Canada has done enough to prevent real estate crash like the United States or Spain according to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Speaking on CBC Radio Flaherty said he had no plans to take froth out of the housing market after a series of moves to tighten the real estate market for mortgage lending. Flaherty said he was pleased at signs of a slowdown in key sectors of the market, like the condo market in the big cities like Toronto and Vancouver.

Canada’s prices fell during the global recession in 2008 but the market bounced back stronger than before with many bidding wars taking place in some cities. The higher prices got the more concern there was that buyers were taking on too much debt and the market could be heading for a hard landing at some point.

Since the last round of changes to the mortgage rules the market has cooled significantly, easing fears of the debt ration growing too high.  Figures released earlier this week show that sales of existing homes were...

Changes are afoot in the townhouse world. It is now possible to own your own townhouse fee simple...i.e. there is not strata corporation, you own it like a detached house. Introducing the Row House.  Row houses are town houses but unline townhouse, where you have a unit number then a street number,  you have your own address  with no unit numbers! Row houses have been built in New Westminster and Parkland Homes’ Bedford Landing in Fort Langley, but the city of Vancouver has held back from building them because of concerns over liability. The City of Vancouver has now agreed to row houses.  Each row house has separate firewalls, individual electric meters and their own sewer connections. A demonstration row house project can be seen at Cambie and W33rd Av. Three fee simple row houses were built with a front and back yard and a two car garage with a small suite located above for a total of six units. The developer worked with the City to remedy the lack of party wall...

MP Garth Turner is making a bubble-busting prediction about the Vancouver Real Estate Market, saying prices there could drop by as much as 40 percent. These doom and gloom forecasts have been happening for years. Sure there has been a drop in ACTIVITY in Vancouver by around 22% but this is not the same as a drop in PRICE! So far prices in the Vancouver Real Estate market have remained resilient and people like MP Garth Turner are in my opinion just trying to create a 'real estate crash' by making rediculous and unfounded statements like this. What Garth Turner is correctly stating is that 'Vancouver isn't making enough money to afford the average home'.  Whilst this is correct in the most part (It has been like this for nearly a decade) I believe as 'The Affordable House Guy' there are still bargains to be had out there. This 'correction' is simply that a correction. Asian investment in Vancouver residential has decreased in favour of  a surge in commercial real estate investment,...

Vancouver real estate statistics for Vancouver West in May shows us the information we need to calculate the number of monthly listings, the number of sales and the average price for houses, townhouses and condos in Vancouver. If we drill down into these figures we can see that the average price compared to a year ago for houses is down by 8.6%, townhomes are down by 0.7% and condos are down by 0.3%. If we drill deeper we can see that for some reason the price of three bedroom apartments in Vancouver are up.

So which type of property has performed the best in the Vancouver real estate market? The answer is townhomes and condos! This is because houses have had the strongest price increases over the last three years and are poised for a correction. Some believe that this correction will be in the range of 15% over the next two years. I believe that this correction will not be anything dramatic and in fact this is actually good news for local people who are waiting to get into the house...

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver has just released the statistics for Vancouver Real Estate Sales in April 2012. Basically listings are up and sales are the lowest for the month of April since 2001 and 16.9% below the 10 year average. Generally I prefer to use te benchmark price as it is more realistic on the whole. Compared to a year ago the average for Greater Vancouver dropped 7.3%, Townhomes dropped 1% and condos 7.7%. Listings in Vancouver real estate were up compared to a year ago. Townhomes Listings in Vancouver were up 9.7% and condo listings wereup 12% compared to last year. 

So how was April for home sales? Vancouver house sales were down by 19.4%, 21.8% for townhomes and 0.8% for condos compared to a year ago. If we look at how long average listings stay on the market we see that there is a 30% rise in how long listings are sitting on the market compared to a year ago for houses, 19.8% for townhomes and 13.2% increase for condos.

