At the most recent GHG meeting, I presented some preliminary research on house prices in Grandview from 1918 to 1946. Select graph for a better view. The data is drawn from real estate ads in the "Vancouver Daily World", "Province" and "Sun" newspapers. The data was filtered to include only those ads that (1) related … Continue reading Historical House Prices in Grandview
The GHG had another fine meeting last night, covering a diverse set of topics. During the 1940s and 1950s, oil heating was marketed across Canada, became a popular alternative, and many people had oil storage tanks buried in their yards. These days, the old tanks are considered a hazard and are generally removed, especially when … Continue reading Meeting Notes: May 2017
A month ago, I posted about the housing and land value collapse during the Depression and the lead up to World War Two. Thanks to the contunued diligent work of my colleague Donato Calogero, we now have a second set of data from property tax registers. This one illustrates the rapid increase in land and … Continue reading Postwar Housing Bubble
There is much talk in Vancouver these days about how the "housing bubble" may have burst, that the astonishing rise of house prices over the last couple of years is coming to an end and that, perhaps, prices may actually fall. Given this background, I was interested to have access this week to a few … Continue reading When A Housing Market Crashes
Another good gathering last Thursday, and more fascinating discussions. We looked at various property assemblies being created in the south end of the neighbourhood; we also noted the falling state of the RE market; and then we were still surprised to find 1976 still priced at less than $1 million; There was a fine discussion … Continue reading Meeting Notes: November
I was looking through old copies of the Vancouver Sun on the Google News Archive (actually, looking for Shelly's 4X advertising to try to confirm the vintage of the Via Tevere sign) when I stumbled upon the pages of Tax Sale Properties, in this case the November 1, 1934 edition. It's relatively common knowledge that … Continue reading Worthless Grandview Property
Jak's post below shows an ad offering the block bounded by Garden, Parker, Nanaimo and Napier for sale. Six houses had been completed by 1912 when the Goad's Atlas (mentioned in a previous post) was published. The great real-estate boom continued for another year or so before collapsing just before the beginning of the First … Continue reading More about “$300 a lot”
Back in the spring and summer of 1907, Grandview was the hot item both for speculative land investors and working class home-seekers. Much of the land east of Park Drive (now called Commercial Drive) had barely been cleared; new sub-divisions were arriving on the market all the time. This ad from an East End broker … Continue reading Grandview Subdivision — $300 per lot!
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