How you can crack Vancouver's red-hot housing market

Carole Lieberman is a Tesla-driving, Prada-wearing, no-nonsense Vancouver realtor.

Here's her blunt advice for getting into the toughest real estate market in the country:

Put your money into something — no matter how small — just to get into the market

"Maybe you get into what they call a 'junior one bedroom' — which is a euphemism for a studio. Maybe it's on a busy street, so you wear earplugs. And you just make it your home and do cute little decor, and it doesn't have to be expensive."

Say goodbye to your dream of living on Vancouver's West Side (or East Side, Main Street, UBC and Commercial Drive, for that matter)... And say hello to Burnaby instead!  

"It's definitely hard to get into the market. But there are low priced condos. Someone reported one in our office last week for $149,000. But it won't be on Vancouver's West Side or East Side, it might be in Burnaby or Coquitlam."

Embrace the suburbs! (And the three-hour daily commutes!).

"You know, when I drive around, I'm on my phone almost all the time — hands-free Bluetooth. I do so much business while I'm driving. So if you're sitting in traffic, you could be talking to people, you could be dictating something, you could make your time worthwhile."

A condo is still a home.

"Even if you live in a condo downtown, a small condo or a townhouse, people say 'I'm going home,' they don't say 'I'm going condo.' That's your home. The image we have of a house with a little picket fence may not be for everybody for the future. Many cities — Hong Kong, New York, Singapore — they live in condos. Vancouver may be heading that way."

Get creative.

"I've had people who buy a house with a basement suite and talk about living in the basement suite for the first two years, and renting out the main house to get ahead. I've had people who put their kids in the master bedroom so they can put bunk beds and two or three kids in the master, and they can live in a smaller bedroom. I mean, there's all kinds of ways but maybe people don't want to do those. They have more of a sense of entitlement."

Adjust your expectations accordingly.

"When I meet clients, I try to size them up as like a prince or princess, or maybe crunchy granola. And sometimes they're in between. And I see people who say if I don't have a walk-in closet and two sinks, and I don't have all the bells and whistles, it's not for me."