Jill Mendoza
Other

It’s not everyday you hear about a home selling within three days, with multiple offers, over the list price of $1.3 million in January!  Michelle Minch of Moving Mountains Design in Pasadena took a vacant home, and transformed it into a home buyers fell in love with!  Comparing the before-and-after photos reminds us why vacant homes generally take twice as long to sell, and are the most important homes to professionally stage.  If these visuals aren’t enough, here are five reasons why you should NEVER try and sell a vacant home:

1.  People Don’t Buy Houses, They Buy Homes
The number one reason a buyer purchases a home is because it “felt home.”  It was warm, inviting and the buyer made an emotional connection with the home.  When have you ever heard of an empty room described as warm and inviting?  Sterile, cold and uninviting are the three most popular words to describe an empty room.  Which room above feels more “home” to you?

2. Without Furniture, There Is No Frame Of Reference
How big is the room?  Without furniture it’s incredibly difficult to tell the scale and size of a room.  In the above photo, the room looks dark, long and narrow.  When the buyer does not have answers to their questions…they walk away. 

What is this room for?  Many times a buyer can’t even tell if it’s the living room or dining room in an unfurnished home.  Don’t keep them guessing, it only distracts them from considering the home as a purchase.

3. When A Room Is Kept Empty, Buyers Focus On Negative Details
Can you imagine a brand new Mercedes without a paint job?  Do you think people would notice the beautiful car or the missing paint?  In the above photo, buyers might be distracted and confused by the columns in the middle of the room.

It’s so much easier to notice that crack in the wall, or the chip in the tile when there is nothing else to look at.  Home Staging capitalizes on the positive aspects of a home, while de-emphasizing the negative aspects in order to position a home that will make an emotional connection with buyers.  These rooms made obvious emotional connections with buyers, and in each photo can count the many ways the Professional Home Stager marketed this home emotionally.

4.  Only 10% of Home Buyers Can Actually Visualize the Potential of a Home
Nine out of every ten people walking in your home have no imagination of the wonderful possibilities your home has to offer them.  In the above photo, buyers would not be able to realize that there is plenty of room for a table and chairs.  They just can’t picture it.  Don’t let a simple thing like no furniture or limited furniture ruin your sale.  Don’t take those odds; they will hurt you in the price significantly!

5.  Paying For Two Mortgages Can Get Expensive!
Let’s look at the facts: a vacant home typically takes twice as long to sell, and the longer something “sits” on the market, the lower the sales price*.  Why risk paying two mortgages longer, only to have the sales price lower than it would have been if you had the home professionally staged!

Only those in London, New York pay more for central-area housing

Eric Beauchesne
Sun

OTTAWA — Executive homes near downtown Vancouver are the third-costliest in the world, a survey of 31 cities has found.

Vancouver ranked third in price, behind London and New York, followed by Calgary which ranked seventh, Toronto ninth, Ottawa 13th, Montreal 19th, and Halifax 20th.

The Century 21 survey compared 15 cities in Canada with 16 cities around the world in terms of prices and commuting times to their downtown core.

It found that the 10 most expensive housing markets for executive home buyers working in the downtown business districts are London, at $5.68 million; New York $2.5 million; Vancouver $1.55 million; Sydney $1.4 million; Paris $1.39 million; Seoul $1.25 million; Calgary $1.2 million; Nicosia in Cyprus $1 million; Toronto $890,000; and Victoria $850,000.

“Whether executive house prices are at the high or low end of the range, in Canada or elsewhere in the world, depends on the current state of the local economies — and our survey reflects that Vancouver and Calgary are booming whether you compare them to cities in the rest of Canada or to cities around the world,” said Don Lawby, president of Century 21 Canada.

The 10 least expensive markets for executive homes are in Moncton, N.B., $249,900; Singapore, $304,135; London, Ont, $325,000; Bogota, Colombia, $368,852; St. John’s, N.L., $379,000; Charlottetown, $379,000; Saskatoon, $429,000; Winnipeg, $450,000; Istanbul, $471,927; and Edmonton, $489,900.

“Another way to view the survey results and to provide another observation into the lifestyle of executives around the world is to compare the price to the size of the home,” Lawby said.

“This shows that markets where homes are traditionally smaller — such as Taipei and Tokyo — move toward the top of the list, while Toronto, Victoria and others fall from the top 10.”

Based on the price per square foot, the 10 most expensive housing markets in the world for executive homes are London, England $3,156; Paris $1,163; Seoul $1,097; Calgary $800; Sydney $722; Taipei, $613; Vancouver $574; Athens $491; New York $480; and Tokyo $385.

Meanwhile, commuting times from typical executive homes in Canadian cities to the downtown also compare favourably, ranging from a 45-minute drive in Toronto to 15 minutes in Winnipeg. Commuting times for other cities were 40 minutes in Montreal, 30 minutes in Vancouver, 25 minutes in Calgary, and 30 minutes in Halifax.

