A window on Vancouver's real estate market

I did a really bad job putting up the blinds in my apartment.

I'm going to have to spend another $100 to replace the ones I destroyed. Since they'll be on special order, I can look forward to a few more weeks of being woken up at 5 am as the sun comes up.

Of course I'm disappointed at this confirmation of my Homer Simpson-level of handyman ability. But my feeling was somewhat muted by today's reminder that no matter how badly I screw up a window treatment, my home will still gain value in somebody else's eyes.

The latest figures from the Canadian Real Estate Association (as summarized by the CBC here) show that home prices in Vancouver went up an astounding 23.7 per cent this year. It's not quite up there with Calgary (up 43.6 per cent), but nowhere else even comes close to the Texans of the north, either.

Growing up in the relatively stable real-estate market of Winnipeg (which rose this year at just under the national average of 12.9 per cent), I had no idea that property could rise in value so quickly outside of a postwar reconstruction sort of scenario.

For my sake, this bubble better keep on blowing. I've got a few more jobs to do around the apartment and I plan on screwing them all up at least once.

(Thanks to Jenny Lee Silver on Metroblogging Vancouver for alerting all of us to the CBC article with the Canadian Real Estate Association figures)

tags: Vancouver, real estate, house prices, home, home improvement, real estate, Canadian Real Estate Association, property value