Will housing prices ever go down in Vancouver?

Experts say prices are unlikely to fall significantly unless restrictive zoning and land use policies change. The 2025 Demographia report found that affordability will not return until governments release more land for housing development.

Why is Vancouver so overpriced?

Vancouver’s high housing costs are largely driven by restrictive land-use policies, limited development zones, and artificial scarcity. The city’s urban containment boundaries prevent housing expansion despite available land nearby.

Where do the rich live in Vancouver?

The wealthiest neighborhoods in Vancouver include Shaughnessy, Point Grey, and Kerrisdale, where detached homes often exceed several million dollars in value. These areas remain insulated from affordability reforms due to zoning restrictions.

Why is the cost of living so high in British Columbia?

The cost of living in BC is driven by high housing prices, limited supply, and increasing transportation and utility costs. Vancouver’s restrictive housing policies contribute significantly to the province’s overall affordability crisis.

Why Vancouver’s Housing Affordability Crisis Was No Accident

Meera Gill
Oct 6
3 min read

Updated: Oct 21

Comic book style illustration of the Vancouver skyline showing tall luxury condos towering over a sad young woman holding an empty wallet, symbolizing the Vancouver housing affordability crisis caused by restrictive land policy and rising home prices.

Young people across Vancouver have given up on the idea of buying a home in the city where they grew up. Even stable jobs and dual incomes cannot compete with prices that keep rising faster than wages. For many, the dream of home ownership has quietly disappeared, and Vancouver housing affordability has become one of the most talked-about crises in Canada. Few know that the forces behind it were not accidental.

New research from Chapman University has confirmed that Vancouver’s housing crisis stems from decades of policy choices that limited where and how homes could be built. The report calls it one of the clearest examples of “artificial scarcity” in the world. How did these policies take hold, and why are they still in place today?

How Policy Decisions Drove the Collapse of Vancouver Housing Affordability

The 2025 Demographia International Housing Affordability Report explains that Vancouver’s unaffordability is not caused by population growth or geography, but by rules that restrict land use and drive up prices. These planning choices, known as urban containment, were designed to stop sprawl and protect green space.

Instead, they created one of the world’s most distorted housing markets. As demand rose inside the city’s growth boundary, land values surged, making each new home dramatically more expensive than the last.

Canada Has the Land, So Why the Shortage?

Comic book style illustration of a map of Vancouver surrounded by open land but enclosed by thick red boundary lines labeled “Urban Containment,” representing restrictive zoning policies and the Vancouver housing affordability crisis.

Vancouver is surrounded by space, yet young people are being squeezed into smaller and smaller areas. Local governments have drawn strict boundaries around where development can happen, blocking expansion into nearby land that could ease pressure on prices.

In cities like Calgary or Edmonton, where land use is more flexible, homes cost half as much relative to income. The contrast shows that Canada’s housing shortage is not about land running out. It is about decisions that keep most of it off limits, making it harder each year for ordinary residents to stay in the city they love.

How Vancouver Compares to the Rest of the World

The same report ranks Vancouver just behind Hong Kong, Sydney, and San Jose, placing it among the most unaffordable cities ever recorded. In each case, the study found that strict growth limits and planning restrictions made land prices soar.

Cities without those limits tell a different story. In the United States, places like Houston and Dallas allow development to expand with demand and remain among the most affordable major urban markets in the world. If other cities could change course, could Vancouver do the same?

What These Policies Are Doing to Vancouver’s Future

High prices are reshaping who can live in Vancouver. The city that once felt young and creative now feels reserved for those who bought early or inherited wealth.

This shift is slowly hollowing out the middle class that once defined the city. Each policy meant to manage growth is now pushing it away, leaving many to wonder whether the next generation will have a place here at all.

What Needs to Change & Why Prices Will Not Drop Without It

The researchers behind the Demographia report say affordability will not return unless governments release more land for housing. Densification alone cannot offset the price pressure created by fixed boundaries and limited supply.

Interest rates may rise and fall, but scarcity keeps values high. Until the rules that restrict development change, owning a home in Vancouver will remain a privilege few can reach. The question is whether any government will be willing to take that risk.

What Vancouver Can Learn from Other Cities

Some cities that once faced similar affordability crises have started to reverse course. In Auckland and Houston, reforms that opened more land for development helped stabilize prices and gave younger residents a path back into the market.

Vancouver could take the same path if it chooses to. For now, the research offers a reminder that this crisis was made by policy, and that means it can be unmade too.