<<< back to article list

To Live or to Invest


Blog by Patricia Houlihan - Personal Real Estate Corporation | April 10th, 2012


To Live or to Invest

I frequently read that people spend far too much time worrying about the investment potential of the places they buy to live in. Apparently this phenomena is somewhat unique to Vancouver-we are obsessed with real estate and making money off of it. A good example is a home that is currently listed on Panorama Drive in Deep Cove.

The house is tremendous value: it is waterfront, has a dock in great condition, a 3 car attached garage (most homes on the street require one to get out of the car and walk down a ton of stairs in the rain to get to their homes-and you cannot build a garage if you do not have one), some of the best outdoor space around, AND the house is bigger than you can build on most of the standard lots on the street.  The one drawback is that the lot size is small. HOWEVER, most people do not use most of their lots-they only use the waterfront side of their property AND on most of the bigger lots you can only build about 2400 square feet whereas this home is almost 3000 square feet. 

From a livability perspective, this house is definitely the best value around-it is under $2 million and it is waterfront with a private dock.  Personally I can see why lot size is important in some locations-but on the water when the larger lot won't give you a bigger house? I don't get it....I wish this house had been available when I bought my waterfront home-which is also on a small lot but without the attached garage and dock!  If buying to live in, I think we should focus on the features that make the house most livable!

Patricia
(604)376-7653