In New York, a commute from a typical executive home would be 45 minutes, London 30 minutes, Paris 30 minutes, Sydney 15 minutes, Tokyo 45 minutes, and Seoul, 30 minutes.

Executives working downtown in Canada’s regional hub cities, such as Halifax, Winnipeg and Saskatoon, face house prices and daily commute times that rank with the world’s least expensive capital cities such as Moscow, Singapore and Istanbul, the study concluded.

In between are Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City and Victoria, where executives working downtown typically pay house prices and have daily commute times that compare with Tokyo, Taipei and Mexico City, it said.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

90 per cent of Canadians surveyed want ‘green’ condominiums

Fiona Anderson
Sun

A computer-generate rendering of the Pacific Street elevation of the Pomaria residential tower

Ninety per cent of Canadians living in major urban centres want to buy condominiums that are energy efficient, according to a survey conducted on behalf of TD Canada Trust.

Forty-five per cent of respondents in the on-line survey — which was carried out by Ipsos Reid and questioned 725 adults in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax — said living in an “environmentally friendly, energy-efficient building” was very important while another 45 per cent said it was somewhat important.

Robert Drew, an architect with Busby Perkins+Will Architects in Vancouver said the finding was consistent with the message his company is getting from its clients.

“Underlying this is a young demographic out there buying condos and they’re educated, they’re informed [and] they know that the environment is critical as an issue right now,” Drew said. “And that’s informing how they are choosing to live.”

There is also the older demographic who are downsizing and need to know the condo they are buying isn’t going to drain their monthly income through high energy costs, he said.

The survey found the importance of energy-efficiency increased with age, with 50 per cent of those 55 and older citing it as very important.

Jennifer Podmore, managing partner of MPC Intelligence which advises developers on consumer needs, said energy-efficient condominiums have become much more topical recently.

A lot of people are realizing how easy it is to have a more energy-efficient condo and with that realization there is more pressure on developers to deliver them, Podmore said.

“[But] the one thing we are finding is not many people are willing to spend a lot more to have a greener condo,” Podmore said.

So the key is finding ways to make an apartment more environmentally friendly — without making it more expensive — by cutting down on common-use areas such as lobbies and swimming pools that take a lot of energy to maintain.

“The less common space the less waste,” Podmore said.

Developers are also putting in gas stoves and heating, energy-efficient light bulbs and water-efficient toilets, some of which add to the price of the condo but will pay back in reduced monthly expenses over time, Podmore said.

Qualex-Landmark Group of Companies found that higher prices didn’t scare buyers away from their Pomaria project, which is aiming to be one of the first residential towers in Canada to get silver certification under LEED, an American rating system that stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Getting LEED certification, which won’t happen until the building is completed this summer, required Qualex to do a number of things, including recycling parts of buildings that were torn down to clear the site for the new development, and keeping down dust during building. The building also had to use LEED-certified materials right down to the carpets and cabinets, Qualex’s vice-president of sales and marketing, Chris Colbeck said.

That added about three to four per cent to the construction costs “which obviously translates into sale price,” Colbeck said.

But Pomaria was aimed at sophisticated buyers who were looking for something special, he said.

“First of all they liked the product. Second of all they liked the fact that it was a sustainable building.”

The TD survey also found Vancouver had the highest number of respondents (50 per cent) who were willing to buy a condominium as their principal residence. Sixty-two per cent of Calgarians and 57 per cent of Torontonians were against the idea. Thirty-four per cent of Vancouver respondents could see themselves raising a family in a condo, compared to 29 per cent country-wide.

Vancouverites were also most likely (84 per cent compared to a survey average of 79 per cent) to walk away from a condominium that didn’t have a parking space. Yet 81 per cent of Vancouver respondents (above the national average of 80 per cent) said the condo needed to be near public transit.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Selling West Coast properties is an option for owners

Derrick Penner
Sun

Vancouver-based Canadian Hotel Income Properties Real Estate Investment Trust is joining a growing list of hotel properties testing the hot real estate market. Sun File Photo

Vancouver-based Canadian Hotel Income Properties Real Estate Investment Trust is joining a growing list of hotel properties testing the hot real estate market.

Canadian Hotel said Wednesday it has struck an independent committee to advise its board on ways to increase value to unit-holders — including the possible sale of properties.

Legacy Hotels Real Estate Investment Trust, which holds several landmark Fairmont Hotel properties such as the Hotel Vancouver and Victoria’s Empress in its portfolio, put itself in play March 1.

And five Westin properties, including Vancouver’s Bayshore Hotel, were put on the block in January.

“We initiated this process in response to the considerable appetite strategic and financial buyers have shown in recent months for Canadian hotel properties,” Janice Rennie, chairwoman of the special committee said in a news release.

No one was answering phones at Canadian Hotel Wednesday.

Vancouver-based holding company Belkorp Group is Canadian Hotel’s biggest shareholder, which has said it is supportive of the process.

