Port Moody is a charming city located in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Known for its scenic waterfront, historic downtown, and outdoor recreational opportunities.

Port Moody offers a lifestyle that embraces the best of both urban and natural worlds.

Here are some key features of Port Moody:

1. Seaside Charm:

   • Port Moody's waterfront location along the Burrard Inlet gives the city a unique and picturesque charm. Residents and visitors can enjoy breathtaking views of the water, mountains, and surrounding greenery.

2. Historic Downtown:

   • The historic downtown area of Port Moody is a focal point of the city, characterized by heritage buildings, boutique shops, and a variety of dining options. The streets are lined with a mix of local businesses and establishments that contribute to the city's character.

3. Rocky Point Park:

   • One of the highlights of Port Moody is Rocky Point Park, a scenic waterfront park offering a perfect blend of recreation and relaxation. The park features walking trails, a pier, a playground, and picnic areas. It's a popular spot for families, joggers, and those seeking a peaceful escape by the water.

4. Outdoor Recreation:

   • Port Moody is renowned for its commitment to green spaces and outdoor activities. In addition to Rocky Point Park, the city provides residents with numerous parks, trails, and recreational areas. Buntzen Lake and Sasamat Lake, located nearby, offer additional options for outdoor enthusiasts.

5. Transportation Hub:

   • The city serves as a transportation hub, providing convenient access to public transit options. The West Coast Express commuter train connects Port Moody to downtown Vancouver, making it a desirable location for commuters. The Evergreen Line SkyTrain further enhances accessibility.

6. Arts and Culture:

   • Port Moody embraces arts and culture, evident in events, festivals, and community gatherings. The city hosts various cultural activities throughout the year, contributing to a vibrant and engaged community. The Terry Fox Theatre is a cultural hub, featuring performances and events.

7. Residential Appeal:

   • Port Moody has attracted residents seeking a mix of small-town charm and urban conveniences. The diverse housing options include a blend of heritage homes, modern developments, and waterfront properties.

8. Craft Breweries and Dining:

   • The city has become known for its craft breweries, adding to its appeal as a destination for those who enjoy unique and locally crafted beverages. The dining scene in Port Moody includes a variety of restaurants offering diverse cuisines.

9. Brewery Row:

   • Port Moody has earned the nickname "Brewery Row" due to the concentration of craft breweries in the area. These breweries offer a diverse range of locally brewed beers, creating a vibrant craft beer scene. Residents and visitors can explore tasting rooms, enjoy unique brews, and take part in brewery events.

10. Community Events:

    • Port Moody hosts a variety of community events throughout the year, fostering a strong sense of community engagement. Festivals, markets, and cultural celebrations bring residents together and contribute to the city's lively atmosphere.

11. Schools and Education:

    • The city is served by several schools, providing educational options for families. Port Moody places importance on education, contributing to the appeal for families looking for a supportive and well-rounded community.

12. Real Estate Diversity:

    • Port Moody offers a diverse real estate landscape, ranging from waterfront properties to modern condominiums and family homes. The mix of housing options caters to different preferences and lifestyles, making it an inclusive community.

13. Evergreen Cultural Centre:

    • The Evergreen Cultural Centre is a prominent cultural institution in Port Moody, featuring a range of artistic performances, exhibitions, and educational programs. It adds to the cultural vibrancy of the city, providing residents with access to diverse artistic experiences.

14. Sustainability Initiatives:

    • Port Moody has been proactive in implementing sustainability initiatives. The city has focused on environmental conservation, promoting green spaces, and encouraging eco-friendly practices. This commitment aligns with the values of residents who appreciate a sustainable and environmentally conscious community.

15. Gateway to Outdoor Exploration:

    • Beyond the city limits, Port Moody serves as a gateway to outdoor exploration. The nearby mountains, hiking trails, and lakes provide opportunities for outdoor enthusiasts to enjoy activities such as hiking, biking, and water sports.

16. Harmony of Urban and Natural:

    • Port Moody excels in achieving a harmonious blend of urban living and natural beauty. Residents can experience the conveniences of modern life while being surrounded by lush greenery, waterfront views, and a tranquil atmosphere.

17. Future Development:

    • The city continues to experience growth and development, with plans for enhancing infrastructure, public spaces, and community facilities. This forward-looking approach contributes to Port Moody's status as a thriving and evolving community.

