The mayor of Maple Ridge, Ernie Daykin, isn’t shy about talking up his community, which lies at the northeastern edge of the Lower Mainland past Port Coquitlam and Pitt Meadows. Not surprisingly, the real estate is less expensive there.

According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the benchmark price for a detached house in Maple Ridge was $464,125 last month. That’s compared to $795,025 across the entire area served by the REBGV and nearly $1.6 million on the West Side of Vancouver.

In a recent phone interview with the Georgia Straight, Daykin said a person can still find a single-family dwelling built in the 1950s or 1960s—a “fixer-upper” is his term—for less than $400,000. He knows this because his daughter and son-in-law paid $365,000 for a 1,350-square-foot home on an 8,000-square-foot lot. “We gutted it—new kitchen, new mouldings, new doors,” Daykin said.

According to Langley-based real-estate researcher Don R. Campbell, Maple Ridge is one of the best places in Canada to invest in property. Campbell, president of the Real Estate Investment Network, is not an agent and professes to provide “independent research”. Last month, he ranked Maple Ridge as the fifth-best city in Canada to invest in real estate over the next five years. (Calgary ranked first, followed by Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge and Edmonton. Surrey was the only other B.C. community in the top 10, ranking fourth.)

Campbell told the Straight by phone that Maple Ridge housing prices are more affordable than in most other parts of the region. However in the past, demand for real estate was lower because of its relative isolation.

“Even just a year ago, it was one of the most difficult cities to get to in the Lower Mainland,” Campbell said.

People had to take the Albion Ferry across the Fraser River to get from Langley to Maple Ridge. And the Pitt River Bridge was one of the slower crossings in the region.

Campbell pointed out that the new Golden Ears Bridge has made it far easier to cross the Fraser River, and the new Pitt River Bridge replaced swing bridges.

“It’s going to open up not only the economic arteries of Maple Ridge, but also the demand for people wanting to live in the region,” he said. “It’s close to mountains, close to lakes, so it has a lifestyle in addition to economic strength, which is a really nice combo.”

He noted that in the 18 years that he has been ranking cities’ real-estate investment potential, he has never put a city as small as Maple Ridge so high on the list. In deciding his rankings, Campbell relies on objective measurements, such as whether or not the city’s average income is rising faster than the provincial average.

He also looks at the rates of population growth and job creation, as well as whether or not the area has more than one major employer. Another factor is the affordability index measured by RBC.

“Often, you find in cities that surround major cities—i.e. around Calgary or Edmonton or Toronto—that they have a lifestyle or there is a region that exists because of the economics,” Campbell said. “Maple Ridge has the combination of the two.”

It also has a downtown that’s poised for growth. Daykin said that over the next 15 years, the city plans to increase its downtown population from 8,000 to 22,000. “We’re committed to densifying it,” he added.

Metro Vancouver’s draft regional growth strategy identified Maple Ridge City Centre as one of seven “regional city centres”. In these areas, Metro Vancouver wants to encourage large-scale, high-density commercial uses, medium- and high-density housing forms, frequent transit service, and transit connections to other parts of the region.

The population of Maple Ridge is expected to rise from 72,900 in 2006 to 134,000 by 2041. The rush is already underway, according to Daykin, who pointed out that the value of building permits rose from $28.4 million in the first quarter of 2009 to $58 million in the first quarter of this year. “Admittedly, a lot of it is residential,” he said. “The commercial will follow. We always say, ”˜Retail follows roofs.’?”