Can Metro Vancouver’s new mayors turn the tide on housing? Experts say not so fast

The winners of British Columbia’s municipal elections last week — particularly those in the Metro Vancouver region — will have to hit the ground running when it comes to addressing the increased unaffordability of housing and lack of supply, experts warn.

Housing was a key tenet of most campaigns, with many candidates making lofty promises for the number of new homes they would help get built and to focus on bringing down housing costs and rents, which have soared in Vancouver and the surrounding area since 2018.

Now those mayors and councillors will have to deliver, and try to bring about real change. The challenge will be especially crucial in Vancouver, where mayor-elect Ken Sim will soon take charge of a city that is struggling to balance its economic footprint with livability for its residents.

“The city of Vancouver, just in the downtown core and the Broadway corridor, has one in four jobs in the region, one in six jobs in British Columbia and one in 12 jobs west of Ontario,” Kit Sauder, a Vancouver-based political strategist, told Global News.

“What happens in Vancouver matters to the entire province and the entire country, and has a net impact on our GDP, our quality of life and our cost of living.”

The benchmark price for a home in Metro Vancouver sits at $1.15 million as of September, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. Detached home prices continue to sit just under $2 million on average.

While the benchmark price has gone down 8.5 per cent over the past six months — thanks in large part to rising interest rates — it remains nearly four-per cent higher than last year.

A new report from global financial firm UBS ranked Vancouver sixth among nine major cities around the world that are experiencing a major housing bubble risk, predicting prices will continue to rise in the short term.

Rents have also gone up in the region. A one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver is renting for $2,590 per month on average, according to an October report by Rentals.ca, which is more than $500 above the national average and up 20 per cent from 2021. The…