low, everyone is like, \u2018What if it goes lower?\u2019 Once it starts going back up, it\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vancouver realtor Lorne Goldman agreed that sales like 3095 Plymouth Dr. are outliers. Deals are out there, but they\u2019re not that extreme, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of our buyers have seen that level of reduction in price. It\u2019s highly unusual,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Vancouver\u2019s real estate market adjusts to the new normal<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGranted, the market is not maybe doing great. But are there huge bargains out there in this market because of that? My answer to that is, \u2018No.\u2019 I mean, I\u2019m always being asked every day by buyers and agents, \u2018Will my clients take a low offer?\u2019 You don\u2019t even talk to them. It\u2019s a huge time waste for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there have been other surprises. In particular, high-end properties and fixer-uppers are taking a harsh reality check. A large, roughly 4,000-square-foot, 14-year-old house at 1562 West 40th Ave. sold for $2.28-million below the asking price after 530 days on the market. The five-bedroom, seven-bathroom house has a roof with copper features, a wok kitchen and media room. The Shaughnessy home had been assessed for $6,138,000, with land value at $3,831,000. The house sold for close to land value, at $3.5-million. Listing agent Wei Du had received several offers, but declined an interview. <\/p>\n

Mr. Goldman said that property had its challenges. It was designed for a wealthy Asian buyer who is no longer active, and it also backs onto a car repair shop. He believes the relatively new house will get redeveloped. City policies are pushing for more density in low-density neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really ironic that in this age of environmentalism we were busy ripping down houses and building houses that we\u2019re going to rip down 15 years later.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Villages\u2019 plan would upscale 17 Vancouver areas for multiplex housing<\/a><\/p>\n

In Strathcona, a house at 655 E. Pender St. sold for $980,000 on June 2. It had been assessed at $1,377,200, with the land portion valued at $1,307,000. The character house, which needed significant repair, had been listed in the spring at $999,000. <\/p>\n

Listing agent Fred Trudeau said after nearly a month on the market, and showings to about 20 people, the seller received the one offer. His seller wanted to get close to $1-million. Mr. Trudeau said the property needed work, it was tenanted, and it was on a smaller lot than average. All those factors affected the price. He sympathizes with sellers who are having to adjust their expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cBC Assessment doesn\u2019t go door to door, but buyers do,\u201d he said of the assessed value, which is about 28 per cent higher than the sale price. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think people\u2019s disposable income has been decimated and they don\u2019t have a big appetite for risk,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Many agents will advise their clients not to go in with an insultingly low offer. Although sellers might balk at a lowball offer, buyers can try. And sellers can accept any offer they like, says Mark Moldowan, spokesman for Greater Vancouver Realtors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t set any price or value to a home as an organization,\u201d he said in an e-mail. \u201cThat is determined by the seller. A Realtor may recommend a sale price based on their experience, but the seller ultimately is the one who sets the price and agrees to a sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that assessed values are one year old and not based on current market value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: This house at 3095 Plymouth Dr. sold for half the $1,495,000 asking price.Taehoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[174081,49,48,2922,968,55,174082],"class_list":["post-823126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-b-c-real-estate","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-noastack","tag-real-estate","tag-vancouver","tag-vancouver-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}