Shelley Fralic
Sun

The power of television, whether to captivate, provoke or simply entertain, is irrefutable.

It can transform the interesting into the dull, the pedestrian into the fascinating, and the tyro into the torch-bearer.

Reality shows, for instance, create household names out of the truly untalented. Witness Kim Kardashian.

News commentators, society’s arbiters, can make or break an ego. Just ask Sarah Palin.

And specialty cable channels, proliferating like bunnies during Passover, have created a seemingly unquenchable appetite for what can only be dubbed the new porn, parading not the flesh of humans but the tantalizing promise of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of the ordinary, be they parents of 18 kids, foul-mouthed British chefs or tattooed bad boys who build motorcycles.

Nowhere is this modern-day porn more addictive than on the home front.

It would be easy to blame paint-chip maven Debbie Travis and her Montreal-based production company, Whalley-Abbey Media, for our newfound craving, having first tempted our taste buds, way back when, with her popular Painted House series.

Travis has since dominated the home and garden TV landscape, with shows like Facelift, From The Ground Up, Buy Me, Property Shop and Income Property, an impressive lineup complemented by dozens of other shows drawing huge audiences all over the dial, shows like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Mansions, This Old House, Home Heist, Flip this House, Moving Up, Pure Design, Sarah’s House, My First Home, Property Ladder, Trading Spaces, Dream Home and House Hunters.

Not only do we seem to care deeply about what’s going on inside a stranger’s house — be it restoring or renovating, decorating or designing — we clearly care just as much about the transaction that got us there.

No surprise, really, especially not in Canada, where a big-city house can cost as much as a small jet.

And so we have made reality stars of Brad Lamb, the big, bald, blustery Toronto realtor in Big City Broker.

And of Tatiana Londono, all huge hair and ambition, in The Property Shop, and Sandra Rinomato, seasoned and reasoned, in Property Virgins, and the charmingly patient Sofie Allsopp of The Unsellables.

They are peddling the Canadian dream, home ownership, and we can’t take our eyes off them.

Enter Sally Cook.

She is one of eight Toronto realtors (all but one are women) on a new W Network show called The Agents, which premieres April 27.

The show, she says, though not really sure what it means either, is a “docu-soap,” because “it’s not about the home, it’s not about the buyer.”

Instead, it’s about working real estate agents in Toronto, and each episode profiles two — one rookie and one pro — as they deal with the roller-coaster housing market, antsy clients, and their busy personal lives.

The first episode features Janice Rushford, a 36-year-old rookie with big hair and blue jeans who is selling a house left in an estate while juggling a new relationship (with her boss!) and single motherhood.

The pro is Cook, trim and polished at 55, a mother and grandmother and transplanted Brit who works with her realtor husband, Tom.

Cook, a long-time mortgage broker, decided to get her real estate licence when, during the 1980s boom, “I saw so many people get hurt by, I hate to say it, unscrupulous agents.”

In episode one, filmed a year ago, Cook is looking for a condo for a client while overseeing the construction of her 4,000-square-foot lakeside vacation home.

So what’s the show’s attraction?

“I asked the same question,” says Cook. “Why would you want to do a show about real agents? They said: ‘It’s a lot of people’s dream job.’ “

Maybe, but Cook says she’s appalled by some real estate shows, like the Los-Angeles based Million-Dollar Listing, which focus on the glitz and glamour and the young guns of the trade, when, in fact, there are both lean times and immense disappointments in the industry.

“There is a massive failure in this business, and to be successful you have to find a balance.

“I think we’re the average agents doing the average job in an average life in a big city.

“People think when you get into real estate, it’s going to be big bucks and no work. So this is their insight. It’s hard work.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Trend tempers Metro Vancouver’s sky-high housing prices

Derrick Penner
Sun

Falling prices and mortgage rates lessened the burden of home ownership in Metro Vancouver at the end of 2008, but detached houses remain out of reach for most buyers in what remains Canada‘s most expensive real estate market, according to the latest measure by RBC Economics.

For condominiums, however, the monthly cost of ownership fell closer to the reach of more buyers on the so-called affordability measures in RBC’s Housing Trends and Affordability report released Thursday.

