Archive for April, 2009

Getting buyers on Jasmine’s scent at East Hastings and Skeena St.

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

East Van lowrise: Prices have been reduced to entice hip, young first-time buyers

Kate Webb
Province

Jasmine, a four-storey building at East Hastings and Skeena St., is home to 56 units. PHOTOS BY RIC ERNST — THE PROVINCE

The Living rooms come with an electric fireplace

The kitchens feature whirlpool stainless-steel appliances

Prices are falling like cherry blossoms at Jasmine, a completed four-storey lowrise in East Vancouver, where sales have been sluggish since they began last October.

It’s not that the product isn’t attractive — the presentation centre and three display suites at East Hastings and Skeena St. sparkle with eye-popping modern fixtures and decor, and the suites boast an impressive package of finishings.

The problem has been that Jasmine was designed to attract hip, young, first-time buyers, and for the past six months many of them have been on home-hunting hiatus, according to David Wan, director of sales and marketing for developer Aragon.

With just 15 out of 56 units sold — most of them to young couples — Aragon decided to reduce prices on all units yesterday, with reductions ranging from about 10 to 15 per cent, depending on the unit. For example, on Friday, a two-bedroom unit would have cost $329,900, but today it starts at $296,900.

“We designed this building for the first-time buyer, and given the fact that the economy doesn’t make it easy for first-time buyers to get into a building like this, I think it was justifiable to make this reduction at this time to make sure we are catering to the people we designed it for,” said Wan.

He said that Jasmine’s best features are its location — amid the shops on the East Hastings thoroughfare and a short transit ride from Commercial Drive, Simon Fraser University and the B.C. Institute of Technology — and its contemporary, high-end finishings.

“We wanted to be a little bit different and do something that you don’t see too often,” said Wan. “It’s something we’re very proud of . . . Jasmine has the highest level of finishings out of all of its direct competitors.”

Each home comes with a choice of white or black colour scheme, although the black scheme could just as easily be called chocolate for the rich, dark stain that covers all of the maple shaker-style cabinet and closet doors.

The black palette is dramatic and works beautifully with grey granite countertops and the multi-coloured, hand-dyed slate tiles that make up the kitchen backsplash and living room electric-fireplace surround. “I don’t think we want to build with a lot of beige and grey,” said Wan. “We wanted to make a statement.”

The kitchen comes with an au courant Tower Tech pulldown chrome faucet, under-mounted sinks, stainless steel Whirlpool appliances, oversized porcelain tile floors in a shade that matches the cabinets, and chic under-cabinet lighting.

All three display suites — plus the 1,167-square-foot penthouse — are located on the top floor, all with great views of either mountains or a quiet, tree-lined street, multiple large skylights, and certain rooms have vaulted, 11-foot ceilings.

In some top-floor homes most of the light comes in through the large kitchen skylight, while in others the bedrooms enjoy nearly floor-to-ceiling windows and extra-high ceilings that make it even brighter.

For those with super sunny dispositions or a penchant for stargazing, the penthouse offers a long, nearly 500-square-foot wooden patio that is separated from the inside by an equally long stretch of floor-to-ceiling windows.

“We really designed this suite for entertainment purposes,” said Wan. “There’s a lot of privacy from next- door suites, and every bedroom has access to the balcony.”

All the suites at Jasmine come with a balcony with frosted-glass privacy barriers, underground parking, and access to the building’s main- floor fitness centre.

The first floor of the building will be rented out as retail space.

© Copyright (c) The Province

Signs of strata council’s powers

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Tony Gioventu
Province

Dear Condo Smarts: Thank you for your timely column on election signage a few weeks ago. Our strata is unclear on one issue. Can we create a bylaw or rule that prohibits the size of signs that are placed on a strata lot or common property?

— MM, Abbotsford

Dear MM: Our offices province-wide have been inundated with the same question.

Yes, section 228.1 of the Election Act permits a landlord, a person or a strata corporation to limit the size of a sign by setting reasonable conditions.

