Downtown Condo Market Feeling the Squeeze

Downtown condos are becoming a scarce commodity. 2019 saw a steady tightening of the condo market in the urban core of Vancouver. Now as of this writing, there is only ONE urban condo listed in Downtown Vancouver. There are roughly 500 condo units in Vancouver's Esther Short neighborhood (Downtown & Waterfront) and just ONE is listed. One can visit my Urban Living in the 'Couv' site and track the activity over the last 12 months to see that this time last year there were dozens listed.

Downtown Vancouver is on a serious upswing. There is a positive transformation happening and many people, young and old, are looking to be a part of the sustainable lifestyle of urban living.

There is a robust level of new construction in the Downtown/Waterfront area but most of it is apartments. Thousands of new units are under construction. These new units will bring fresh residents to Downtown and many will decide to stake a claim and buy a condo.

At the moment there is one building going up on the waterfront that will offer condominiums for sale, the 12 story Kirkland Tower which is slated to have 40 units in the upper reaches of pricing. Gramor Development has plans for a 14 story condo tower with 80-82 units. That is still in the early planning stages however. It seems Vancouver is on the brink of a serious shortage of condo units downtown.

Buyers are flocking to downtown but there is nothing to buy. Now is a great time to list your urban condo in Vancouver, WA. As a specialist in the urban condo market, I have never seen it this tight. Call me if you have a condo Downtown and are thinking about selling. 

Condo versus House

Many people ask about the differences between owning a condo versus a house and this is a very important question. There are multiple differences and they impact ownership on a legal level as well as a personal utility perspective. Neither is actually better or worse they both have a place in our system and one may be definitively better depending on your situation.

Owning a home versus renting is a different issue. Both houses and condos offer the equity opportunity and the ability to own outright the property. The value of the property will most likely increase over time and this adds an investment angle to the utility of a house. Condos are no different in this regard than a house.

First difference between a condo and a house is the legal difference. How ownership is held is very different in a condo than in most detached houses. When you own a condominium you have two types of ownership. You own the physical interior space in a condo much like you own the entirely of the property with most detached homes. However the physical structure and the underlying land property in a condo is co-owned collectively by all the homeowners. In most situations there is a home owners association with elected board members that manage the property including the maintenance of structures and common areas outside of the units themselves. This collective ownership has benefits and consequences that effect the use of the property. With a tradition house, the owner owns thee land and structures as well as the land rights beneath the surface and the airspace above (with a few government exceptions). With a condo you have limited ownership rights outside the interior walls of the unit.

Legal benefits to condo ownership:

• Limited personal liability outside of your interior space 
• Voting rights to the control and use of common areas, effectively allowing for some limited control of neighbors external use of property.   

Legal consequences to condo ownership:

• Limited legal control over exterior use and utility of property
• Severely limited structural use of property
• Reliance on external ownership body for structural and external maintenance.

Second difference in a condo versus a house is the utility of the property. this is touched on above in the legal differences, but utility is the owners use of property. Inside the walls of the unit a condo has the same utility as a detached home. Outside the building however is a more cooperative setting whereby you have a fractional ownership and thus a shared usage of the exterior property.

Utility benefits to a condo:

• Little or no exterior maintenance or yard work for homeowners
• Shared ownership of entire community (within condominium complex or building)
• Homeowners Insurance is typically less expensive since structural fire damage is covered by the HOA

Utility consequences to a condo:

• HOA has control over the use of exterior and common areas that may limit owners use of that space.
• Maintenance of structure subject to HOA timelines, funding, and efficiency.

These are just a few concepts but the biggest advantage to a condo is the ability to have the equity ownership in real property without the structural maintenance and exterior yard work. The primary disadvantage is the opposite whereby wanting a garden or yard, or to make exterior modifications is usually difficult or impossible with condo.

There is something to be said for both and each has a welcome place in the real estate universe.

A New Urban Living Site

I do hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving, and now some of you may be in the thick of the Black Friday madness.

