If you owned a house in a top Tri-City neighbourhood last year, chances are you were making about $12,000 a month on your investment.
That's the result of a searing hot real estate market in Metro Vancouver, where there's a dwindling supply of single-family homes (SFH).
According to BC Assessment, which this week mailed out its notices, the value of detached houses shot up significantly over the past year. Take these examples provided by the authority Monday:
• a central Coquitlam SFH, built in the 1980s, is now worth $1 million (up 17%);
• a Westwood Plateau SFH, built in 1992, is now valued at $1,021,000 (up 20%);
• a Citadel Heights SFH, built in the 1990s, is now assessed at $805,000 (up 14%);
• a Heritage Mountain SFH, built in 1997, is now worth $1.3 million (up 17%);
• and a North shore SFH, built in the 1970s, is now valued at $1,019,000 (up 17%).
BC Assessment's Jason Grant said the Vancouver suburbs — where there's some land left — are where urbanites want to put down their roots.
And he doesn't expect the market to cool down next year, with interest rates being low and older neighbourhoods rejuvenating.
Burke Mountain, the largest greenfield in Metro, is also booming with development, as are areas where the Evergreen Line will soon push through.
Grant stressed the market determines what the properties are worth and the assessments are essentially a snapshot of values from last summer.
"BC Assessment reports that to homeowners and the assessments that are arriving in the mail this week are based on a valuation date of July 1, 2015," he said. "That's important to understand this year because, in many cases, the market has continued to rise — in some cases, dramatically — since July."
(The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver noted Tuesday that sales of detached homes in December 2015 was up 36.4% versus the same month the year prior, and the benchmark price was up 24.3%, to $1.2 million).
Tri-City realtors contacted on Tuesday by The Tri-City News said international investors are also driving up the prices of local houses.
Leo Bruneau of Re/Max All Points Realty said many buyers are snapping up detached homes for vacation pads and 10-hour flight is nothing for them. "There's just that much money out there," he said.
The problem is that anyone who wants to sell today will likely be priced out of their own community unless they want to downsize, he said.
Still, with the inventory shrinking for single-family homes and the demand up, the value of multi-family units has fallen flat, Bruneau added.
Condos and townhomes haven't made much in five years despite this year's assessment jumping an average 8% (the biggest rise was in NewPort Village, where a 1996 low-rise unit increased by 16%).
Realtor John Grasty of Royal LePage Sterling Realty suggested multi-family homeowners are now subsidizing single-family dwellers because of the rising cost to bring infrastructure services to individual parcels.
It's more efficient, he said, to reduce the overall density footprint and have people living closer together — and closer to public transit.
Meanwhile, Grant said homeowners who see a hefty rise in this year's assessment shouldn't automatically assume it will translate to a higher property tax bill from the municipality in which they have their home. The cities adjust the tax rate to offset the average increase in assessed values to generate only the amount council has budgeted for operations. That rate is set in May to collect the necessary taxes.
But Brian North, the city of Port Coquitlam's manager of revenue and collections, said if the assessment increase is higher than the city average, then the property tax hike will be more than average; on the other hand, if the assessment increase is lower than the city average, the tax increase will be lower than average.
As well, in response to the higher-than-usual valuations this year, the provincial government on Tuesday upped the threshold for the homeowner's grant, by $100,000. That means owners of properties valued up to $1.2 million may still be eligible to receive a grant in 2016.
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TOP 10 LIST
While the Tri-Cities' top valued property is an acreage at 3655 Crouch Ave. in Coquitlam worth $12.263 million, here are the top single-family homes as of July 1, 2015:
• 1256 Alderside Rd., Port Moody — $4.2 million;
• 1122 Alderside Rd., Port Moody — $4 million;
• 3495 Senkler Rd., Belcarra — $3.89 million;
• 2966 Sunridge Crt., Coquitlam — $3.88 million;
• 5225 Coombe Lane, Belcarra — $3.87 million;
• 185 Turtlehead Rd., Belcarra — $3.85 million;
• 1755 Lancaster Crt., Anmore — $3.78 million;
• 1008 Alderside Rd., Port Moody — $3.77 million;
• 956 Poirier St., Coquitlam — $3.67 million;
• 1730 Lancaster Crt., Anmore — $3.66 million.