However, what a strata corporation has to remember is that to set conditions on a strata lot would require a duly ratified bylaw at a general meeting that has been registered in the Land Title Registry. A strata corporation may prohibit signs on common property, including common areas of a building, and that may be either through a proper bylaw amendment or through the creation of a Rule by council. The new Rule must be properly ratified by council and the strata must inform owners and tenants of any new rules as soon as feasible.

A strata corporation in White Rock has a bylaw that limits the placement of election signage to only the display from strata lots, and to signage no larger than one metre by one metre, which is still significant. In a bare-land strata in most circumstances it will require a bylaw to limit or restrict signage. Most signs are displayed on the property adjacent to the buildings on a bare-land strata, which is almost always part of the strata lot.

Don’t make the mistake in assuming the Act gives you the authority to limit or restrict signs. The Strata Property Act is silent on election signage, and only gives you the ability to create the appropriate bylaws or rules permitted by the Election Act.

Tony Gioventu is executive director of Condominium Home Owners’ Association. [email protected].

© Copyright (c) The Province

The Geller homeless solution makes sense

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Bob Ransford
Sun

When architect and developer Michael Geller launched a trial balloon about his idea to provide immediate relief for Vancouver‘s homeless by temporarily housing them in portable modular housing I was skeptical.

My first reaction was that his was hardly a form of housing we wanted to add to the mix of dwelling types in our city.

After all, how small and how basic do we want to go when it comes to providing a roof over our heads?

Geller’s “temporary” solution also looked like it might too easily morph into a permanent housing solution for the poor.

I envisioned new mini-ghettos springing up in the already unreal neighbourhood of the Downtown Eastside supplanting a more durable housing solution for those in real need. However, the more I study Geller’s ideas that are still in development and after hearing him explain the fine details of a subject he has exhaustively researched, the more I see the multiple benefits his idea offers.

Small modular housing promises not only to be an immediate and flexible solution for homelessness, it is also a long-term option for increasing housing diversity, developing a new form of housing at the more affordable end of the housing cost spectrum.

Imagine smaller, cost effective dwellings that can be quickly brought to market to help alleviate the housing affordability challenge for many wanting to live in Vancouver.

Yes, the housing units Geller is proposing are small.

What’s wrong with small homes?

There was a time when a starter family home in the suburbs wasn’t much bigger than what is being proposed.

In the study Geller and architect Tom Staniszkis undertook recently for BC Housing, they proposed factory-produced, movable homes based on 12-foot-by-60-foot modules.

Each module could contain either eight sleeping rooms that are 11 feet by 11 feet, each with its own small bathroom, or 9 sleeping rooms which share two common bathrooms. The modules can be stacked two or even three high.

The cost per furnished unit would work out to about $38,000 for units with their own bathroom and $32,700 for units with shared bathrooms.

Remember, these are homes for people currently living on the street and are meant as an interim measure while permanent housing can be constructed.

However, the same factory-produce module can be adapted for larger family suites by reducing the number of those accommodated in each module and by increasing the level of amenities and finishes.

A 12-foot-by-60-foot module could accommodate a 720-square-foot apartment or two 360-square-foot apartments.

Geller doesn’t advocate modular housing developments as a replacement for permanent social housing for those in need.

He advanced the ideas that these modular homes could be built as multi-dwelling developments on vacant or under-utilized properties in the city to be used until such time as adequate permanent housing is available.

The magic is that these modules can be easily re-located and recycled. Land might be available today on a temporary basis because it is in transition while a private property owner plans a higher and better use.

With incentives, such as property tax forgiveness, a private owner might be willing to make the property available for a community need.

Under-utilized publicly owned site can also be used to temporarily meet a social housing need. These social housing sites do not have to and should not have to be located only in the Downtown Eastside.

Social housing needs that arise throughout the city and the region can be met in neighbourhoods where there is a need.

The same modular development can be economically re-located to another neighbourhood when permanent social housing is made available.

The same form of housing, adapted for a different market–the affordable consumer-driven housing market–could also be developed by the private sector on both a permanent basis using similar modules or as temporary housing in neighbourhoods in transition.

Geller has recommended a demonstration project to address the immediate housing needs for those currently living on the streets.

