- Office Hours: Open 24 Hours
Our buyers wanted a character home on Vancouver’s east side with real renovations already done, room for family, and ideally a mortgage helper. 5208 Ross Street delivered all three — a 1958 home rebuilt twice, once in 2017 (a Georgie Award finalist) and again in 2024 with more than $450,000 in further updates, plus a legal two-bedroom suite with its own address and a detached art studio out back. We closed at $2,873,500 — $106,500 under the $2,980,000 ask — with an accepted offer inside eight days.
Our buyers had a specific brief: a character home on Vancouver’s east side with real square footage, a legal secondary suite for income or family, and renovations that were already finished — not a project they’d have to finish themselves. That combination is rare at this price point, and when it does show up, it tends to move fast.
5208 Ross Street had all three. The original 1958 home in Knight was rebuilt by Saint Construction in 2017 — a renovation strong enough to land a Georgie Award finalist nod — and refreshed again in 2024 with more than $450,000 in further design work. Oversized windows, wide-plank oak floors, and custom millwork carry through all three levels. We wrote, negotiated, and closed at $2,873,500, more than $100K under the original ask, with the deal coming together in just over a week.
What you’re looking at today is the product of two separate renovation cycles on the same 1958 bones. The first, in 2017, was a full gut by Saint Construction that earned a Georgie Award finalist spot — no small thing in a city where renovation awards are judged on craft, not just curb appeal. The second came in 2024: a further round of design updates north of $450,000 that brought the finishes current without touching the underlying floor plan. The result reads less like a flip and more like a home two different owners each took seriously.
The exterior tells part of the story — board-formed concrete steps, dark wood and metal cladding, and oversized windows that pull light into the entry from the moment you walk up. Inside, central air conditioning covers the main and upper floors, a detail that’s still uncommon in pre-war and mid-century Vancouver character homes and one our buyers specifically asked about.
The kitchen is the kind of bespoke build you’d expect from a renovation with this budget — full-height cabinetry, integrated appliances, and finishes that match the millwork running through the rest of the main floor. The dining area sits just off it and opens directly to the patio and private garden behind the house, which makes the whole main floor function as one connected entertaining space rather than three separate rooms.
Legal suites, detached studios, and fully renovated character homes don’t sit on the market long in Vancouver. Jordan Macnab can help you move quickly when the right one comes up.
Talk to Jordan MacnabThe living room anchors the main floor at 16’3 × 13’2, with a gas fireplace as the focal point and the same wide-plank oak running underfoot. It’s a large enough room to hold its own furniture grouping and still leave room to move between the entry, kitchen, and dining area.
The stairs lead up to a primary bedroom at 13’2 × 12’6 with an over-height ceiling, a walk-in closet (12’2 × 8’9), and a luxury four-piece ensuite. This level also holds a second bedroom, a private sundeck, and a guest bath — effectively its own self-contained floor above the main living space.
The upper level’s second bedroom (12’1 × 8’3) shares the floor with the primary suite, alongside a second four-piece bath and a private sundeck — a quiet outdoor spot one flight up from the main floor’s patio and garden.
The lower level carries the home’s utility functions — media room, office, and laundry — separate from the legal suite portion of the same floor.
The lower level isn’t just basement square footage — it’s a legal two-bedroom suite with its own separate entrance and its own civic address, complete with its own kitchen, living room, and recreation room. For buyers thinking about a mortgage helper, extended family, or simply flexibility down the road, this is the feature that changes the math on a $2.98M list price.
A legal two-bedroom suite with its own address is the kind of bonus that turns a big number into a manageable one — tenant, in-laws, or grown kids, the choice is the buyer’s.
Knight, Fraserview, and the surrounding pockets of Vancouver East are where a lot of buyers find the legal-suite, character-home combination they can’t get on the west side at this price. Jordan Macnab can help you map out where to look.
Get in TouchBehind the main house, a former garage has been converted into a detached art studio — a flexible, fully separated structure that works equally well as a creative workspace, home office, or simply a quiet retreat away from the main house and the suite.
Between the main floor patio off the dining room, the private garden behind it, the suite’s own patio, and the upper-level sundeck, this is a property with genuine outdoor space on every level — not something you typically find on a 33-foot-wide Vancouver lot.
Knight sits along the Knight Street corridor in Vancouver’s east side, a part of the city built out mostly with post-war character homes on consistent 33-foot lots — the same footprint as 5208 Ross. It’s a neighbourhood where legal suites and detached coach houses or studios have become the norm rather than the exception, which is exactly why a renovated character home with both features tends to draw strong interest the moment it lists. Knight Street itself is the area’s main arterial, connecting south toward the Knight Street Bridge and north into central Vancouver.
The Macnabs work with buyers across Metro Vancouver, including the east side, and track character-home and legal-suite inventory closely. If a renovated home with income potential in this part of the city is on your list, Jordan Macnab can help you find the next one before it hits the open market.
A fully renovated character home, a legal suite, and a detached studio rarely come together — and when they do, they don’t last. Jordan Macnab tracks this kind of inventory across Vancouver’s east side and the Tri-Cities. Let’s start the conversation.
Start the Conversation
Jordan Macnab, PREC*
REALTOR® · Personal Real Estate Corporation with The Macnabs Real Estate Team at Royal LePage Elite West. Jordan represents buyers and sellers across the Tri-Cities, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Greater Vancouver. 604-551-5695 · jordan@themacnabs.com