I have a new webspace setup with a blog about urban living opportunities in Vancouver USA. The last twenty years has seen a push locally to a more vertical downtown with mixed use and urban residential at the heart of it all. The new waterfront has been a bit of a culmination of this effort that began with the redevelopment of lower downtown and the Esther Short Park area.

The new site will focus primarily on urban condominiums in Uptown Village, Downtown, and the new Waterfront, as well as Columbia Shores and Shorewood.

Vancouver has a great urban vibe downtown with just enough vertical space to feel like a city but not so much to feel crowded. Sunlight still makes its way to the street and parking is still much better than larger cities like Portland. This is a real beautiful in between offering the best of both worlds between a major city and a mid-sized city.

Vancouver has evolved into a smallish large city and that is the porridge that is just right.

Please check out Urban Living in the 'Couv' here.

Are Condos Cool Again?

How about that condo life? Are they back in vogue or is the rental side taking over the scene? Well I did some digging into the data and Condos might just be cool again. We are selling about 40 units a month in Vancouver and that is about 10% of the local sales. The median price for Condos is trailing the overall median by about a hundred grand. But with most condos having association dues, that mean buyers are paying about the same monthly payment for the median condo as they are for the median home.

Here in America's Vancouver the luxury condos have started to come back. In each of the last 6 months at least one condo unit over $600,000 has closed and several seven figure units have gone as well. The most expensive unit was a darling at $3.1 million. That one was sold in September in the Tidewater Cove development. In fact two $3 million plus units at Tidewater have closed in that six month window. A few seven figure units have sold downtown as well including a 3000 footer on the 11th floor of Vancouver Center 3.

With the waterfront apartment buildings coming online right now and more on the way, and the under construction units in the new Kirkland Tower on the waterfront, a little action in the market bodes well. A fair bit of condo activity is happening in that critical $500k - $1M area that will help pave the way for more units on the new waterfront.

Overall I'd say condos are in fact cool again. Millennial buyers are definitely showing a high level of interest in both luxury apartments and condo units. It seems our young people are staying in the city more so than their predecessors in Gen X or Baby Boomers.

Millennials want in but pricing pushing them out

Apartments and Condos Overlooking
Esther Short Park, Vancouver, WA

The younger crowd is energetic about moving into the "city" but high pricing is pushing them towards the peripheral areas. It is a classic real estate scenario that has played out time and again. How far is one willing to commute to get a nice place they can own or even rent at an affordable price?

Portland and Vancouver have become expensive with rising rents and the gentrification of older areas once run down lead to some younger people seeking the urban lifestyle in a more affordable locale. Some people on the north side of the Columbia are being pushed all the way into Cowlitz County to find a place they can call home without being married to the landlord so to speak.

Generally, real estate prices in areas where there is good employment, high paying jobs, and lots of infrastructure are expensive and areas with less opportunity are more reasonable. This is not an absolute of course, but it does hold true most of the time.

Down in the San Francisco Bay Area before the big market crash in 2008, it was not uncommon for people to buy a house in California's Central Valley in cities like Lodi, Stockton, and Manteca and then commute into the Bay Area some 100 miles away. This of of course is a terrible drag on ones lifestyle.

Here in the Metro Portland-Vancouver area we haven't seen that kind of crazy. In fact people around here tend to think 20 miles out is the Moon. But more and more people seeking a house with a little elbow room are finding themselves a bit further and further away from the core city. Places like Longview and Kelso up in Cowlitz County have had depressed pricing for a long time, but they are starting to see a surge in activity as people seeking to own, move further North form Portland and Vancouver.

Vancouver WA Waterfront development including
apartments and condos overlooking the Columbia River

Millennials meanwhile are biting hard on the urban apartments going up in Downtown Vancouver, Vancouver Waterfront, Portland's Pearl District and other areas with urban gentrification happening. Hipsters have gobbled up all the classic 1920s houses in Portland and Vancouver pushing values out of reach for many.

If our city leaders do a good job and attract high paying employers to our clearly desirable area, we can all benefit from this surge. Keep that in mind when you vote for City Council and County Commission positions. 