He is recommending the first development using temporary modular housing for approximately 60 rooms be located on the parking lot of an old Downtown Eastside hotel– the Drake on Powell Street that was recently acquired by the provincial government in it quest to secure single-room occupancy hotels.

Vancouver city council recently backed this plan and another demonstration project proposed by architect Gregory Henriquez for about 120 rooms in temporary modules on the Continental Hotel site on Granville in Downtown South.

The city is awaiting provincial government funding to assist with these demonstration projects.

This is one form of housing worth considering if we are going to effectively tackle the housing affordability challenge in this part of the world.

Bob Ransford is a public affairs consultant with CounterPoint Communications Inc.

He is a former real estate developer who specializes in urban land use issues. E-mail him at [email protected]

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Tool time for your phone

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Gillian Shaw
Sun

STANLEY LEVEL, THE STANLEY WORKS

SWIMP3, FINIS

PELICAN MICRO CASE SERIES

1. STANLEY LEVEL, THE STANLEY WORKS, FREE

The tool folks at Stanley have gone virtual. Now you can use your iPhone or your iPod Touch as a level with a free application from the Apple app store. It has four interchangeable skins that emulate Stanley‘s real-world levels. What’s next in the virtual tool kit, your iPhone as a hammer? Don’t try that at home. Look for the level in the app store on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

2. SWIMP3, FINIS, $150 US

Take your music underwater. This MP3 player uses bone-conduction technology to let you take your music with you when you’re swimming or snorkeling. It has a strap clip to attach to your goggles or mask, and it has next/previous track, pause and shuffle functions along with the on and off and volume on its MP3 panel. Its lithium-ion battery charges from a USB port. It has a lightweight 256 MB of storage, only enough for 60 songs, so you may have to rotate through your music library when you come up for air. Compatible with Windows and Mac, MP3 or WMA files.

3. PELICAN MICRO CASE SERIES, $9.42 US

For those times when your cellphone drops out of your pocket in a rainy parking lot and gets run over by a truck, the Pelican Micro case series offers some serious cover. These waterproof cases are made for your phone, PDA and other personal gadgets. Made from waterproof polycarbonate, it also has an impact-absorbing inner liner. It withstands temperatures from -23 C to 93 C, not that we recommend leaving your cellphone in a scorching desert or on a glacier just to make sure.

4. POWERLINE HD ETHERNET ADAPTER STARTER KIT (DH-303) D-LINK, $140 US

Connect your computers, your HD media players, game consoles and other multimedia devices around your home with D-Link’s new plug-and-play solution. The kit comes with two PowerLine wall plug/adapters that turn power outlets into a network when connected to a switch or to a wireless access point. It also has Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES) to keep your network safe from prying eyes, and works with your existing home wiring.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Terasen Gas looks to expand rebates on home appliances

Friday, April 24th, 2009

Utility hopes to transform the way consumers think about purchases

Scott Simpson
Sun

* Appliances will have to meet specified minimum standards ** Terasen has only announced its standards, but has not yet set dollar amounts for rebates Utility hopes to ftransform the way consumers think about purchases

Save energy, save money. Even before Terasen Gas announced a new set of rebates this week for energy-efficient appliances, consumers were awash in incentives to help curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

Buy a high-efficiency hot-water heater, for example, and your purchase can qualify for a federal ecoEnergy rebate, a LiveSmart BC rebate, and even a PST exemption.

Depending on the model you purchase, you could recover $2,000 or so on the purchase of a gas furnace — and that’s not including Terasen’s pending offers, or any manufacturers incentives that may be available.

Potentially, that’s five different cash rewards on a single purchase.

Gas furnaces are typically the big-ticket items in the home appliance realm, and Terasen has in the past made periodic rebate offers.

This time around, however, the province’s biggest gas utility has a long-term plan and is looking to fundamentally reshape the way consumers think about purchases of many home appliances that rely on natural gas.

In a ruling handed down this week, the British Columbia Utilities Commission accepted Terasen’s proposal to spend $41.5 million on a new three-year energy efficiency and conservation program that includes rebates, public education campaigns, and even a program directed specifically for low-income customers.

