Shannon Proudfoot
Sun

OTTAWA – Three-quarters of young Canadians say owning a house is important to them, according to a new Statistics Canada report, but everything from their family background to where they live influences how likely they are to make that dream a reality.

“Home ownership is very important to the vast majority of Canadians,” the report says. “Young adults are no different from the general population in this respect, although they are much less likely to be homeowners themselves.”

Young rural residents are much more likely to be homeowners than city dwellers, likely due to higher housing costs in the city and few rentals in outlying areas, the federal agency says.

About 71 per cent of young people in rural areas and small towns owned a home last year, compared to just 53 per cent of those in Toronto, 48 per cent in Montreal and 54 per cent in Vancouver.

The exception to that trend is Calgary, where young people are just as likely to be homeowners as their rural counterparts.

The chances of owning a home increase with every birthday that passes. Only 38 per cent of Canadians aged 25 to 27 owned their own home, while 63 per cent of 31- to 33-year-olds and 73 per cent of those aged 37 to 39 did so.

Perhaps more unexpected is the role of family background: young people who lived with both parents until age 15 were 1.4 times more likely to be homeowners than those who didn’t. First-time homebuyers from intact families may have greater access to resources such as parents acting as mortgage guarantors or offering interest-free loans, Statistics Canada suggests.

Household income has a major impact on home ownership for young adults, which the agency calls “hardly shocking.” Just 22 per cent of those with a household income of less than $30,000 were homeowners in 2006, compared to 68 per cent of those earning $50,000 to $80,000 and 82 per cent of those making over $100,000.

The link between education and earning power is clear in the fact that people who had not completed post-secondary education were 40-per-cent less likely to be homeowners than those with a degree.

Temporary employment makes income unpredictable and home ownership difficult, the report also shows. Young people with those jobs were 40-per-cent less likely to own homes than those with a permanent job, even when income and other factors are taken into account.

The data comes from the 2006 General Social Survey, and this report focused on Canadians aged 25 to 39 not living with their parents.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Vancouver: Many still can’t find a new place

Gerry Bellett
Sun

Almost a week after ceilings collapsed in a rundown Vancouver apartment building during a rain storm, forcing 81 people into temporary housing, many are still scrambling to find new places to live.

Those interviewed by The Vancouver Sun on Tuesday didn’t appear to have much hope of rescuing their belongings in a usable state from their former home at 2131 Pandora St.

They were still locked out of the building because of safety concerns and had no idea when it might be reopened.

There have been reports that a number of units had been broken into and belongings likely stolen, while others had suffered water damage or now have mould growing on furniture and clothes left behind.

“I’m going to leave it all behind and start over,” said Brandee Wiebe, 26, a single mother of three young boys who had lived the building for three years.

Her first-floor apartment was one of the most heavily damaged by water and she isn’t going back.

“The ceiling in the hallway caved in,” Wiebe said. “The water was everywhere, in the living room and bedrooms. It filled up the light fixtures and for two days we couldn’t touch the switches.

“Most of my stuff was damaged. They gave us three hours to pack up and I just grabbed all I could carry. Everything else was left behind.

“My TV, all my furniture, the kids’ things — there’s nothing I can do about it,” she said.

Like Wiebe and her children, the other residents have been temporarily housed in a number of motels along Kingsway.

For now, their rent is being paid by the provincial government, but for those with jobs the assistance will end today while those on social assistance may have until the end of the month before assistance is cut off.

A single mom on social assistance, Wiebe didn’t have householder insurance.

She has heard nothing from the owners about compensation for her damaged belongings, but would be asking social assistance for some help when she moves into a new apartment this week.

She is moving to public housing near the Ray-Cam Community Centre on Hastings Street that was found for her by the city and BC Housing.

In some ways, the unexpected eviction has helped her.

She was paying $1,020 a month in rent and utilities for a two-bed-room unit, while the family’s new home will cost her $420 a month in total.

But when she gets there later this week, all she and the three boys will have are the clothes on their backs and what few belongings she managed to salvage from the 50-unit, three-storey wood-frame building owned by Paul Sahota.

Sahota’s family owns several hotels in the Downtown Eastside as well as other apartments and rental homes.

Vancouver City housing advocate Judy Graves, who was out Tuesday meeting with Wiebe and other residents at the Court Motel, 2400 Kingsway, said there was no accurate information on how many persons have found other homes.

Graves and officials at BC Housing were working to find alternative accommodation for the displaced.

“For those who can’t find accommodation right away, we are hoping the provincial government will extend its help a bit longer,” said Graves.