In essence, Port Moody offers a lifestyle that seamlessly integrates the beauty of its natural surroundings with a vibrant urban atmosphere. The city's commitment to culture, sustainability, and community engagement, coupled with its picturesque setting, makes it an appealing and dynamic place to call home within the Greater Vancouver region.

The Tri-Cities is a term commonly used to refer to a group of three neighboring cities in the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada. The Tri-Cities include the cities of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody. Here's a brief overview of each city:

1. Coquitlam:

   • Location: Coquitlam is the largest of the Tri-Cities and is situated east of Vancouver.

   • Features: It offers a mix of urban and suburban living, with a variety of parks, recreational facilities, and shopping centers. Coquitlam Centre is a major shopping destination in the region.

   • Nature: Coquitlam is known for its natural beauty, including parks like Mundy Park and Minnekhada Regional Park. The city also has a portion of the Coquitlam Crunch trail, a popular outdoor recreational area.

2. Port Coquitlam:

   • Location: Port Coquitlam is located to the east of Coquitlam.

   • Features: It is a family-oriented community with a mix of residential neighborhoods, parks, and local businesses. The city has a vibrant arts and cultural scene, with events and festivals throughout the year.

   • Recreation: Port Coquitlam offers recreational amenities, including trails along the Pitt River, Gates Park, and the Terry Fox Library.

3. Port Moody:

   • Location: Port Moody is the smallest of the Tri-Cities and is located west of Coquitlam.

   • Features: Known for its charming seaside atmosphere, Port Moody has a historic downtown area, Rocky Point Park with waterfront trails, and popular breweries. The city has a mix of heritage homes and modern developments.

   • Transportation: Port Moody is a transportation hub with access to the West Coast Express commuter train and the Evergreen Line SkyTrain, providing convenient transit options to Vancouver and other areas.

The Tri-Cities are collectively known for their family-friendly communities, outdoor recreational opportunities, and proximity to both urban amenities and natural landscapes. The area has seen growth and development over the years, attracting residents who appreciate a balance between suburban living and access to various amenities and services. Each city within the Tri-Cities has its unique character, contributing to the overall appeal of the region.

What will home sales look like in the first half of 2024?

Thursday, January 11, 2024 Economic forecast 

Under the hood, 2024 is poised to be a growth year for the residential market across the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver’s areas.

Fundamental factors that drive our market, such as household formation, population growth, and employment growth remain fairly strong despite continued concerns of potentially slower economic growth ahead.

With that said, a key ingredient that drives market participation, which many had become accustomed to over the past ten years or so, is still notably lacking at the time of publication: ultra-low mortgage rates.

While inflation no longer looms as the immediate threat it was in early 2023, core measures of inflation have been declining too slowly for the Bank of Canada to consider aggressively lowering their policy rate in the short-term.

What does this mean for the market in the first half of 2024? Check our forecast to find out.

Key highlights Economic growth and interest rates: Despite concerns about potential slower economic growth, fundamental factors such as household formation, population growth, and employment remain strong. However, the absence of ultra-low interest rates, due to slower-than-expected inflation decline, is a key factor influencing market participation.

Borrowing costs and sales: Interest rates are the primary wildcard for sales activity in 2024, and our forecast analyzes a few plausible scenarios.

Housing affordability: Even with elevated borrowing costs, we anticipate continued price escalation in 2024, driven by near-record-low inventory levels.

Source: REBGV

Opinion: High housing costs and a stagnant economy are causing a large number of Canadians to "vote with their feet," says economist. 

Vernon mayor Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming is a witness to one big migration trend — the large number of young families escaping Metro Vancouver. Meanwhile, many other people are also moving out of B.C. to other provinces — and from Canada to other countries.

PHOTO BY JOSH WINQUIST

Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming is highly aware that a lot of British Columbians are on the move.

Lorraine Complains: Save $120 a year on that sticker? Be careful what you vote for He’s getting to know the young parents who come to his mid-sized Okanagan city from Metro Vancouver to escape extreme housing costs and to stretch their money further while enjoying easy access to outdoor recreation.

They get a much higher quality of life for much less money,” Cumming said, noting many new families show up in the school system when their children are ready to enter Grades 3 and 4.

Last year, 635 people from Metro set up a new home in Vernon, population 69,000.

But the intra-provincial shift away to places like Vernon, Courtenay and Kamloops from B.C.’s biggest cities is just one migration trend. A large number of people are now also moving out of B.C. to other provinces — and from Canada to other countries.