Earlier programs have cost in the range of $3 million a year and were exclusively focused on rewarding purchases by commercial and residential customers of high-efficiency furnaces and boilers.

“We’ve always had energy-efficiency programs, but on a small scale in our business, so probably I think between the utilities around the province, $4 million a year was all we’ve had,” Doug Stout, Terasen vice-president for marketing and business development, said in an interview.

“The programs we offered could be targeted for a short duration. For example, you’d have a two-month window.

“In reality, people can’t plan around those kinds of things and we needed to have programs that were longer-term so you would be able to plan how you are going to invest your money.”

The expanded program also includes rebates for water heaters, gas fireplaces, dishwashers and washing machines — all of which rely on gas — and will be available for both new home installations and retrofits in existing homes.

There is already a mixed bag of rebates available on those appliances, but if you’re looking to capture as many rebates as possible, keep in mind that not everything with an Energy Star label will qualify.

In fact, most won’t meet the standard Terasen is asking consumers to look for.

Sarah Smith, head of energy-efficiency programs for Terasen Gas, said the utility is looking at incentives for “the most efficient Energy Star dishwashers and washing machines — the top 25 per cent of performers — and we are looking for the top 25 per cent of performers in water heaters.”

Gas fireplaces will need an EnerChoice designation.

Funding for the program will be derived from a small annual increase to gas rates — about 42 cents a month for an average residential customer — but Terasen notes that people who take up the rebate offers “can realize potential savings of hundreds of dollars per year.”

Terasen estimates that the program will allow customers with more efficient appliances to cumulatively forego $100 million in natural gas purchases and cut 500,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions along the way.

That’s equivalent to taking 3.7 per cent of cars and trucks off the road in B.C., Terasen president and CEO Randy Jesperson noted in a statement.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Lower Mainland lawns at risk from tiny grubs

Friday, April 24th, 2009

Wendy McLellan
Province

European chafer grubs, shown here beside a dime, are wreaking havoc around the Lower Mainland. BOB COSTELLO – FOR THE PROVINCE

The first sign of invasion is usually the clumps of grass pulled out by the roots and flung all over the yard.

A look under a bit of the remaining lawn will probably confirm it: fat, curled-up, white grubs just under the turf are providing a handy buffet for every raccoon, skunk and crow in the neighbourhood.

Coquitlam is the latest Lower Mainland community to suffer an invasion of European chafer beetles, and pest-control experts would like to stop the bugs before they spread any further. It seems like an impossible dream.

“They are so devastating in the first few years, they wreak havoc,” said Tracy Hueppelsheuser, an entomologist with the province’s Plant Health Unit in Abbotsford.

“If you don’t deal with it, you just won’t have any lawn.”

While the chafer beetles don’t cause any harm, they lay their eggs in lawns and the larvae feed on the roots.

In spring, when the grubs migrate close to the soil surface, they become a banquet for bug-loving wildlife that easily tear out the damaged grass.

The first Lower Mainland community to battle the beetles was New Westminster in 2001.

From there, the bugs spread to Burnaby and are steadily marching west and south through Vancouver. Coquitlam now has its first brush with the bugs.

“They’re just on the border of Coquitlam, and they have made it as far west as Oak Street in Vancouver,” said Ian Wraight, owner of the Vancouver lawn-care franchise for Nutri-Lawn.

“Some people’s lawns are so devastated they pretty much have nothing left. If you’re lucky, you will have a little damage that can be repaired. But sometimes all you can do is replace the lawn and that can be a major cost for the homeowner.”

So far, the beetles haven’t made it across the Fraser River into the Valley or on to the North Shore.

While the beetles can fly short distances before laying their eggs, the best way to control them is to keep a healthy lawn and not move fill from infested communities into new areas.

How to kill the invader

 

 The best defence against European chafer beetles is a healthy lawn. Beetles prefer stressed turf with dry spots when lay their eggs in early July, so keep your lawn watered and a little long.