The carrying costs of buying an average Metro Vancouver bungalow worth $576,300 would have eaten up 70 per cent of the median family income in the fourth quarter of 2008, down from almost 75 per cent in the third quarter of 2008.

For the average, basic two-storey home worth $645,700, the measure slipped to 79 per cent from 84 per cent of median income.

The average standard condominium worth $327,500 came closest to the affordable reach of buyers, taking up 40 per cent of median family income, down from 43 per cent in the third quarter of 2008.

RBC senior economist Robert Hogue said the burden of paying for home ownership went down across the country, mostly because falling mortgage interest rates have pared back monthly mortgage payments.

However, in the higher-priced markets of Calgary, Edmonton and Metro Vancouver, the rapid descent of prices has also helped to appreciably reduce home ownership costs in those markets.

“Considering how much affordability [in Vancouver] had deteriorated over the last few years of the boom, we’re seeing the start of an improvement,” Hogue said in an interview.

“Clearly the current measures, even after having improved over the last year, are still well above the historical average,” Hogue said in an interview.

Historically, Hogue said, Metro Vancouver’s long-term average affordability measure for a detached bungalow is a cost that equals 55 per cent of the median family income.

“To me, at least, that indicates that there is probably more room to improve ahead,” he added, which will mean a continuation of the correction in prices.

Hogue said current conditions in B.C.’s economy — with rising unemployment and falling housing starts — are “poor underpinnings for the housing market.”

However, the RBC affordability measure needs to be viewed cautiously when applied to Vancouver because it doesn’t necessarily reflect what is happening in the market, said Tsur Somerville, director of the centre for urban economics and real estate at the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business.

Vancouver, he said, has always been very expensive relative to other Canadian cities, so residents, on average, have adapted by accepting that they will live in smaller homes.

“[The index] gets at how expensive land is,” Somerville said, “but the question we want [to answer] is not can people afford the same house as they can in Winnipeg, but can people in Vancouver acquire some type of owner-occupied real estate?”

In Vancouver, that owner-occupied real estate has rapidly taken the form of condominiums.

RBC calculates its affordability index on a quarterly basis as an indicator of whether housing markets in provinces and select cities are in balance or out of balance, Hogue said.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Average home price in Greater Vancouver falls 14% from a year ago

Derrick Penner
Sun

British Columbia real estate sales in March paled in comparison with the same month a year ago, but continued to creep higher from the depths of January, the B.C. Real Estate Association reported Wednesday.

Across the province, realtors tracked 5,464 Multiple-Listing-Service sales, a 25-per-cent decline from 7,319 sales recorded in March 2008.

However, the number seems to indicate a slowing of the decline from February, when the volume of transactions was down by almost half from February 2008.

“[March sales are] quite an improvement from what we experienced in the winter months,” Cameron Muir, chief economist for the B.C. Real Estate Association, said in an interview, “and really, right now [the trend is] what we might expect.”

Extrapolating March sales over the rest of the year, Muir said sales will match levels near those experienced during 2000-2001.

“That’s what we would expect given a weaker economy [and] rising unemployment.”

From November to January, Muir said sales levels resembled those of the mid-1980s, during which there were much worse economic conditions.

Muir said unemployment levels at the beginning of the current decade were higher than today, although “we’re expecting continued erosion of employment levels over the coming months.”

However, he said the combination of falling prices and interest rates continues to draw buyers back into the market.

At a provincial level, Muir said, while prices have dropped 12 per cent, combined with lower interest rates, the monthly cost of a standard mortgage on the average home has declined 24 per cent, assuming a 20-per-cent down payment and the average posted interest rate.

“That certainly is a situation potential homebuyers find attractive,” Muir said.

The average home price in B.C. hit $424,122 in March, down just over 12 per cent from $483,291 in the same month a year ago.

The Okanagan Mainline region, which includes Kelowna and Vernon; and South Okanagan, which includes Penticton and Osoyoos, had the steepest price declines, in the 17-per-cent range.

