Here’s A Peek At What Artificial Intelligence Tells Us About Vancouver Property Values

This week we revealed we’re working with IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence, to build predictive real estate models. We revealed a few tidbits about Toronto, so to be fair we thought we’d give our readers a brief update on what we’ve learned about Vancouver real estate too. Without further ado, here’s a peek at what our robo-intern Watson has learned about the year a home is built, and the property’s value.

Land Assessment Value By Year Built On

This isn’t a shocker, but older structures tend to be located on more expensive land. Land with structures from the 1900, 1899, 1887 averaged property values of $21,636,052, $16,574,000, and $7,093,000 respectively. There was one wildcard, structures built in 2015 had the fourth most expensive average land assessment value, with an average of $6,510,555. Older buildings tend to be located on larger, more central plots of land – so it’s somewhat expected they would be worth more. However, 2015 is an interesting break from the pattern.

The lowest average property values were a little more random, but there are some correlations with the dates. Buildings from 1800 (which there may not be that many of), have the lowest average land assessment value at $100,800. The next four years were 1998 ($711,605),  1999 ($732,936), 2009 ($839,822), and 1997 ($840,528). What’s interesting about those years are, they were immediately preceded by drops in real estate prices, which may indicate there was a larger number of properties built to maximize profits over land value.

Average Land Value By Year Developed

Land Assessment Value By Decade Built On

The artificial intelligence engine also produced some interesting insights when looked at by median property value by decade built on. The 1930’s produced properties with a median average value of $3,383,473. On the flip side, homes built from 2000 – 2010 were the decade with the lowest average land value, with a media of $1,100,257. So if you’re looking to maximize land value, you might want to start finding homes made in the 1930s.

Median Land Value By Decade Developed

While that’s just a few of the insights Watson provided, it does highlight an interesting pattern of land development in Vancouver. The development cycles of property, and the value assigned by certain neighbourhoods by decade, gives us a better understanding of where Vancouverites want to live. If pricing is higher in neighbourhoods developed in the 1930s, how will tearing down these homes impact future land value? I guess that’s another question we’ll take a look at on another day.

Like this post? Like us on Facebook for the next one right in your feed. Are you a researcher or journalist that wants us to crunch a data set for you? Don’t be a stranger, reach out @betterdwelling.