Kelly Thomson, 38, who lived in the Pandora Street building for five years, has a new home on East Eighth — an apartment he found after pounding the pavement for four hours Saturday.

“The vacancy rate is next to nothing and it’s tough to find a place to live,” he said.

Thomson works for a cheque-cashing company and he left his old apartment last Thursday with just a knapsack and his cat.

He, too, is concerned about his belongings, which he values at more than $4,000.

“I went back there today but they wouldn’t let me in and no one is saying when they will,” he said. “They were actually shovelling water off the roof.”

Although Thomson didn’t think his suite was as badly damaged as others, water was seeping in through the walls before he left and he expects to find his clothes, bedding, furniture and books damaged by mould. He hasn’t any insurance, either.

Neither have Val and Don Rose, who with their two grandchildren, Nick, 2, and Brianna, 6, were waiting Tuesday to find a new home.

“We’re still looking, but we haven’t found anything yet,” said Val.

“I’m concerned about our belongings because we’ve heard some of the apartments have been broken into and stuff stolen. It’s pretty upsetting. They [the building’s owners] were told that the roof was a problem and it should have been done. We’re not sure if we have to leave here today or not. I don’t know where we’ll be going,” she said.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Noelle Knox
USA Today

Countrywide Financial announced Tuesday that it will restructure or refinance $16 billion in adjustable-rate mortgages that have recently reset to higher rates or will reset by the end of next year, stretching some homeowners to the breaking point.

Its plan comes as the mortgage industry tries to head off mounting political and public pressure and an alarming foreclosure rate.

Countrywide, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, says its program will help about 82,000 borrowers, mainly those with “subprime” credit. “Changes in the housing market have occurred, and the trends are weakening,” David Sambol, Countrywide’s president, said in an interview Monday. “Our leadership position in the marketplace requires us to do more.

“Our desire to help our borrowers very much aligns with our interests: helping people stay in their homes and avoiding foreclosure losses for our company and our investors.”

The plan would benefit Countrywide borrowers who:

•Are in default on their loans because of an interest-rate reset in the past few months. Countrywide will send a letter offering to roll back their rate to the previous, lower level. Countrywide expects to modify 10,000 of these loans, totaling $2.2 billion, by the end of this year.

•Are likely to have difficulty affording an upcoming rate increase and are unable to refinance. Countrywide will modify the loan to a rate that will keep borrowers in their homes. The lender says it expects to modify 20,000 loans totaling $4 billion through the end of next year.

But those borrowers who fall behind because they’ve lost their jobs and lack enough income to keep up with a mortgage won’t qualify.

•Had subprime credit but have been making payments on time. Countrywide will offer to refinance them into a lower-interest “prime” loan, or a mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae  or Freddie Mac. The lender estimates that about 52,000 borrowers would qualify for a new loan, and it expects to refinance $10 billion in mortgages.

These borrowers, however, will have to pay the fees to refinance their loans.

Josh Fuhrman, director of counseling for the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, said, “There are a lot of new options and products coming out right now. … A lot of the other (loan) servicers are starting to be more flexible, but (Countrywide’s plan) is pretty specific and looks on the surface to be pretty solid.”

The mortgage industry is under pressure from politicians, regulators and consumer advocates to speed up and boost the number of loan modifications for homeowners in trouble.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned of an “immediate need” for more loan restructurings and modifications.

 

Pete McMartin
Sun

A roof leaks. Rainwater floods apartments. Ceilings sag, water fills light bulbs and electrical outlets.

City inspectors rush to the scene. It is an old apartment building, owned by landlords famous, or infamous, for the decrepitude of their properties. The inspectors immediately shut the building down.

Eighty-one people, most of them aboriginal, many of them single mothers and their children, all of them poor, are evacuated immediately. The Not Safe To Occupy order officially states the reason for evacuation as Electrical Shock Hazard, but that, laughably, is more paperwork than anything. More precisely, the reason could have been Danger of Being Buried Alive Hazard. Sheets of gyproc fall off ceilings and walls as people are being rushed out of the building.

A hurriedly thrown-together committee of city and provincial officials rush about finding temporary housing for the 81 evacuees. They are put up in hotels. Some, in social assistance programs, are guaranteed to have their rents paid by the provincial government at least until the end of the month. Others have until Thursday. All of them, sooner or later, will be out of luck if they do not find a place to live.

City officials work day and night trying to find the evacuees homes. This proves to be excruciatingly difficult work in a city with a vacancy rate approaching zero. The expense to the city and provincial government mounts incalculably, while the building owner goes to ground.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Well, just about everything. The building, a 50-unit three-storey wood-frame building at 2131 Pandora, was owned by Paul Sahota, whose family owns several of the seediest hotels in the Downtown Eastside and several other apartment buildings. You would be hard-pressed to find a news story about the Sahotas without the phrase “slum landlords” in it. Many of those stories also point out, deliciously, that the Sahotas live in Shaughnessy while their tenants live in squalor.

