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“But we can try something, something a bit different. The Vancouver Home Project will connect those willing to solve this housing crisis. If you own a home in Vancouver and are willing to sell below market to a buyer that wants to live in this city, we want to hear from you.

“If you can’t afford a home in Vancouver but want to live here and have a great story to tell, we want to hear from you. Call it altruism, call it pay it forward, call it whatever you like, an unsolvable problem requires a novel solution. Vancouver Home Project will connect ‘real’ sellers with ‘real’ buyers to break this unsustainable cycle.”

The site provides a contact page where buyers or sellers can submit their contact information and stories. The site has been up two days. So far, he said, no one’s submitted anything to it.

Kandestin rents a one-bedroom apartment in Mount Pleasant, though he and his wife own a two-bedroom condo nearby. They don’t live in it, he said, because they have yet to start a family and don’t need the space, so they rent the condo out. While the impetus for the site started here, Kandestin said, its germinating idea came from Calgary.

“I have a friend … a corporate lawyer like me who lives in Calgary … and he wanted to stay in the city. And he found a place which was kind of small and needed some work, but given the proximity to the downtown it was still worth something like $650,000 or $700,000. But he really only had something like $500,000 to spend. So he just kind of made a plea to the guy and said, ‘Listen, I’m from Calgary and I really want to live in this neighbourhood. I want to rebuild the place, renovate it and have a family here.’