‘Pile of rubble’ goes on the market for £2.3m in Canada

A Vancouver home destroyed by fire has been put on the market for C$3.9m (£2.3m), causing controversy in Canada.

The remaining structure on the property measures 50ft by 10ft and “is all that remains of a three-storey residence that burned down in a fire last December”, reports Canadian news site CTV News.

As a bank now owns the property, it is being sold as seen, but “its real estate agent says the price tag is fair, considering Vancouver's scorching property market”, reports the BBC.

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The city “is one of the most expensive in the world to buy a home, with the median price of a detached house standing at over C$1.6m (£1m)”, adds the broadcaster.

Estate agent Hunt Tse told CTV News the price tag reflects the property's size and potential - not its current state of disrepair. “It’s what you can do with it. It’s not what you see on it,” he said.

It’s thought the listing will be bought by a property developer as a multi-family home can be built on it.

“You can put about 4,500 square feet of building there and you can divide it into four units,” Tse said. “Each unit you can have 1,100 to 1,200 square feet depending on how you allocate it.”

“A developer could likely build, say, a luxury Craftsman-style fourplex with a laneway house at the back, and probably see bags of profit over their original investment,” agrees the Vancouver Courier’s Joannah Connolly. .

Vancouver’s property market is one of the most expensive in the world, although “it has cooled slightly this year after the local government passed measures to limit foreign ownership”, adds the BBC.