If you are in an infested neighbourhood, apply a predatory nematode to attack the eggs or use chemical insecticides. For more info, go to www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/chafer.htm or your municipality’s website.

© Copyright (c) The Province

Borrowers enticed to break old loan contracts

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Derrick Penner
Sun

Real estate sales may be below last year’s levels, but rock-bottom mortgage rates have kept mortgage brokers just as busy as they were in 2008, with clients racing to refinance their home loans.

“[Refinancing] is a huge component of what we’re doing,” Joe Santos, incoming president of the B.C. Mortgage Brokers Association, said in an interview. He said he thinks it’s the same for other lenders.

Santos added that with brokers able to lock borrowers into five-year mortgages with discounted interest rates below four per cent, it becomes attractive for some clients to pay the penalties for breaking out of existing mortgages to chase the lower rates.

Santos said that at his own firm, about 70 per cent of business is in refinancing or renewing existing mortgages and about 30 per cent is devoted to securing new mortgages for buyers to purchase homes.

“By the end of April, we’ll be at the same or slightly higher mortgage volume than we did last year,” he said.

For some borrowers, Santos said, the lower mortgage rates mean lower payments, and more cash to pay down other debt or invest. He said the best advice is for borrowers to sit down with their bank or mortgage broker to do the math to figure out if refinancing will work for them.

The Bank of Canada drove some mortgage rates down further Tuesday by reducing its key overnight lending rate a quarter of a percentage point to 0.25 per cent, a record and the lowest rate the bank can set.

That spurred Canada‘s major banks to drop their prime lending rates, to which variable-rate mortgages are tied, also by a quarter point.

The Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals reported results Wednesday from its semi-annual mortgage-market survey, which showed that:

– 64 per cent of British Columbians reported they believe now is a good time to buy a home, the highest such rate in Canada and an increase over the fall 2008 survey.

– 37 per cent of British Columbians reported believing that home prices will continue to fall over the next year, a decrease from the fall 2008 survey.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Rental-apartment real estate sales rise

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Interest rates, price reductions credited

Derrick Penner
Sun

A combination of low interest rates and easing of prices has breathed some life into Metro Vancouver’s rental-apartment real estate market, according to the latest report from a major commercial realtor.

Avison Young counted 17 sales of rental apartment buildings totalling just over $59 million in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 26 sales worth just over $92 million in the first quarter of 2008.

However, Avison Young principal Rob Greer noted the 17 sales in 2009’s first quarter was a substantially higher number than the seven sales worth almost $30 million recorded in the fourth quarter of 2008.

In an interview, Greer said “nothing happened” in the market between November of last year and the middle of January. “But we are seeing things start to pick up,” Greer said. “What’s fuelling things is very, very low interest rates, and [capitalization] rates that are now between one and 11/2-percentage-points up from where they used to be.”

Capitalization rates are reaching the 4.75-per-cent to 5.5-per-cent range, Greer said. A year ago, he added, buyers were accepting capitalization rates, a measure of their return on investment, as low as the low four-per-cent range.

Greer said buyers do have to put more of their own equity into purchases after last fall’s tightening of credit markets, but the combination of prices that are 10 to 20 per cent off their peaks, with low interest rates, have begun to draw buyers into the market.

“There definitely was a larger equity requirement for sure,” Greer said. “That hasn’t changed. But we’re lucky with [Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s] great lending program.”

The CMHC-backed insurance apartment buyers get on their mortgages gives them the security to secure the low interest rates that make the investments attractive. Many buyers, Greer said, are private investors who “haven’t bought [any apartment buildings] in the past three or four years now getting back into the marketplace because they now have a decent spread between borrowing rates and cap rates, which we haven’t seen in a long time.”

Greer said historically low apartment vacancy rates make apartment buildings more attractive as commercial real-estate investments than office or retail buildings during the current recession.

However, Avison Young’s report noted there are still a large number of building listings in the unsold inventory with sellers “still looking to achieve yesterday’s prices in today’s environment.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

March home sales fall 3%; median price rises as rates fall

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

USA Today

WASHINGTON A real estate group says sales of previously occupied homes sank by an unexpectedly large amount from February to March, but the median sale price rose as mortgage rates fell.

