Values for retail properties in East Vancouver have largely been driven by rents in increasingly populated areas such as Main Street, Commercial Drive and East Hastings Street. Properties with strong tenant covenants in East Vancouver should achieve strong valuations with cap rates even below 5.00%.

A look at the Real Estate Board of Vancouver’s September statistics shows continued evidence that pricing is beginning to be affected by a rapid slowdown in sales. Overall benchmark pricing is down 0.8% YoY and 1.8% over the last six months.

A more detailed review of performance by submarket shows some clear winners and losers over the last 6 months around the time the market started to show signs of weakening. Only 4 submarkets did not show a decline in benchmark prices over the past 6 months: Coquitlam, North Vancouver, Port Moody and Squamish.

Source: REBGV stats. Benchmark resale price change over 6 months ending Sep 2012.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest benchmark price decline over the past 6 months was for single family homes on the West side of Vancouver, declining 6.3%. Richmond was not far behind. Port Coquitlam also showed a decrease of 4.0% in attached homes.

Squamish and Port Moody were clearly two of the strongest markets, showing price increases over the past 6 months for every housing type. One could argue that every submarket will eventually show declines, although some markets, such as Squamish appear to have little room to drop amid stagnant sales activity since 2007.

Housing Analysis Blog has underaken a more in-depth analysis of the stats release; worth the read…

Coquitlam multifamily assets have shown a steady increase in value over the past 5 years as cap rates for apartment buildings have dropped across the region. This market is predominantly characterized by low-rise buildings. The average sales value over the past five years in this market is about $125,000, a value range that is consistent with areas such as East Vancouver and New Westminster.