Get to the Point – Norquay Village, The Unsung Hero of East Van
Welcome to the first ever Get to the Point audio. My name is Ehsan Sharenejad at Propel Project
Marketing Group. Thank you for taking a listen. Norquay Village, what a wonderful opportunity and
infrequently talked about East Vancouver neighbourhood that my team and are extremely excited
about. In an age where there are no secrets, Norway Village is an exception to the rule.
I’m a firm believer that it is currently Vancouver’s best kept secret.
Norquay Village is quietly becoming the go to neighbourhood for perceptive young families who wish to remain in the urban core. When speaking about the area to folks, I often get a lot of confused looks. Most don’t know about the families who are second and even third generation residents of the area. They haven’t visited the quiet tree-lined streets with single family houses that surround Kingsway to the north and south. They’ve never zoomed out the map and recognized the neighbourhood benefits from excellent connectivity to the broader city and region through two major transportation corridors Kingsway and SkyTrain BC Parkway.
You see the market is hyper focused on other East Side neighbourhoods such as
Mount Pleasant, Commercial Drive, Cedar Cottage, escalating real estate prices in these areas beyond
the reach of many families. For this reason, I’m what you would call bullish on the neighbourhood.
From a real estate perspective, it’s flying underneath the radar, which creates immense value for
home purchasers. I would go as far as to even say that the condos and townhomes in the area are
relatively undervalued, but it won’t remain that way for long.
It has all the essentials you want from a family friendly neighbourhood. A wonderful foundation for the
Norquay Village neighbourhood community plan which introduces new zoning. This new zoning allows
for increased housing variety so that people of all ages and circumstances will have more
opportunities to live and remain in rental Collingwood. As a result, we’re seeing low density
townhouse complexes and apartment buildings spread out throughout the entire area. And Kingsway
has now become a major attraction for larger high density developments.
These developments will ultimately provide all sorts of additional amenities and services to the
neighbourhood residents. But that is only half of it. The area has families planning moves to the
suburbs. Thinking twice. There’s nothing wrong with moving to the suburbs of Vancouver.
Tri-Cities, Richmond, Surrey, Langley. And it’s not to say these areas are bad investments, not at all.
However, the draw for the suburbs to young families has always been trading distance to their
lifestyle and networks for more living space and lower prices.
Well, guess what? Townhomes in Langley are now trading at a million and a half dollars. So if the price gap between Vancouver and the suburbs is shrinking significantly and you’re moving away from what you value in your day to day life, home buyers are pausing and taking a hard look at that decision. I’ve seen this story before when working with buyers 15-16 years ago, young couples and families moved to
suburban areas far away from their personal and professional networks, only to realize the value of
location meant to their day to day life being a short sky train ride from work, a quick Uber to the local
watering hole, a short drive to drop the kids at Mum and dad’s.
I know the popular take is that Covid has created a world where the importance of the city or even the region you live in has decreased. But I would argue that it has also made a lot of us realize what really matters the most the connections with people, places, and activities that ground us, that make us feel connected. This is what has me so excited about Norquay Village. Sacrifice a little bit of square footage, but stay close to what matters to you the most and have lower price point. So what am I getting at? Norway Village is not getting the attention it deserves for essentially located neighbourhood that is family oriented and redeveloping in a way that keeps local families close to home. The ceiling for Norquay Village is tremendous. I recommend you take a hard look.