Website encourages Vancouver homeowners to sell below market value

A new website is trying to draw attention to Vancouver's skyrocketing real estate prices with a novel approach: simply ask people to sell their homes for less than market value.

"I think I am trying to be disruptive," said David Kandestin, 31, who's one of the people behind the website.

"Everyone who has responded directly to me has been overwhelmingly positive," he said. "Some of them might roll their eyes and think, like, who's going to sell their place at below-market."

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The Vancouver Home Project is a simple website, with one page outlining Vancouver's housing affordability problem in broad terms along with a few possible solutions and a second page with a contact form to submit your story — whether you're a seller or buyer. 

"I just figured we wouldn't get any sellers. It would be just a whole host of buyers complaining, complaining, complaining," said Kandestin.

33 responses already submitted to site

But the response has been constructive, according to Kandestin, a lawyer who moved to Vancouver three years ago. In August, he and his partner bought a condo in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, but they choose to rent it out and continue to live in a smaller, nearby rental apartment.

On Wednesday he said that, in the three days since the site went live, 33 people had filled out the form and expressed interest to get involved in an artificially-cheap, altruistic Vancouver real-estate market. 

As Kandestin expected, prospective buyers vastly outnumber prospective sellers. He said two people wrote in saying they'd be happy to sell their homes below market value, if they could also buy their new home below-market. 

"There has been one seller from West Van whose house is currently up on the market and listed, and she said she's willing to … sell it at below-market."

"She did mention the whole market is overheated and crazy, and she's kind of waiting for the government to put regulations in, but isn't holding her breath for that anymore," said Kandestin.

'Total absence of affordability'

Tom Davidoff is a UBC Sauder School of Business associate professor who works on issues of housing affordability. He underscores how bad the issue has really become in Vancouver.

"I think even people who have gotten rich on the housing market are not happy with the total absence of affordability for people that just want to live and work here." he said.

Davidoff doesn't think the Vancouver Home Project is a non-starter, but he's somewhat critical of the idea.

"I'll bet you can get a few people to do it," he said. "I personally would recommend to somebody with a few extra millions of dollars — rather than to sell your house for less than it's worth to a middle class family — I think you should take the charity money and help people who are suffering through horrendous deprivation all over the world. I mean, we do need to put our problems into perspective."

Other solutions to the problem

For Davidoff, the best solutions to Vancouver's affordability problem don't rely on convincing people to commit an act of altruism and wouldn't cost the government a cent.

"If we want more affordable housing, all we have to do is hold our political leaders to account and insist that they do easy stuff like fix taxes and zoning," he said.

"If you really want to make a dent, you have to address taxes. We have a tax system that invites people that don't make a living here to buy real estate at bargain basement property taxes."

Municipally, Davidoff suggests rethinking how neighbourhoods are zoned. 

"Why do we ban apartment buildings from [the Arbutus] neighbourhood? For whose benefit? Twenty to 30 years from now that's all going to be internationally rich people who own those properties," he said. "That's insane. It's absolute madness."

"We don't need individual people throwing millions of dollars away. We need governments to do their job."

Unfair to neighbours?

Grant Connell is a real estate agent based in West Vancouver who recently noticed an anomalous deal in a North Vancouver apartment building.

He figured the deal was several thousand dollars below market value — and the value of the neighbours' similar suites.

Connell said he raised a flag on it because he didn't want it affecting the values of those neighbouring suites, and if someone chose to sell their place for a less-than-market price, it could have that effect. 

"In an apartment, yes, it can affect the neighbours, for sure. You start getting into this comparable thing," he said, but added that, with houses, there would be less impact for the neighbours, because houses are all quite different.

As for Kandestin's website?

"It's not going to catch on, in my opinion," said Connell.

Davidoff echoes some of Connell's pessimism about the plan.

"He's drawing attention to a serious issue and some of the causes and possible solutions. I think it's a gimmick to get traffic and attention, I guess, and that's fine. I have nothing against that," he said.

But Kandestin doesn't appear to have any illusions about his efforts.

"So far, I just have a two-page website," he said. "I don't imagine it being a silver bullet that's going to fix everyone's problems, but I do imagine it as a more positive way to look at the situation."