In the Kelowna-Vernon corridor, the March average price was $344,845. In the South Okanagan, the average price was $296,023.

On Vancouver Island outside of Victoria, the average home price was $302,155, down 6.4 per cent from a year ago. Sales, at 417 units, were still down 38 per cent.

In the Greater Vancouver MLS region, the average price of $616,496 was down almost 14 per cent from a year ago. Sales in the region were down 24 per cent at 2,310 units.

For the first three months of 2009, B.C. recorded 11,232 sales, which represents a 41-per-cent decline from the same period in 2008.

Muir said the last month was encouraging in that the Greater Vancouver region sales inched upward and the number of listings added to the inventory slowed.

He said the ratio of sales to active listings in Greater Vancouver, at 14 per cent in March, was almost in reach of what economists would consider a balanced market.

“We can’t call it a balanced market,” Muir said, “but it certainly is encouraging considering that that ratio was in the single digits a few months ago.”

Currently, he said, “there is much less downward pressure on prices than there was just two or three months ago.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Larry Olmsted
USA Today

When the 2010 Winter Olympics arrive in Vancouver, the nearby Whistler/Blackcomb ski resort — developed in a futile attempt to win the 1968 Olympics — will have made the most of a second chance. The mountains are hosting all skiing events, alpine and Nordic, and all sliding sports such as bobsled.

The resort is anchored by pedestrian-friendly Whistler Village, famous for its vibrant nightlife and teeming with shops, nearly 100 bars and restaurants, numerous condos, and recreational and entertainment facilities. Around this town core are residential neighborhoods, more hotels, athletic facilities and three golf courses, all within walking distance or a very short drive from the slopes.

The terrain is also world-class: The twin mountains of Whistler and Blackcomb, sitting side by side and sharing a common base area, are consistently rated the continent’s No. 1 ski resort by both Ski and Skiing magazines. It is also one of the world’s most popular destinations for snowboarders, and a glacier provides skiing even in midsummer.

Last year, the resort added the peak-to-peak gondola, which connects the two mountains for the first time. “People would typically ski one mountain for the day,” says Andy Wirth, chief marketing officer for Intrawest, Whistler’s owner. “The new gondola totally changed the way people now ski the resort.” For the bold, two of the 28 gondola cars have glass floors.

Other major upgrades, courtesy of the Olympics, make Whistler even more attractive to second-home owners. These include Callahan Valley, a vast new Nordic skiing area, a luge/bobsled center open to the public, and a $650 million expansion of the Sea-to-Sky Highway, which shortens the drive from the Vancouver airport to less than two hours.

According to Ray Longmuir, managing broker of Playground Real Estate, vacation properties comes in every conceivable price and size, from studio condos under $100,000 to luxury homes over $10 million. One new development here, Kadenwood, is the first in Canada with its own private gondola for residents. It has just 60 homes in the $7 million-$9 million range (kadenwoodhomes.com).

A look at three Whistler neighborhoods

• Creekside: The original Whistler mountain base area predates Whistler Village 4 miles away and is quieter and attractive to families. “Are you one of the people who staggers home from the bar at 2 a.m., or someone who is bothered by those staggering home? If you’re the former, live in the village. If the latter, Creekside is for you,” says broker Ray Longmuir. One-bedroom condos go from just under $300,000, and single-family homes are in the $650,000-$800,000 range.

• Village Center: The frenetic heart of the resort, with nearly 100 bars and restaurants, plus shops, condos and hotels. Whistler has two distinct zoning classes: Phase I with unlimited owner use, and Phase II, which restricts owner occupancy to 28 days in summer and 28 in winter but allows owners to generate rental income year-round. Phase I property begins around $275,000 for studios, while Phase II begins at well under $100,000.

• Benchlands: This neighborhood sits just west of the village at the base of Blackcomb mountain and around the Chateau Whistler golf course and Lost Lake. Almost entirely made up of second-home owners, it has more single-family homes and is geared toward summer use. Condos begin under $300,000, townhomes start around $400,000, and single-family homes are over $1 million.