Kirkland Tower is Underway

After breaking ground in June and erecting a 'coffer dam' last month, Kirkland began digging a 30 foot hole in the ground this month. Over the next several weeks the crews will pour concrete into what will ultimately be a couple of levels of underground parking and other underground infrastructure for two new buildings on the Vancouver Waterfront. A tower crane should be erected shortly thereafter to aid in the construction of this exciting property.

Rendering from Kirkland website

Kirkland Tower is a 12 story residential building that will have 40 luxury condos with 1, 2, and 3 bedroom floor plans. The tower will be erected immediately adjacent to the new Indigo Hotel which will be an 8 story open atrium structure. The Kirkland condo owners will have access to some of the hotel's amenities and that is a unique arrangement here in America's Vancouver. 

Although Kirkland Tower is far from the tallest building planned at the waterfront, it is the tallest one so far under construction. The 12 story Timberhouse project has not broken ground yet. I wrote an article a few weeks back, about the potential value opportunity to buy a condo downtown as these new condo units start coming online over the next few years. Even waterfront properties further upstream such as the units in Columbia Shores may be vacated to take up residency in the new Waterfront Project.

11th Floor View, Kirkland website

Kirkland's website has renderings and other tidbits about the development including a view shot from every floor in three directions. This view is listed as the North View from the 11th floor. This viewpoint will offer a cosmopolitan view of downtown and even Mount St. Helens.


Although I don't see a glut of condos coming so long as the economy continues to chug along at a healthy clip. New jobs and higher pay will lead to real estate mobility and that leads to the move-up market enjoying success.

Rendering from Kirkland website

The waterfront properties such as Columbia Shores has always been hard to get as there are few units right on the water. The massive Vancouver USA Waterfront will add units to the list. Those looking for both an urban experience and a waterfront experience can do it all on the new waterfront. 

Although these condos at Kirkland are likely to be very expensive, other projects in this massive $1.5 billion development will be priced a little more in reach of upper middle class earners. Condos already built in developments such as Vancouver Center, may become available and some of those units are well priced especially in Vancouver Center 3 which overlooks Esther Short Park.

Things are looking up here in America's Vancouver and the real estate market is moving with a roar, particularly with these high density projects underway. 

Thousands of Condos and Apartments Coming...

Vancouver and Portland are both bringing thousands of new condo and apartment units online over the next few years. The local rental market has been as tight as the local housing market and these units should help to ease the puffed up rents, particularly over in Portland.

These new units coming online locally in Vancouver are by no means limited to the massive waterfront project that has phase one under construction. The first series of units should be available sometime this summer at the waterfront.

A great deal of new units has come online in greater downtown very recently including a sizable project called 15 West apartments on Mill Plain between Esther and Columbia, another project at 13th and Columbia, Senior apartments at Mill Plain and Esther near VanVista, and the Uptown building recently complete at 17th and Main. Also under construction is Our Heroes Place at Mill Plain and E Street.

Apartments are under construction all over Vancouver in an effort to keep up with an increasing demand. The waterfront apartments and condos are not likely to be in the "affordable" range. The city will have a certain number of units for "affordable housing" as part of development package, but most of these units will be more expensive as this is a desirable location with Columbia River waterfront exposure.

These waterfront and downtown mid-rise and high-rise apartments and condos will be a little more expensive but they will take the pressure off of the rents in more modest apartment complexes that have been pushing the boundaries ever higher on rent. A 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment in a suburban east Vancouver complex was easily had for $600-700 in 2007 at the peak of the market before the big "crash". While housing values plummeted, apartments suddenly became scarce as owners became renters in large numbers. Those same $600 units are now nearly double that amount. I would love to see a little rental pressure release to soften prices in older and less well maintained complexes and put a proper spread between the values of a more luxury complex against a more modest development.

Now that the city has opened up this floodgate of apartments, it is time to open up the floodgates for employers to come in with good stable, high paying jobs. Vancouver USA needs to aggressively go after employers from all over the nation looking to move to the Pacific Northwest. Our area is currently very popular all around the nation, we are a bit of a "hot spot" and this is the time to capitalize on it by getting medium and large employers to locate here.

