The person who took over from the original individual, Leo, is still running the site. Leo and I have fistacuffs over market trends. It's our thang.

But yes, the original HouseHunt on VV said the market would crash, housing would be cheap, and all would be good. Then the market roared, wives got angry with their husbands who kept waiting on the sidelines to buy, and HouseHunt moved back to wherever he came from (I believe somewhere in the prairies). That's when Leo took over.

@Casual Kev, we need to keep in mind that out of this investor market also comes high density development. Investors have to purchase land assemblies piece by piece to have enough land to build on. Considering that to build one average condo or apartment of 50-100 units, you need to buy up six or eight houses. That's where a lot of this investment activity is coming from.

It happens because everyone wants to live here, and there has never been a time over the last several decades that you didn’t need a half decent income to buy a home here.

We’ve all gone through the tough part. When I bought my place it was by the skin of my teeth, I mean I just barely did it as part of a last ditch kick of the can. Hardly anyone has it easy when trying to enter any desirable market, believe me.

But once you do, now you’re building equity. Part of it might be a market uplift, part of it will be what you’re paying for your mortgage.

But remember, everyone loves to complain about a rising market but last year at the onset of COVID the “experts” all said the market would crash and be sent into a tailspin. For the majority of buyers, though, their home is not a get rich scheme, it’s their home. They plan to hold it for the long term so day-to-day market moves are not a factor (most can’t even tap into the golden egg HELOC the “experts” seem to think is just sitting there available in full to all who want it, unless their income is high enough).

My parents visited Victoria in the eighties and fell in love with it. They could not afford to live here so stayed where they were, but they never stopped dreaming.

We bought our house (could not afford BC so started elsewhere and moved up here when we could afford it). Buying a house meant no travelling, no dinners at nice restaurants or nights out at the pub, no fancy furniture. We had cardboard boxes as night tables for many years. Getting started is hard, but it’s life and what makes it worthwhile.

Circling this back to Washington, the sales success here cannot be understated. They had such a strong response to their initial release that they increased it from roughly a quarter of their inventory of 34 homes, to 40%. Demand for townhomes is intense, and their supply is the smallest out of all market segments (maybe mobile homes is smaller, but that's not a growing industry and is slowly being phased out).

This developer is also working on a project on Ophir Street in Saanich that will follow the same principles as Washington.

This week, Formwell will unveil formerly unreleased floorplans for its remaining homes at Washington.

Click here to view attachment.

A rendering of Washington's avenue-facing townhomes, part of the project's final offering as sales surge to 75% sold-out status. This week developer Formwell unveils unreleased floorplans among its remaining two and three-storey residences at 3080 Washington Avenue in Victoria.

75% sold-out, 'Washington' townhome project in Burnside-Gorge unveils spring unit release

https://victoria.citified.ca/news/75-percent-sold-washington-townhome-project-burnside-gorge-unveils-spring-release/

https://victoria.citified.ca/news/washington-city-of-victorias-largest-missing-middle-dev-in-years-on-track-2023-completion/