For two decades a confident B.C. has been used to attracting more people than it loses to other provinces. But over the last year more British Columbians — about 8,000 — have left the province for other parts of Canada than have arrived from within it. They’re seemingly doing so to escape a drab economy and the cost of housing.

Meanwhile, at the national level, about 35,600 people have left Canada altogether.

That’s the disturbing counterpoint to Canada’s main narrative, which is that the country is undergoing a population boom because an unprecedented number of foreign nationals have been invited to the country.

The Liberal government boasts that bringing in a record 1.25 million permanent and temporary residents in one year is the key to prosperity for all. Many Canadian economists, however, believe it’s actually masking stagnation.

For every action there is a reaction. And one of the responses to record population growth, 98 per cent of which is fuelled by international migration, is that “people vote with their feet,” says David Williams, economist for the Business Council of B.C., which represents 250 large-scale businesses.

Canada and B.C., Williams says, risk losing some of their best and brightest people to other places because the standard of living is flat or declining.

Williams believes Ottawa’s immigration policies have become “disconnected from the academic evidence.” Federal politicians act as if having by far the highest migration rate of any advanced nation is a panacea for the country’s economic malaise.

But the reality is that Canada has one of the weakest overall economies in the OECD, a club of 38 mostly rich nations, says Williams.

Canada had the third weakest economy in the OECD in the five years before COVID-19. And it has had the fifth weakest economy since the pandemic in terms of growth in GDP per capita, a crucial measure of real incomes that he says “reflects people’s share of the economic pie.”

Worse yet, the OECD projects Canada’s growth in GDP per capita will be the lowest among all its member countries over the next four decades.

“We’re right at the back of the pack,” Williams says.

“You don’t need to be an economist,” he says, to recognize living standards are going sideways or down for a lot of people.

“Canadians have figured out for themselves that the economy isn’t performing very well. They’ve seen that in their personal lives, when they try to buy groceries, pay their rent, pay their mortgage, pay all their taxes and queue up for health care.”

Williams suggests politicians’ persistent failure to deliver rising real incomes “risks losing thousands of aspirational, skilled Canadians to, for example, the U.S. where productivity is higher, market wages are higher and income taxes are lower.”

As the mayor of Vernon has witnessed, while new permanent and temporary migrants to Canada concentrate on gateway cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, contributing to higher residential land costs, many big-city Canadians are saying goodbye to family members and friends. They’re migrating to smaller, less congested places where the cost of housing is more affordable.

Since 2017, roughly 10,000 to 12,000 more British Columbians a year have been leaving Greater Vancouver than moving into it. They’re setting up homes on Vancouver Island and the Thompson-Okanagan.

Statistics Canada data shows Courtenay, for instance, took in 618 new residents from Metro in one recent year, far more than the other way around. And Kamloops embraced 1,046 newcomers from Metro, most of them under age 65.

Williams spells out how the high-migration policy of Ottawa, which is without parallel around the world, is a major factor behind why so many are moving out of Canada, its biggest provinces (such as Ontario and B.C.) and its largest metropolises.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he said, is now bringing in enough new people to create a new province of B.C. every 4 1/2 years. And the Liberals are acting as if their plan to mushroom the population by 3.2 per cent a year — which is six times the average intake since the Second World War — is an “unambiguous good,” Williams said.

“But Ottawa’s immigration policy has really become disconnected from the academic evidence. There seems to be a view in the federal government that you can pull the immigration policy lever and an embarrassment of riches comes your way. That it’s a panacea for all our economic woes. And it’s simply not.”

Virtually every scholarly study shows that immigration levels “have a neutral or very small overall impact on a standard of living,” Williams says, as they don’t materially alter productivity, real wages, employment rates or fertility trends. He cites a host of labour-market economists who have said as much, including Mikal Skuterud and Matthew Doyle of Ontario’s University of Waterloo; Christopher Worswick and Frances Woolley of Carleton in Ontario; and David Green and Craig Riddell of the University of B.C.

Williams believes Canada’s federal politicians are motivated to bring in a record number of immigrants, foreign students and other guest workers to “juice” GDP growth. And all those bodies do provide more consumers of goods, services and housing. But there’s no evidence that faster population growth raises GDP per capita, which is the best measure of living standards.

In other words, the highest migration rate in the Western world isn’t necessarily helping most Canadian families get ahead. So more than a few are pulling up stakes to find somewhere more attractive to prosper.

dtodd@postmedia.com