Surrey’s Top 6 Neighbourhoods: Where and How to Find Your Next Dream Townhouse

So you’re looking for a townhouse for sale in Surrey. Well look no further, this is your last stop if you’re new to the area or relocating to Surrey.

We are going to cover some things that you need to know, including the 6 main areas of Surrey that you will want to consider when you’re looking for your next townhouse. Along with the neighbourhoods, we also share the price ranges of each of the various neighbourhoods, and the types of townhomes that you could consider (because there’s a bunch of different ones out there).

Lastly, how to get started when the time is right for you. You’re also going to want to make sure you get free access to our BC Home Buyers Course, presented by The Germyn Group.

Well thats nice and all, but who are you?

My name is Darin, the team leader with the Germyn Group, with Macdonald Realty, a REALTOR in Surrey, British Columbia.

If this is your first time reading our blogs, we are here to educate you on everything there is to know about living in Surrey or White Rock, British Columbia, and if you’re looking to make a move in the next 9 days, 90 days or 9 months, shoot us a text, give us a call or book an in-person zoom meeting with us so we can learn a little bit more about your situation and let you know what we can do to help you. This way, we can make sure your move to Surrey or White Rock is a smooth one.

If you want to learn a little bit more about moving to Surrey, you should check out the video above we did on that titled “MOVING to Surrey BC? Don’t until you watch this” or Visit our website. We post a lot of blog content on everything to do with Surrey so you can check out all the sub areas, the best places to invest, where the best place for families is the best parks in the video above.

Thanks for the introduction, where were we?

Right, so Surrey is huge and there’s lots and lots and lots to know about moving to Surrey.

First of all, it’s one of the largest municipalities in all of Canada, so there is lots of space to cover. Surrey is also poised to grow by almost 240,000 residents in the next 25 years, so it’s going to look like a much different place in the future. There’s also lots of money currently being invested in the downtown core and all of the cores of the 6 main areas we’re going to talk about.

They’re trying to make the city more transit friendly, so you’re going to see a lot of investment going into things like that. Surrey already has a major SkyTrain or a rapid transit line for those that aren’t familiar with the term SkyTrain, which runs from Surrey to Vancouver, and by 2028 there will also be the Surrey to Langley SkyTrain extension, helping connect downtown Surrey and other parts of Surrey with downtown Langley.

And when it comes to moving into Surrey, there’s 6 main areas (not in any particular order) that you could really consider, starting with…

The First Main Area in Surrey: Cloverdale

Cloverdale used to be like a farm town and it’s kind of grown up past that and now it’s kind of like a newer area that’s relatively hip. That’s where a lot of the young families often end up kind of tucked between Langley and downtown Surrey. There’s lots of nice stuff in Cloverdale and people really quite enjoy living there.

The Second Main Area in Surrey: Whalley

Whalley, also commonly know as “Central City,” is kind of the first downtown core of Surrey and it’s really evolved since then. Once being a place where you maybe didn’t want to visit after dark or over the weekend, it’s really evolved over time.

This is where the new Surrey City Hall is and there is tons and tons of investment going into this area. It’s also located really centrally to be able to jump onto any of the highways or jump onto the SkyTrain to get into Vancouver. So if you have to be traveling around the lower mainland Central City, or Whalley, is a really good area to consider.

The Third Main Area in Surrey: South Surrey

South Surrey is a beautiful community. It just kind of feels like everything’s nicer out there. The streets are a little wider. The properties are maybe a little nicer, the trees are more abundant. There’s lots of park space. It’s just a really beautiful community, kind of the crown jewel of the Fraser Valley where lots of people would absolutely love to end up one day.

So that’s a place you might consider as well bustling with new development over the years, especially in the Grandview Corners area. There is lots to love about living in South Surrey, so definitely check it out or consider it.

The Fourth Main Area in Surrey: Fleetwood

Fleetwood is kind of a passthrough neighborhood where you’re going between downtown Surrey over to Langley, or into the Cloverdale area, more of a suburb-type community, but lots of new development and still some older properties to choose from in this area.

You’re not going to find a lot of commercial necessities in the Fleetwood area, usually for anything like groceries and restaurants. You’re going to have to travel to some of the other areas of Surrey or Langley to grab certain things.

The Fifth Main Area in Surrey: Newton

You’ve got the Newton area, one of the lesser expensive areas in all of Surrey. Now Newton’s quite a big area. You’ve got East Newton and West Newton, so we’re actually going to separate those in the stats below.

Newton has had a bad rap in its past, but it’s really starting to improve and the city is starting to pump a lot of money into making the community just absolutely beautiful. So it’s going to be an ongoing process, but you can see it getting better day by day.

The Six Main Area in Surrey: Guildford

So Guildford is really known for its big shopping mall. It seems like everything is kind of built around the Guildford Town Center shopping centre, but there’s just tons of commerce in Guildford. It’s just a very bustling area.

It’s probably an area that’s going to see a lot of growth over the next few just because of its location and proximity to Central Surrey or Whalley, but it’s also quite close to highway one and it’s very accessible. So Guildford’s a really neat community to consider too if you’re looking to relocate

Now that you know the 6 main areas in Surrey, what about the prices in those neighbourhoods?

