Ian Watt, Realtor & Mathematician – “If you’ve ever been to Winnipeg, you realize that Vancouver is ten times better. Our average price should be 2.5 million dollars for an average house in Vancouver.”

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Ian Watt, a Vancouver condo realtor, seems like a genuinely good chap. His energy is infectious, and his self-posted videos are so often entertaining.
In a recent video [29 Oct 2010, fully transcribed below], however, he demonstrates questionable judgment (“Vancouver is ‘ten times’ better than Winnipeg”) and laughably outrageous logic (“…therefore Vancouver prices should be ’10 times’ those of Winnipeg”).
Ian also seems to have lost grasp of just how much Vancouver RE prices have risen (“I don’t think that they are going to drop 30% back to prices of 15, 20 years ago”). A 30% price drop won’t even take us back to 2005, let alone 1995 or 1990 (which would require drops of  about 60% and 80% respectively).
So many people seem to think that our market couldn’t possibly drop more than 10%. -vreaa
[Thanks to 'westsidefrank' for the transcription]
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Hi, Good afternoon, It ‘s Ian Watt in downtown Vancouver. I had an email yesterday from a prospective client that says my husband and I have been looking for a home in Vancouver for a while but the prices are so inflated and Vancouver is so overhyped, do you ever think that the prices are going to go down to a reasonable level?
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Well, I don’t know what the prices are going to do. My personal feeling and it’s just a feeling, is that we are going to stay at this level for awhile unless the interest rates or the mortgage rates shoot up… I don’t think the prices are going to change too much, maybe 5%, maybe 10%, if the mortgage rates go up. Who knows? Who knows? But the reality is that if the mortgage rates go up you’re going to pay more in the end anyways.
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But the way I look at it is that Vancouver in not overhyped because, if you look at the average sale price of a house in Winnipeg, say $250,000 (it could have changed a little bit here or there since I checked last), but if you’ve ever been to Winnipeg, you realize that Vancouver is ten times better. Our average price should be 2.5 million dollars for an average house in Vancouver but it’s not, it’s about a million dollars for an average house in Vancouver. So I think mathematically speaking, yes, Vancouver prices are pretty accurate or even undervalued compared to Winnipeg.
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But, in reality prices are expensive in Vancouver. It’s a very sought after area, BC stands for ‘Bring Cash’ so make sure if you are going to move to Vancouver be prepared for a million dollar price tag on your typical house.
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I don’t know where the prices are going. I don’t think they are going to shoot up at all in the next 4 years. I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before, but I don’t think that they are going to drop 30% back to prices of 15, 20 years ago. I just don’t see it happening. They seem to be holding their own price levels right now, maybe we will see a little bit of a correction… maybe 5%, but it is not going to change and impact your buy ability, that’s for sure.
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My name is Ian Watt, and if you have any questions you can always e-mail me at IanWatt at ianwatt.ca. Thank you very much and have a great day!