The Housing Research Collaborative (HRC) gathered over 17,000 points of data from one of the oldest and most dominant classified ad websites for the Metro Vancouver region over five months in late 2019 to early 2020. Five months of data were used to produce a cursory snapshot of the rental market, mapping the price and spatial distribution of rental housing across the Metro Vancouver CMA. The results of the data were also compared to existing government and private sources to serve conversations around the cost of living and the relative value of VGI. This study was also developmental, iterating the tool and manual processing methods as the nature of the data and the novel needs of this kind of research became better understood through study. The improved state of the tool, documentation of the processing methods, and outline of future developments are as integral products of this study as the market information itself.
Authors: Riley Iwamoto, Iris Gao, and Tori Lin