Sullivan (Surrey) — A Buyer’s Guide

The map

The five enclaves, mapped

Sullivan is not one homogeneous neighbourhood — it is five enclaves with different lot-size norms, different elementary feeders, and different commercial-spine orientations. The City groups them as “Sullivan” for Open Data and FVREB micro-area reporting, but the on-the-ground experience differs by 5–10 minutes of driving, three or four elementary catchments, and a benchmark gap that can run $200K+ between an entry West Sullivan townhouse and a North Sullivan larger-lot detached. The unifying thread across all five is the Sullivan Heights Secondary catchment — the enclave-defining feature most buyers actually use to draw the “Sullivan” boundary on the ground.

Catchments

Sullivan Heights Secondary + the elementary feeders

Sullivan’s public-school value is concentrated at Sullivan Heights Secondary, consistently top-quartile by Fraser Institute BC public-secondary ranking and deep across Advanced Placement, athletics, and arts programs. Sullivan Heights Secondary at 6248 144 Street handles 8–12 for most of the neighbourhood; the 64 Avenue boundary streets in North Sullivan sometimes feed Princess Margaret Secondary instead, so verify the specific street. At the elementary level, Sullivan Elementary (co-located with the secondary at 6248 144 Street) is the dominant K–7 feeder for Sullivan Heights and central addresses; Bonaccord Elementary at 5663 142 Street handles much of Sullivan Park and West Sullivan; Goldstone Park Elementary at 6135 142 Street handles much of North Sullivan and the streets south of Goldstone Park itself.

For families considering private school, the closest options are Pacific Academy (Surrey), Surrey Christian School, and Southridge School (South Surrey, application-based K-12). All three require a 15–25 minute drive depending on time of day. None has a residency-based catchment — admissions are application-based and acceptance is not guaranteed.

School District 36 catchment maps are reviewed periodically — verify the current attendance area for any specific Sullivan address before placing an offer, particularly if you are paying a school-catchment premium. Boundary lines at 64 Avenue (Sullivan Heights vs Princess Margaret Secondary) and at 144 Street (Bonaccord vs Sullivan Elementary) are the two most common pinch points where a one-block move changes the feeder.

Property mix

What trades and at what price

Sullivan’s housing stock is roughly 55% detached, 25% townhouse, 15% condo, and 5% other (duplex, fourplex post-Bill 44, older 1980s remnant, larger 1970s-era lots). The detached stock is concentrated in Sullivan Heights, Sullivan Park, and North Sullivan; the townhouse stock is concentrated along 144 Street, 56 Avenue, and 152 Street; the condo footprint is concentrated along the King George Hwy (152 Street) corridor in East Sullivan.

• Detached — 5,500–7,500 sq ft suburban lots, 1990s-through-2005 builds dominate, $1.4M–$1.7M typical; North Sullivan larger-lot $1.5M–$1.85M; newer 2015+ infill rebuilds $1.85M–$2.3M.
• Townhouses — three-storey, 2005–2018 builds, 1,400–1,900 sq ft, $850K–$1.15M typical along the 144 Street and 56 Avenue corridors; similar floor plans in Cloverdale or Willoughby commonly transact $50K–$120K higher.
• Condos — low-rise wood-frame, 2010 onward, 700–1,100 sq ft, $550K–$780K typical along the East Sullivan King George Hwy corridor.
• Bill 44 multiplex potential — most conventional 5,500–7,500 sq ft lots are technically multiplex-eligible; lane access and servicing constrain real-world buildability. Long-hold redevelopment optionality exists but is not yet in resale benchmarks.

Strata fees on Sullivan townhouses typically run $280–$420/mo; on condos $320–$520/mo. Verify the depreciation report and contingency reserve before subject removal — depreciation reports are mandatory in BC for stratas with 5+ units.

Worked example

Sullivan Heights 2002-build detached at $1.55M

Commute

King George Hwy, Hwy 99, Hwy 91, Surrey Central

Sullivan’s commute spine is King George Highway (152 Street) running north toward Surrey Central, Hwy 99 + Massey Tunnel toward Richmond and downtown Vancouver, and Hwy 91 + Knight Street Bridge toward East Vancouver and Burnaby. By car at peak, downtown Vancouver is typically 60–80 minutes each way depending on which bridge handles the day’s traffic. Off-peak runs 45–55. The King George Highway corridor itself is a major Surrey arterial — it carries weight at peak but does not snarl the way the Pattullo or Port Mann approaches do.

Transit means a TransLink 319 or 321 express bus from the Newton Bus Loop (152 Street + 72 Avenue, roughly 4–6 minutes by 152 Street southbound from Sullivan) to Surrey Central SkyTrain Station on the Expo Line — figure 70–85 minutes door-to-door for downtown via Surrey Central → Waterfront. Surrey Central is the closest existing SkyTrain station; the future Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension does not serve Sullivan directly. Surrey Memorial Hospital is 10–15 minutes off-peak.

The Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension runs along Fraser Highway through Cloverdale, Clayton, and Willowbrook — several kilometres north of Sullivan. Buyers expecting a direct SkyTrain price tailwind in Sullivan should temper that expectation; the pure transit beneficiaries of the extension are Cloverdale, Clayton, Willowbrook, and Langley Centre. The planned Massey Tunnel replacement (immersed-tube, in design and pre-construction with project completion targeted for the early-to-mid 2030s) will improve the Hwy 99 path materially when it opens, but current Sullivan commute math should not assume short-horizon relief.

Policy

Surrey OCP and Bill 44 backdrop

The City of Surrey Official Community Plan (OCP) designates Sullivan as primarily “Suburban Neighbourhood” with select “Multiple Residential” nodes along the King George Highway (152 Street) corridor and at the major intersections. The OCP’s Bill 44 / SSMUH overlay (adopted mid-2024) allows three-to-six-unit multiplex on most former RS-zoned single-family lots; Sullivan’s 5,500–7,500 sq ft lots are technically multiplex-eligible, with practical buildability constrained by lane access and servicing capacity.

The 152 Street and 60 Avenue commercial nodes are designated for higher-density residential and mixed-use redevelopment over the medium term. For long-hold investors, the OCP signals that the King George Hwy corridor is the most likely zone for meaningful density uplift in Sullivan over the next 10–15 years. For owner-occupiers, the OCP signals that the suburban-detached character of the interior streets is unlikely to change materially even with the Bill 44 overlay in place.

What to read next

• · Cloverdale — the SkyTrain-corridor neighbour to the east, $200K–$300K higher on like-for-like detached
• · South Surrey — the larger-lot detached alternative, Earl Marriott catchment
• · Willoughby (Langley) — the master-planned new-construction alternative across the Surrey-Langley line
• · Surrey-Langley SkyTrain Corridor guide — why the SkyTrain serves Cloverdale, not Sullivan, and what that means for relative price growth
• · Bill 44 / SSMUH guide — the provincial framework behind Surrey’s multiplex zoning
• · BC Property Transfer Tax and PTT calculator — on a $1.5M Sullivan detached, BC PTT runs ~$28,000 at closing
• · Foreign Buyer Ban + 20% APTT — the non-resident interaction on Specified Area purchases
• · CMHC default insurance — the $1.5M property cap most Sullivan detached purchases brush against
• · BC affordability calculator — model the qualifying rate against a $1.4M–$1.7M Sullivan target
• · BC mortgage calculator — Canadian semi-annual compounding on a $1.24M Sullivan principal
• · BC Real Estate Codex — primary-source-cited reference for every fact above