Having rents moderate a bit will also take a little pressure off the purchase market and that might be a good thing. Inventory has been so tight that buyers are being squeezed to the last drop. A little less buyers would moderate the market and help keep a sustainable appreciation rather than marching towards a "bubble."

Things are looking good in America's Vancouver.

Waterfront Condos Coming Soon and Coming Fast

I wrote on my 'Couv' Life blog about the first of many cranes on the Waterfront. These monolithic machines are the herald of high-rise, and the harbinger of real estate opportunity.

Vancouver's amazing waterfront project is finally starting to show more than just a bunch a fifty foot deep holes. Tower cranes mark the beginning of the rise of tall buildings and the start of some 3300 living units planned for the north shore of the Mighty Columbia River. This $1.5 billion development will be a mixed use of commercial, office, retail, public parks and residential. Over the next 5-7 years it will build out into a world class waterfront.

Many of these units will be offered with exclusive views of the river, Mt. Hood, and the downtown skyline. At first they may seem expensive but often is the case these things will soon become in tight supply. There is a very finite amount of Columbia River waterfront available on either side.

I am already anticipating the first showings as some may be available as early as next fall. Once the cranes arrive the structure goes up pretty quick.

Urban condos however are not for the feint of heart. These units can be rather spendy and the volatility factor in the urban condo market is a bit more of an ebb and tide than traditional single family homes in the 'burbs. There is a serious pent-up demand for apartments and condos as the millennial generation is much more warm to the idea of condo/apartment living than their Baby Boomer/Gen X parents were before them.

Lead Millennials are also coming into their peak earning years. Yes it's hard to believe, but those first Millennials born in the mid-eighties are now in their mid-thirties. They can afford these now, and that is a good thing because the Millennial generation is the largest generation in US history surpassing the Boomers with more than 80 million people. For the next 10-15 years the younger members will come into their peak earning years as well and that could drive a serious demand for this type of living space. Vancouver is in prime position to capitalize on this generational shift in real estate demand.

Condos ride the waves

The condo market has ridden the wild roller coaster over the last several years. This is not atypical in a market that follows an extreme adjustment like the one we had back in 2009.

Condos took a serious beat down in the 2009-2011 free fall. Locally there were two major factors. The first was the obvious market crash that the whole nation felt. But more localized was the over abundance of condos that had flooded the area, particularly in Downtown Vancouver.

There were luxury units in Vancouver Center and 500 Broadway that were fetching close to a million dollars in 2007-08 that got wiped out in the foul mood of real estate in 2010-11. Those units saw reductions in sales prices in the 60% range!

Condos were much slower to rebound and those ultra luxury high-rise units have not yet returned to the lofty price typically associated with lofty heights high above the city. But lower priced condos are seeing a surge. As single family detached and attached housing has soared, suddenly the traditional condo with the expensive HOA dues still makes financial sense for people in the entry level price ranges.

The charts provided represent the last 6 months of activity wherein we see the days on market coming way down. Note: you have to ignore average with this as the unit totals are too small and the average is heavily skewed by a couple of short sale or bank owned problem units that sat for years.

Negotiated prices on condos as recently as six months back were well under asking, then they popped up to meet the rest of the market averaging over asking, and now seem to be settling in at or near asking. I think the bump in available inventory cooled the jets a little on condos.

Anyone sitting in a mid-level to upscale condo may have a solid opportunity to sell now at top dollar. Starting next year the new waterfront will begin coming online with new buildings and an urban buzz. Part of that will be a phased in 3300 housing units which will be a mix of condos, apartments, and senior housing. This may tug on the values a bit in the middle to upper end of the condo market elsewhere in the area.

I have my eye closely on the condo market as I am most excited about the waterfront development. They are working on the cable suspended Grant Street Pier right now and several of the mid-rise and high-rise buildings are starting to go up.

All things considered, condos are back and they should start filling in as relief for the entry level buyers and practical for those seeking to down size as they approach retirement.  