When it comes to price ranges for townhomes in these areas, I’m going to rely on something called the Home Price Index, which is put out by our local real estate association to give the benchmark value or benchmark price, which just means average in a way of what a townhome would go for in each of the areas, ranked from most to least affordable:

1. Central City/Whalley – $746,300
2. Guildford Average Price – $752,000
3. East Newton – $755,100
4. West Newton – $830,100
5. Cloverdale – $841,400
6. Fleetwood – $885,600
7. South Surrey – $971,800

You can see really quickly, just by looking at this list, that for the cheapest benchmark for townhomes in all of Surrey, is Whalley. If you’re looking to pay more money, which generally means maybe a little bit of a nicer community, South Surrey would be the place for you to go. There’s lots of choice in between of course.

Now I want to get into the types of townhomes that you might discover when you come to visit Surrey. There’s really 5 that I’ve identified that you’re going to want to consider. I don’t really have great names for these, so I’m just going to share what I’m going to call them and you’ll kind of get the point and the picture. I’ll even put up some pictures so you can see a little bit what I’m talking about.

These are 5 styles of townhome currently available in Surrey:

The First Type of Townhome: Older Style

This style tend to be older generally, and this is really ones where you kind of have an open parking space or parking lot in the middle of a complex where people might pull up to the front of their complexes and these would either be 2-storey or 3-storey, like a “2-storey-and-a-basement-type” place, and they tend to be a little bit bigger because they’re older. They were built when things were cheaper and land was cheaper. So those are just really the park in front and park outside styles.

The Second Type of Townhome: Up-Down Style

These are kind of almost-like apartments in a way, but they’re not, because they’ve got their own front doors. You might have two identical units except one is on the bottom level and one is above it, and there might be a stairwell up to access the upper floor unit. These will have a shared parkade and that could be underground or that could be above-ground as well.

They could even have garages sometimes for these types, they tend to usually be a little bit older as well, so you don’t see them getting built as more of a newer one. So because they’re older, they also tend to be relatively affordable.

The Third Type of Townhome: Apartment Style

All these townhomes, you’ve got your own front door, but these are very interesting because they kind of just look like a condo building. But there’s all these doors on the main level where you’re going to have a lot of shared walkways. There’s going to be a lot of gardened and paths and all that sort of stuff, but you’re going to see all these doors and some doors might go directly into a unit.

Some doors might have a set of stairs right as soon as you open them going up to the unit, but these tend to resemble condominiums a lot more than they do kind of more traditional townhouses. Again, they are a newer style and typically you’re going to have a parkade, but the parkade is going to be shared and it’s going to be underground, so you don’t have your own garage parking.

The Fourth Type of Townhome: Tandem Style

Now, Tandem style is really referencing how you park when you get into these. So a tandem style townhome is where two cars would park kind-of end to end or bumper to bumper. This means that these units are typically narrow and there can be many in a complex.

They tend to be newer complex. This is a newer style that has been popular for about the last 15 years or so.

The Fifth Type of Townhome: Double Wide

Another type that is very common in newer complexes is what I call “Double Wides“, which isn’t probably the most exciting name for them, but they’re really just tandem style units except they’re side-by-side parking instead of end to end. So you’ve really doubled the width of the property.

These also are going to be found in bigger complexes and they’re typically going to need to be bigger units, thus more expensive just because of the way that they are built.

Well now we know about the locations and the styles, how do we get started purchasing a townhome?

If you are out there looking for a townhome in Surrey and you’re excited to move to our beautiful community, you really need to start your real estate journey off with a pre-approval. We always recommend that you get a pre-approval (and I’m not talking about going and using one of those online calculators on some bank’s website to see how much you can afford) by visiting a mortgage professional.

whether it’s at your local bank or someone who’s usually an independent broker, who submits all your documentation, they know everything they need to know about your financial situation so they can give you a proper pre-approval, meaning you know exactly how much you could spend.

So first step is to get a pre-approval, whats is the next step?

Of course, while you’re going through that process, you do want to start researching the different neighbourhoods. So do make use of our other blog posts and check out all the incredible things that we’ve posted about Surrey so you can get a good idea of somewhere you’d like to explore after you get your pre-approval.

Pre-approval? Check! Neighbourhood location? Check… Whats next?

It’s now great time to start interviewing real estate professionals and hire a real estate professional that you trust.

Now, obviously as a shameless plug, we would love to be the REALTOR that you choose to work with. We have great expertise in the city of Surrey and it’s where we focus our attention for our clients. So we will put our website here for you to visit. If you do want to reach out, you certainly have that option, or you can cruise through our website to see what we are all about

Okay. I’ve hired my REALTOR, pre-approval is good to go and I know where I want to move to. What now?

If you feel like you’re ready to get started, feel free to give us a call, send us an email or book a time to speak with us over Zoom, and we’re happy to let you know what we can do to help you find your next dream home.

Our expert team is here to guide you through every step. With personalized searches, local insights, and skilled negotiations, we’re committed to helping you find and secure your next dream Townhome. Contact us today and let us make your dreams a reality!