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Once upon a time, a starter home was something that a young couple or even a well-to-do bachelor could afford. That’s why it’s called a starter home. Because younger people could afford to purchase it as their start to a lifetime of home ownership.

But these terms have new meanings in Vancouver’s runaway real-estate market of 2016.

Yesterday (June 2), the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver reported that as of May of this year, the benchmark price for a detached single-family home on the city’s West Side exceeded $3.4 million.

And so, sadly, it is actually with some accuracy that the real-estate agent listing this Dunbar property can call it a “cute starter home”.

The four-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom house was shared on social media by Twitter user @FIVRE604, who described it as a good find for “all you ‘move-up’ folks out there”.

The home is perfectly fine but nothing special, aside from its location near the epicentre of Vancouver’s West Side vortex of rocket-fueled real-estate prices.

A modest kitchen can be viewed as an opportunity for renovations. Locate Homes

We’ll add it to an ongoing list of depressingly special Vancouver home listings.

Last March, there was a house near the intersection of 1st Avenue and Nanaimo Street listed with a $2-million price tag alongside this description: “Existing house damaged by fire. Do not enter.”

In January, a cramped and rundown house in Point Grey caught the city’s attention when it was listed for $2.4 million.

And going back a little further, to September 2014, the Straight took note when studio apartments in Gastown began renting for upwards of $1,900 a month.

A property just 10 metres across for a price barely south of $3 million is added to the list.