Rennie, in the news release, also cited pending federal legislation that may exclude hotels as real estate income trusts (REITs).

Other options the committee will consider include restructuring or amalgamation. A sale could include some or all of the trust’s assets.

Canadian Hotel owns 32 hotel properties with more than 7,000 rooms including the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort, Harbour Towers Hotel and Suites in Victoria and Vancouver’s Residence Inn by Marriott.

Its $34-million purchase of the Ocean Pointe Resort included Vancouver’s Cannery Seafood Restaurant and the Fish House in Stanley Park.

In 2006, Canadian Hotel posted a total annual return of 35 per cent, including cash distributions and price appreciation on units, a whopping increase from 18.3 per cent in 2005.

It’s net 2006 income was $36.3 million on $335.1 million revenue compared with $21.7 million on $299 million in revenue the year before.

Brian Flood, vice-president of C.B. Richard Ellis Hotels, a major commercial real-estate broker, said many Canadian real-estate trusts are in the same boat as Canadian Hotel because of the federal government’s reversal on income-trust taxation.

Trusts have to be sure they abide by the new tax rules. While they make those adjustments, it’s logical to figure out what the trusts could make on the open market, Flood said.

“If you are considering [a sale], now is probably the best time in many years to look at that option,” Flood said.

Hedge funds, pensions and other institutional investors have been clamoring to buy any commercial property that generates cashflow.

ING Group bought an industrially focused trust, Summit, for $3.3 billion last year. GWL Realty Advisers also purchased TGS North American trust’s 2.3 million square feet of office space in Vancouver, Edmonton and Houston for $265 million.

As for hotels, Colliers International counted a record $3 billion in hotel transactions, including the $1.5-billion US sale of seven Fairmont hotels to the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Board (Omers).

Flood said hotels never used to appeal to institutional investors. However, high prices for office and retail real estate has driven down their rates of return, making hotels more attractive.

Canadian Hotel’s units rose 30 cents to close at $15.98 in trading Wednesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Security still the No. 1 amenity

Province

Raising kids in condos gaining popularity. – CNS FILE PHOTO

OTTAWA — More potential condo buyers see them as a place to raise a family, but too many children in a building would be a turnoff for even more, survey results suggest.

The proportion who would consider raising a family in a condominium has in- creased significantly to 30 per cent from 20 per cent a year ago, TD Canada Trust said yesterday.

However, it noted that 46 per cent also said too many children in a building would cause them not to buy a condo unit in it, while just five per cent said not enough children would be a reason not to buy.

While the vast majority of potential buyers also said living in an environmentally friendly building is an important factor, the results suggest having parking is even more important.

The online survey conducted earlier this month, which asked potential condo buyers living in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Halifax to rate the importance of amenities that might factor into their decision to buy, found 90 per cent indicated that an environmentally friendly, energy-efficient building is important, with half saying it is very important.

Proximity to public transit also ranks high, with 80 per cent saying it is important, including 45 per cent who said it is very important.

“For many Canadians, energy-efficient features can also appeal to their desire to reduce monthly expenses,” Joan Dal Bianco, a TD Canada Trust vice-president, said in a statement. “As green choices save them money, Canadians will increasingly look for energy-efficient features and ready access to public transit when shopping for a condo.”

However, the most important amenity was good building security, with 91 per cent saying it is important, including 71 per cent who rated it as very important.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

Executives willing to pay almost as much as in London

Paul Luke
Province

Vancouver’s high-flying real-estate market has the world’s third-highest prices for executive homes, a survey released yesterday says.

A typical home for executives working in downtown Vancouver costs $1.6 million, following $5.7 million for a home in London, England, and $2.5 million in New York, the Century 21 Canada survey said.

“Our survey reflects that Vancouver and Calgary are booming, whether you compare them to cities in the rest of Canada or to cities around the world,” Century 21 Canada president Don Lawby said.

In Vancouver, a typical choice for an executive would be a 2,700-square-foot home in Ambleside in West Vancouver, the survey found.

The Ambleside executive has a 30-minute commute to downtown Vancouver — similar to a London exec’s 30-minute commute from Notting Hill and 45 minutes for a New Yorker to get to Wall Street from Roslyn Heights, Long Island.

In Calgary, the seventh costliest city, a typical choice for executives would be a 1,500-square-foot home in Roxboro priced at $1.2 million.

Vancouver moves down the price list to seventh place and Calgary rises to fourth when judged by cost per square foot.

London remains costliest at $3,156 per square foot. Calgary is $800 per square foot and Vancouver is $574.

Michael La Prairie, owner of Century 21 In Town Realty, said high prices are to be expected in Vancouver, a market that draws business people from across North America and the Pacific Rim.

“We’re no longer the best-kept secret out there,” La Prairie said. “More executives are moving here.”

The survey looked at 15 cities in Canada and 16 around the world.

© The Vancouver Province 2007