Fairway Village Revisited

Fairway Village is Vancouver's largest over 55 community and still remains one of the most desirable locations for the over 55 crowd. This community is situated around a gorgeous nine hole gold course with homes ranging from the 1980s to the early 2000s and from condos to large 2000 foot single family homes. This neighborhood still fetches a bit of a premium, but I have seen 2 bed 1 bath condos under 200k and 2 bed 2 bath houses in the mid 200s. Right on the golf course will command a thick premium. I wrote about this community a couple of times over the years on my blog, "Retire to Washington", most recently last year. That article is posted below. FYI: The homes featured in this article were listings in February of 2015 so pricing has no doubt edged up a bit.

I wrote this post on Fairway Village in 2014 and felt like this was an opportunity to talk about it again. I made some modifications to the story to reflect a few positive changes in market conditions (February, 24th, 2015).

Some retirees want to stay in close to town. Services such as shopping and medical offices are nice and close making for easy access with less time and hassle. That frees up more time for the fun part of retirement living.

Fairway Village is a community built around a beautiful 9-hole par 34 golf course, in the Cascade Park area of Vancouver, Washington. The community is restricted for persons 55 years and older. There are a variety of homes in the community ranging from condominiums to large single family homes. Many wonderful single level, 2 and 3 bedroom homes are right on the golf course. The 'village' has a nice clubhouse with an in-ground pool and year round activities.

Visit the Fairway Village HOA site for more info about the community.

As a Realtor®, I always enjoy showing and listing homes in Fairway Village. It is just such a great location for retirees. Almost everything you need on a regular basis is inside a one mile radius. Quite a bit of services are well within comfortable walking distance. If you do have to drive it will be a short drive

Cascade Park was developed in the 1970s before the Glen Jackson Bridge was even built. It nearly was incorporated into its own city. As time progressed Cascade Park built eastward until it met up with 164th Avenue or Fisher's Road for the Clark County old timers. As you move east the development becomes newer topping out with homes built in the mid 90s. Fairway Village is on the far east end of Cascade Park.

What makes this location so enticing is a combination of location and neighborhood quality. Fairway Village maintained solid footing even as the real estate market struggled in 2009-2011. It is just that desirable.

164th and Mill Plain Blvd. is the hub of the East Side. Fairway Village is conveniently located at that hub. Here are some distances (linear miles) to nearby services, from the Fairway Village clubhouse.

• 0.40 miles to IHOP Restaurant and nearby professional center
• 0.61 miles to Village Public Storage
• 0.62 miles to Fred Meyer (Grocery/Department store) 
• 0.62 miles to East Vancouver Public Transit Hub
• 0.67 miles to Cascade Health Club
• 0.76 miles to Canepa Dental or Oasis Dental
• 0.79 miles to Regal Cinema Cascade 16 movie theatre
• 0.80 miles to Hwy 14 on ramp at 164th Avenue 
• 1.03 miles to 164th and Mill Plain (a virtual cornucopia of shopping and services including, Red Robin, Target, Old Spaghetti Factory, Ross, Kohl's, Olive Garden and quite literally hundreds more)
• 1.50 miles to Vancouver Clinic (popular local medical office)
• 1.80 miles to Kaiser Permanente Cascade Park
• 2.07 miles to 192nd and Mill Plain (Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, JC Penny, 5 guys and much more)
• 3.46 miles to Camas Meadows Golf Course
• 3.64 miles to Peach Health Southwest Washington Medical Center (Major Hospital)
• 3.87 miles to Portland International Airport
• 4.15 miles to Green Mountain Golf Course
• 4.92 miles to Lacamas Lake and Lacamas Park
• 5.25 miles to Westfield Vancouver Mall
• 8.16 miles to Downtown Vancouver
• 9.91 miles to Downtown Portland

I took the liberty of pulling some current listings in the Fairway Village community.

$264,900

The home sits on the golf course with easy access and a great view from the backyard. This home features a spacious floor plan all on one level totaling 1469 square feet. There are two bedrooms and two bathrooms

$350,000


This fabulous home has nice private backyard. It is a very spacious one level home with a whooping 1636 square feet of living space. it is also a 2 bedroom 2 bath offering.

Fairway Village is really, a Fair Way place to Retire. Contact me for additional information about opportunities to own property in this wonderful retirement community.