Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local Lead Generation.  We’re here with Mr. Darren McCartney; he’s a Realtor in Squamish, BC, beautiful Squamish.  Darren does commercial and residential real estate and we’re going to do a little update about what’s going on in Squamish.  You can reach Darren at his website squamishcommercialproperty.com or you can call him at 604-892-4875.  How are you doing today Darren?

Darren:  I’m doing well Mark, how about yourself?

Mark:  I’m good.  So what’s going on in Squamish?

Darren:  I know it’s been a while since we’ve talked because it had been a busy market so I’ve disappeared for a three or four months on you here.  It’s been a pretty epic year here when you look back at previous years and a lot of what we’ve talked about in the past is how the market really lags here on recovery after the previous economic meltdown and we never regained that 20% that we lost.  We’ve had a really strong year in all residential sectors that has been very active, fun to be part of and a little bit more recognition coming Squamish’s way due to I think pent-up market demand and lots of marketing with the Sea to Sky gondola.  Lots of people’s friends move up here, they hear about it, they spend some time up here and they realize what Squamish has to offer; you know that 45 minute commute and a really unique lifestyle, 60% of the population under 40, just a lot of interesting things if you’ve got a young family and if I can for a minute here I want to pull up a graph to show you some of the numbers in the last year.

So yeah basically, in line of what I’ve been saying here, this goes back, this is a five year HPI which shows every type of housing over the last five years in Squamish from August 2010 to current and you can see; blue is detached, red is townhome which is what I want to talk about today but you see detached housing, single family stayed just flat until the early 2014 and it’s just been steadily coming back in line with the pre-2008 levels which is still very affordable by lower mainland standards and then townhomes as well has been creeping up through that time period, condos have been the last to catch up and that’s really just due to the fact a combination of what people want to buy when they move up here and there were some receiverships and stuff like that previously that really kept values down so with that all out of the market you’re seeing it move up and just to give you a quick example here single family in the last years has gone up 17% on value on the average home sale and we’ve had a 24% increase in volume, ok so that’s pretty substantial from a sales perspective and then down here under attached which does include condos, we’re up 18% on value and then 54% in value which much of what townhomes do to the lower number they were selling with after that recession time period and if you drill down on that a little bit further you see what’s going on here with actual detached pricing and so you know we came in the 500 range, the average is now up to 600, townhomes were steady in the early to mid to mid-300’s and we’ve seen the start to climb now into the 380 range and well into the 400’s at this stage of the game and so we’re really in a market where we’re starting to get proper recognition for what you get and finally just reasonable, manageable pricing so it’s both affordable but it’s also something that encourages development because they can actually make a little money and so we’ve seen these townhomes numbers go well into the 400’s now and if you look at municipality close to us like North Vancouver as an example, being close to downtown Vancouver and so forth and say 40 minutes from here it’ll cost you $550,000 to get into a comparable townhome of what you may get in the high 3’s or early 400’s here in Squamish brand new which is great and one of the reasons that this particular segment of the market you see it here, it’s really starting to spike in that 2015 is doing so well is we’re all about getting young families here and essentially you get that affordable entry level, medium sized square footage but you also get the storage that you need to put your toys, your mountain bikes, your skate board, your baby carriages, all that kind of stuff.  So it’s very interesting where we’ve seen that strength – can you see me now again?  So it’s just been really interesting because you know we’ve really see that area going on full steam and we’ve had over, well over a hundred new unit sales in the last year approximately and that’s substantial and what’s happened now is there’s very little inventory left, there were two very successful projects downtown and the one with a few remaining units is almost sold out until they move into future phases and I am getting close to start to market a project coming in the near future and so next time we talk I can give you a bit more information on that but we’re just finalizing the details right now and so we’re going to see townhome selling I think successfully through the fall and next spring just because it seems to be the right product type and affordability is still there by lower mainland standards.  That’s really what I want to share with you today and just do a quick update on the townhome market specifically.

Mark:  Perfect, so I have been talking with Mr. Darren McCartney, he’s a real estate broker or agent in Squamish, commercial and residential.  You can reach him at squamishcommercialproperty.com or give him a call 604-892-4875.  Beautiful Squamish, the next place to go.  Thanks Darren.

Darren:  Thank you Mark.