Analysing the market, East Vancouver real estate prices have gone up higher than a year ago. Houses are up 13% which is as high as they have ever been in East Vancouver real estate. Conos in East Vancouver are up around 4.7%. Townhouses in East Vancouver are down by 3.1% which is lower than their peak in prices in Oct 2011. The number of listings are up for Townhouses in East Vancouver, Houses in East Vancouver and Houses in East Vancouver. The number of sales in East Vancouver real estate are down by 30%.  The average price for East Vancouver houses was in the range of 800 to 900,000. The average price for townhouses in  East Vancouver was 400 to 400,000 range. the average price for condos for sale in East Vancouver was between 300-400,000.

If you are interested in finding out more about East Vancouver real estate? Or are you wanting to know about the listings in EAst Vancovuer the please get in touch with me on          ...

Vancouver residents have been complaining for a while  that their city is expensive and Vancouver real estate is unaffordable. Now it is official, Vancouver real estate is the most expensive city in North America. Vancouver real estate has now nudged glamourous New York and pricey Los Angeles to claim the top spot for the continent the Economist Magazine reports. Many Vancouver residents are now going to New York City to save money! Last year Vancouver real estate was the 72nd most expensive in the world and now it has moved up to 37th most expensive city in the world. The average Vancouver house for sale rose 17 percent to $1.02 million in the third quarter compared to the same time last year. The price of a Vancouver condo has gone up by 5.3 per cent to $513,500.  The average home in Vancouver real estate is now 11.2 times the average family income a figure that many economists say is unsustainable. The cheapest city in the world is Karachi in Pakistan and the most expensive...

The figures from the Cencus have shown that Surrey, Burnaby and Port Moody population have grown whereas the popultation in Vancouver has languished. Surrey's population has ballooned by 18.6% more than four times Vancouver's 4.4% rate of increase. How does this affect Vancouver Real Estate? Because of density of populations in Vancouver real estate, the geographical lack of room to expand housing means that Vancouver drives people out and real estate prices up. Burnaby's population has expanded by 10.1% with the highest growth of all the above areas. Surrey, Burnaby and Port Moody all have space for building houses whereas Vancouver real estate does not. Development in Vancouver tends to be in the shape of small apartments rather than the larger houses that are built in Surrey. According to Christy Clark, the Premier of BC, ' The population in BC is growing because we are one of the soundest economies in Canada.' Growth has been mainly caused by immigration the census showed.

The figures are in from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver for the sales in January in Vancouver Real Estate. I think we all need to take a stiff drink before reading these as they do not make good reading. Brace yourself as here goes:

 

Overall the selection of property broadens and the demand eases off in the kick off for 2012 in the Vancouver real estate market. There were more home sellers than buyers in January. There was a 4.9% decrease in sales in Vancouver real estate compared to December 2011. There was a 13.3% decrease overall of sales in Vancouver real estate compared to January 2011 last year. There was an 18% decline in sales since January 2010 two years ago. Oh dear!

 

This has been the second lowest January for sales in 10 years. New listings have increased by 19.9% compared to a year ago and a 253% increase from December 2011! A 253% INCREASE IN LISTINGS since December 2011...I had to repeat that because I didn't believe that statistic myself!

 ...

The city of Vancouver awaits an application for the conversion of 757 E Hastings to artist studio rental spaces. Why is this so important to the downtrodden strip of Hastings and Main in Vancouver? Well, Ted Harris Paints used to be located in this building for the last 91 year and now the owner Bob Harris has retired almost a year ago and sold the building to Kris Rennie who is the son of high profile project sales marketer and art collector, Bob Rennie. Now the Rennies have moved into this neighbourhood it is prediced that this could be the next big Vancouver real estate investment opportunity. You heard it here first. If you would like to know some more real estate investment tips or are looking to buy or sell your piece of Vancouver real estate then please don't hesitate to get in touch with me. Call Russell Sharp on 604.437.4277 anytime.

In the beautiful waterfront neighbourhood of Vancouver's West End what is happening with the prices? What is the average days on the market and what is the average sales price? How do prices compare to last year? Well, in December we saw listings flaten out and sales dropping by half. The Majority of condos were still under $500,000 which favoured the lower end selles. In general the sellers need to be priced no more than 4% above the market to stimulate the incoming offer process. Compared toa year ago Vancouver West end has gone down by 0.2% with a benchmark price of $497,213.  So what does it cost me to buy in the Vancouver West End? Well, 2 bed townhouses go from $550,000 and studio condos can go for as low as $200,000, one bedroom condos from $280,000 and 2 bedroom condos from $450,000. Most places will sell for under $500,000 with a third selling for between $500,000 and $750,000.  If you are looking to buy or sell your Vancouver waterfront real estate, or your Vancouver...