The implication of that contrast is fairly obvious, and the inference one might draw from reading it is that the city and province should come down on the Sahotas hard. The public, naturally, wonders why they haven’t before.

But stories like this have been around for years, as have slum landlords. Squalor persists. And so does the public wonderment about why anything isn’t being done to end it.

Which is not quite the truth. Judy Graves, the city’s social housing and homelessness advocate, has, since the 1990s, conducted an annual survey of low-cost housing, visiting almost 200 buildings every year. The condition of single-occupancy rooms and low-cost residential apartments has improved substantially in the last decade, Graves said.

“The difference between, say, the nearby Aspen Hotel, which is an older building, and something like the Cobalt Hotel (owned by the Sahotas), is the difference between heaven and hell.”

The question, of course, is, why should the public have to endure any hell at all? Why aren’t city bylaw inspectors putting an end to all of the squalor?

Well, that question is easier to ask than answer. For one thing, the city and its inspectors are caught in something of a Catch-22.

If they come down hard on a landlord, the landlord can play hard right back. They can say, okay, if you want me to make all these expensive improvements, I’ll just shut the building down and throw the tenants out on the street. In a tight housing market and the rabidly politicized atmosphere of the Downtown Eastside, this is the last thing the city wants. So inspectors are sometimes walking a fine line between maintaining the bylaws and preserving a housing pool for the poor. Also, inspectors know that the more expensive the improvements they demand, the more likely the cost of them being passed along to the tenant.

There are other factors. Since the city has a policy of not accepting anonymous complaints for building infractions, tenants who are poor and afraid of losing their homes are afraid to complain. Barb Windsor, the city’s deputy chief licence inspector, said she pulled the file on the Sahota building and only had a couple of complaints from tenants. And sometimes, Windsor said, it is the tenants themselves causing the need for repair. (Windsor alluded to a police investigation underway at the Sahota building about a hole possibly cut in the roof.)

“Is it a perfect situation? No,” Windsor said. “Is every owner and tenant perfect? No.

“I don’t know what to say. It isn’t perfect. But I honestly think our inspectors do a good job.”

On the other hand, if the ceilings of that apartment building came down and people were killed underneath falling debris, this conversation would be completely different.

And there is talk of more onus being put on the landlords. Vision Coun. Tim Stevenson, for one, wants to see a better fining system in place, with higher fines. He also like to see landlords who are repeat offenders have to pay for city inspections.

“We also have to find a way of fining [the landlord] for the cost of accommodation for the people evicted. Because it’s no cost to him while the city and provincial governments are having to pay for it.”

Not a bad idea. We might consider it before the roof falls in again and somebody dies.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Sun

Demand for premium properties was expressed robustly last weekend, with buyers snapping up releases in hours.

Buyers from across Canada, the U.S. and even the U.K. bought 20 of the first 25 building lots released by

Revelstoke Mountain Resort. The lots were priced from $695,000 to $1.35 million.

Closer to home, eager buyers snapped up phase one of Southport, ParkLane Homes’ master-planned community in Crescent Beach. Within eight hours, all 20 homes were sold at prices close to $1 million.

TIPS TO KEEP YOUR HOUSE TIP-TOP

About Your House, Canada Mortgage and Housing’s free newsletter, provides a home maintenance calendar that details tasks to be performed every season.

The maintenance schedule suggests homeowners:

– Have their furnaces or heating systems serviced — every two years for a gas furnace and every year for an oil furnace.

– Vacuum electric baseboard heaters to remove dust.

– Check chimneys for obstructions, such as nests.

– Drain and store outdoor hoses.

– Ensure that windows and skylights close tightly.

– Replace window screens with storm windows.

– Lubricate the circulating pump on hot-water heating systems.

For more information about CMHC’s recommended year-round maintenance tips, visit www.cmhc.ca

USE TAX TO GO GREEN

Three representatives of the local development and construction industries want the provincial government to use the Property Transfer Tax to encourage “green” construction and renovations.

The B.C. chapter of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association, the B.C. Real Estate Association and the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver made the suggestion in a recent meeting with government representatives.

Among the recommendations: “Provide a PTT rebate to buyers of homes that meet or exceed the standards of the Built Green program.”

“Each Built Green ‘Gold’ home saves 21/2 tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions annually,” a home builders’ news release reports.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007