The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that home sales fell 3% in March from February, to an annual rate of 4.57 million, from a downwardly revised pace of 4.71 million units in February. Sales had been expected to fall to an annual pace of 4.7 million units, according to Thomson Reuters.

The median sale price plunged to $175,200, down 12.4% from $200,100 a year earlier, but up from $168,200 in February. While median sale prices typically rise slightly in early spring, the 4% monthly increase was larger than expected.

But the median price was 12.4% below a year ago.

Some good news: The inventory of existing homes for sale fell to 3.74 million from the 3.80 million overstock reported for February.

And mortgage rates fell in the latest week, nudging closer to a recent record low, helped by government efforts to bring rates down to levels that will spur demand in the hard-hit housing market.

Interest rates on U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell to 4.80% the week ended April 23, down from the previous week’s 4.82%, according to a survey released Thursday by home funding company Freddie Mac.

Three weeks earlier, mortgage rates were 4.78%, lowest since Freddie Mac started its survey in 1971.

“Although long-term mortgage rates eased slightly this week, ARM rates remain elevated relative to those fixed-rate mortgages,” Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist, said.

The battered U.S. housing market, which is in the midst of its worst downturn since the Great Depression, is both the source and a major casualty of the credit crisis.

MORTGAGE RATES

National overnight averages

Today

+/-

30 yr fixed mtg

4.89%

15 yr fixed mtg

4.62%

5/1 ARM

4.73%

$30K home equity loan

8.43%

$30K HELOC

4.82%

 

Contributing: Associated Press; Reuters
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

 

Raccoons house-hunting

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Attics appeal to females set to give birth

Elaine O’Connor
Province

RACCOON – PROVINCE FILE PHOTO

It’s spring and a young raccoon’s thoughts turn to nesting — in your attic.

It’s birthing season for raccoons, which have litters of three to five kits in April and May — and pest-control companies say that as noises in the attic rise, so do calls.

“There are a lot of them around and they’re looking to have babies,” Jamie Kiffiak of North Shore Pest Detective said of the wily rodents.

Kiffiak said an outbreak of canine distemper killed a large swath of the population in 1997, but since then they’ve been slowly building up their numbers. In the interim, skunks faced less competition and are now thriving as well.

Raccoons den up high in hollow trees, attics and such, while skunks prefer spots under decks and sheds.

“We’re getting lots of calls from people who hear noise in their attic or have a hole in their roof, especially if they have

terracotta or cedar shakes,” said Kiffiak, who owns a Tri-Cities Pest Detective.

Brett Johnston, operations manager of the Coquitlam-based Canadian Pest Control Ltd., said he hasn’t seen a population boom, just the steady seasonal boom.

“Every pest has a season and this is just their time of year,” Johnston said.

These pests can be destructive.

“A raccoon is quite a strong animal, and when they are

driven to give birth safely, they can easily make a hole to get in your home,” he said.

Raccoons can be scared away by introducing a predator’s scent such as coyote urine, evicting the mother and babies, or trapping and relocating them to a wilderness area.

Leaving them to mature and leave the attic encourages the mother and pups to return in future years.

The animals are also known to be carriers of disease such as rabies, canine distemper, encephalitis and mange, and infested with roundworms, fleas, ticks and lice, so it’s not advisable for homeowners to try and flush them out on their own.

Better to work on prevention.

Johnston suggests removing tree branches and other structures that could provide animals access to roofs, fastening garbage cans, getting rid of freshwater sources and not leaving any food such as ripe tree fruit or garden vegetables outside.

Otherwise, Johnston warns, “they’ll make your home part of their territory.”

He’s even had calls about raccoons coming in pet doors to eat the cat’s kibble, sometimes taking up residence if owners aren’t home.

While pest companies do good business in raccoon and skunk control each spring, its not everyone’s favourite job.

“It’s a really tough one when you have six or eight skunklings running around and they can all spray . . . it doesn’t pay to be too aggressive with skunks,” Kiffiak said.

© Copyright (c) The Province