Following the lead of other provinces and many U.S. states, the B.C. government now requires all strata properties greater than five units to have a common property depreciation report completed generally by the end of 2013 (December 13, 2013, to be exact).

Although the legislation requires that a depreciation report be completed, unlike other provinces, the legislation does not require that the funding requirements identified in the report be implemented. Therefore the strata remains in charge of what the reserve fund contributions will be.

The strata may also defer a depreciation report by passing a resolution with a three-quarters majority vote to that effect. However, the resolution to exempt the strata from preparing a depreciation report has an 18-month time limit, so the resolution must be re-passed by three-quarters vote on a periodic basis in order to continue to defer the report.

The legislation also requires that a depreciation report be completed every three years.

The main purpose...

We all know that interest rates are at a historical low...don't we? If you are buying a home in Vancouver you would be mad not to take out a mortgage now as the interest rates are shockingly low in the history of Vancouver Real Estate! So what are the factors to look out for in a mortgage?

Prepayment:

1. With a prepayment privilage you can make your payments towards the principle portion of the loan over and above your monthly payments.

1. Closed Mortgages have a different type of pre-payment option. The amount you can pre-pay becomes important if you get bonus payments (like we Realtors dget with what is left over that your real estate brokerage has not taken off you), an inheritance, or a windfall like winning the lottery! 
2. An open mortgage means you can pay off the entire pricipal sum without notice. This is a great option if you are self employed or get regular bonus payments...like bankers used to get!

Portability:

Can  you transfer the balanace of your current mortgage...

Happy New Year to my Chinese Clients. It is the Year of the Dragon! Vancouver Real Estate has been seen by some to be a 'micro market' favoured by Chinese investors. Julia Lau, Chinese real-estate specialist at Sotheby's International Realty believes sales are set to spike in Vancouver real estate due to the three week holiday associated with Chinese New Year. This she believes will happen in only a few neighbourhoods. Lau's clients are wealthy Chinese businessmen who set their families up in Vancouver and Vancouver West that offer multi million dollar real estate homes next to the top schools in Vancouver. Many of these investors will buy their properties remotely from China whilst sending their families over to Canada to occupy the luxury homes they have just purchased. In the first few months of 2011 there were stunning growths in sales in Vancouver real estate particularly in Vancouver West and West Vancouver and Richmond. These gains have started to wane though according to the Canadian...

Housing experts say the ship may have sailed for affordable housing in Vancouver proper, or on the North Shore, where there are only eight two-bedroom suites under $300,000 listed with MLS, but numbers increase marginally elsewhere, with 70 such properties in Burnaby, 77 in Richmond and 42 in New Westminster.

Vancouver needs “more housing created in the low-to middle-income range,” Robertson said. Gregor Roberston has appointed a task force on housing affordability, which includes social housing for the homeless, and he said he expects an initial report this spring. The experts will look at solutions based on zoning, density and different ownership models that work elsewhere, he said. Whilst it is not the place of the city to become a developer or interfere with the mechanisms of the free market, Mayor Gregor Robertson said there is  “a limited ability to affect the market.” But he said the city does have some tools and incentives to...

You may have seen the multiple for sale signs as you drive down Granville Street south towards Richmond?  You may have also noticed that there are entire blocks for sale with the same Vancouver Realtor ® listing the whole block? Well, Vancouver Real Estate speculation has another street in sight, Granville Street. Granville Street does not have any rezoning planned thought money is pouring into buying up entire blocks of it. Perhaps Granville Street is trying to emulate the changes in Cambie street in Vancouver? Cambie has increased its density and some believe that Granville Street is next on the map. One block in Granville Street south where formerly there were single family homes on small lots, was bought up in its entirity. The residents of those houses sold for three times the tax assessment value of the house and some doubled their money if they bought in 2011! This block of eight lots is for sale for $30,000,000. It is expected that a developer will pick up these blocks...