With the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board’s record-breaking sales figures has come a concurrent rise in the luxury auto market.
In April the board recorded its fourth straight record-breaking month as it processed 2,969 sales, a 47.8% increase compared with April 2015. The previous record for sales processed in the month of April was set in 1991 at 2,513. The all-time board record was set in March of this year, with 3,006 sales processed.
Aly Jiwani, general manager at BMW Langley, Porsche Centre Langley, MINI Langley and OpenRoad Exotics, said the luxury vehicle market has also exploded over the past few years. Jiwani lives in downtown Vancouver but commutes out to the Fraser Valley for work.
“I opened the first luxury dealership, which is BMW Langley, back in 2011, and that’s kind of been the staple of the Fraser Valley since then,” he said.
Porsche Centre Langley has seen a 20% increase in sales so far in 2016 compared with last year, and, since opening in 2011, the BMW Langley dealership has seen steady growth, as well as a yearly high of a 12% increase in sales from 2014-15.
Stanley Shenker, general manager of Mercedes-Benz Surrey, said sport utility vehicles are the biggest sellers as of late, and leasing makes up as much as 60% of sales in terms of luxury vehicles.
“People don’t like to own expensive cars; they like to just rent them,” he said. “Which we don’t mind because the car comes back to us as a used vehicle.”
When Mercedes-Benz Surrey opened in 2000, Shenker said, it was “the first dealership east of the Fraser in terms of luxury car dealerships.” Now Mercedes-Benz has another dealership in the Fraser Valley, located in Langley.
According to the Metro Vancouver Housing Data Book, between 2008 and 2013 the median family income across Metro Vancouver increased 6.9%, to $73,390 from $68,670. Since as far back as 2011, Langley, Surrey and White Rock have all had median household incomes above the Metro Vancouver average. Jiwani said we’re now starting to see luxury car sales as a reflection of this.
“In the Fraser Valley there’s a lot of new money and there are a lot of people who are passionate about it,” he said. “And the people who have moved out here just because the cost of living is slightly less than it would be in Vancouver, which means there’s a lot more expendable income out here.”
A 2015 sales report from DesRosiers Automotive Consultants showed luxury car sales in B.C. were 41.2% above the Canadian average. Jiwani said that out in the Fraser Valley it is a very diverse crowd of buyers.
“There are a lot of wealthy customers out here as well, from doctors and lawyers to farmers and construction company owners,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of Indo-Canadian, a lot of Chinese, a lot of Korean, a lot of German and Dutch customers as well too, so we’re seeing everything.”
City of Langley Mayor Ted Schaffer said the Fraser Valley has long been known as the “land of cars.”
“You’re always going to have to have a vehicle out here,” said Schaffer. “The area is young, it’s relatively new. It’s not like a European city that is hundreds of years old and has well-established transportation corridors.”
Schaffer said this obviously creates problems in terms of gridlock. Right now the closure of one lane across the Pattullo Bridge, which has become the go-to route since the new tolled Port Mann Bridge opened, has further increased congestion across the Fraser Valley. Schaffer said this is obviously an area that needs fixing.
“We realize something should be done in the way of light transit, whether it’s light rail or a SkyTrain-type model.”
According to the TomTom Traffic Index, Vancouver still has the highest rate of congestion in Canada and is 36th in the world with an extra congestion travel time of 34%. The next closest city is Toronto at 64th with a 28% congestion travel time wait. The most congested city in the world is Mexico City, and China has 12 cities in the top 30.