Sun

The Loden Hotel in Vancouver has received a prestigious International Star Diamond Award from the New York-based American Academy of Hospitality Sciences — just six months after the 77-room property opened at 1177 Melville. The AAHS evaluates international tourism establishments based on service, hospitality, gastronomy, attitude, quality and cleanliness. The Loden — managed by the Kor Hotel Group — is the only hotel in Western Canada to receive the award, joining other properties like Hotel Plaza Athenee in New York and Le Place D’Armes Hotel & Suites in Montreal.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Location, location, location

Derrick Penner
Sun

With new research-based search tools cropping up all the time, the Internet is no longer just a place for house hunters to find property listings.

Their search tools will show you amenities in the neighbourhoods you are looking at, where the schools are and in the City of Vancouver, even who your neighbours might be.

Web-savvy Vancouver realtor Kye Grace, with Sutton West Coast Vancouver, has dug up some tools that are rich with information consumers can use to help figure out where they want to live before heading out to look at homes.

With Metro Vancouver real estate prices and interest rates falling, more new — and tech-friendly — buyers are interested in exploring the market.

“Where online searches work well is, they can hyper-focus your search,” Grace said.

Grace, who conducts all of his marketing online and is an advocate of social media, including the new networking phenomenon Twitter, points to a few websites.

Zoocasa (www.zoocasa.com) is a good place to place to start. It finds lists of properties for sale that meet a consumer’s search criteria for locations in major Canadian cities.

Links from those listings locate the homes within a neighbourhood and point out schools.

“What I think is neat, if you click on ‘more details,’ [Zoocasa] will show you schools, it will show you recent sales that are somewhat comparable,” Grace said.

For those focused on Vancouver, Grace suggests the site Blocktalk (www.blocktalk.ca), which is a good spot for consumers to start gathering information about neighbourhoods they’re not familiar with.

Blocktalk will, by neighbourhood, locate an address on a map and give you an indication of who your neighbours would be.

Type an address into the search field, or click on a locator map, Blocktalk will build a detailed neighbourhood profile of the people who live there from age and income to ethnic origin using census information.

“It gives you an idea who you would be living around and breaks down occupations, ages and how people get to work,” Grace said.

Grace also recommends using the site Walkscore.com, which marries Google Maps with business listings to show the walking distance from an address to the nearest shops, restaurants, grocery stores and other amenities.

These online tools, Grace said, can help take some of the leg work out of searching for a home, but you still do have to go out and look at the listings that catch your fancy.

“When it comes to buying a home you can love, nothing online can replace the feeling you get when you see [a listing] outside or inside,” Grace said.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

Penthouse located atop Melville tower

Sun

Veteran real-estate broker Grace Kwok’s latest commission is a new-build penthouse of 5,700 square feet for which her client is asking $10.8 million. The home is located on the 43rd floor of the Melville residential tower, from the Amacon development company. If the asking price is the highest she has listed in her almost 30 years of selling local real estate, she isn’t saying. (The Bard never said discretion is the better part of luxury-home salesmanship, but he should have.) She has no doubt it will sell, of course, and she thinks she knows who the eventual buyer will be, not by name, but by type. ‘In good or bad times there are always buyers and sellers,’ she said in an interview. ‘Opulent properties have their own niche market. These properties are rare and not always available at the ‘‘right’’ time. ‘We feel this unit will be home to a well-travelled person, or couple, who appreciate good location, view and value.’ What in the Melville penthouse wows her — even after selling highrise and view homes for years, including every home below the penthouse? It’s the ‘home office,’ she said. ‘There’s a special room for him or her, besides the master bedroom, a special office [for] conducting their international business, with a direct view to a solarium where they can enjoy the collectibles from their travels.’

The Melville penthouse is a two-city creation (at least). Dave hewett, a principal of Hewitt & Kwasnicky Architects Inc. of Vancouver, is the architect. Michael Booth of Babey Moulton Jue & Booth, San Francisco, is the interior designer (and desigher for the Loden Hotel downstairs). Tracy Averill of Axis Decorative Arts, Vancouver, is the furniture and furnishings decorator. Each of the penthouse’s five bedrooms has its own ensuite.