Frank O’Brien
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Archive for January, 2010
Home sales fall 17% in Dec. but post first yearly gain since ’05
Monday, January 25th, 2010USA Today
December’s median sales price was $178,300, up 1.5% from a year earlier and the first 12-month gain since August 2007. By Ben Margot, AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of previously occupied homes took the largest monthly drop in more than 40 years last month, sinking more dramatically than expected after lawmakers gave buyers additional time to use a tax credit.
The report reflects a sharp drop in demand after buyers stopped scrambling to qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time homeowners. It had been due to expire on Nov. 30. But Congress extended the deadline until April 30 and expanded it with a new $6,500 credit for existing homeowners who move.
HOUSING MARKET: Track the rise, fall and rebound?
“It’s ‘exit stage left’ for first-time homebuyers,” wrote Guy LeBas, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott.
December’s sales fell 16.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.45 million, from a pace of 6.54 million in November, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. Sales had been expected to fall about 10%, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
The median sales price was $178,300, up 1.5% from a year earlier and the first 12-month gain since August 2007. However, some of that increase could be due to a drop-off in purchases from first-time buyers who tend to buy less expensive homes.
Sales are up 21% from the bottom a year ago, but down 25% from the peak more than four years ago.
The big question hanging over the housing market this spring is whether a tentative recovery will stumble after the government pulls back support. The Federal Reserve‘s $1.25 trillion program to push down mortgage rates is scheduled to expire at the end of March — a month before the newly extended tax credit runs out.
Last year, first-time buyers were the main driver of the housing market, but their presence is on the decline. They accounted for 43% of purchases in December, down from about half in November, the Realtors group said.
The inventory of unsold homes on the market fell about 7% to 3.3 million. That’s a 7.2 month supply at the current sales pace, close to a healthy level of about 6 months.
Total sales for 2009 closed out the year at 5.16 million, up about 5% from a year earlier. That was the first annual sales gain since 2005. But prices fell dramatically last year, declining 12.4% to a median of $173,500, the largest decline since the Great Depression.
Though the results missed Wall Street’s expectations, the Realtors’ group says there are signs the market is finally stabilizing.
“There is some sustainable momentum building in the housing market right now,” said Lawrence Yun, the group’s chief economist. However, he cautioned that the recovery will depend on whether the economy starts adding jobs in the second half of the year.
Many experts project home prices, which started to rise last summer, will fall again over the winter. That’s because foreclosures make up a larger proportion of sales during the winter months, when fewer sellers choose to put their homes on the market.
Despite fears that home prices are starting to fall again, some analysts still believe the worst is over.
“We do not believe it is fair to consider this a double dip in the housing market,” Michelle Meyer, an economist with Barclays Capital, wrote last week. “The recovery is still underway, but hitting some bumps in the road.”
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Proposed height increases in Chinatown not enough, says group
Monday, January 25th, 2010Doug Ward
Sun
representative of Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association says the height increases suggested by City of Vancouver won’t provide enough new residential development to stop the area’s economic decline.
A group representing Chinatown merchants says that moderate building height increases proposed in a new City of Vancouver staff report aren’t tall enough to revitalize the historic area.
Albert Fok, president of the Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association, told a public hearing at city hall Friday that recommendations in the Historic Area Height Review report won’t provide enough new residential development to stop Chinatown’s two-decades-old economic decline. “If we’re to proceed as recommended, we would end up with the status quo.”
City staff recommended a maximum height of seven storeys on Pender Street. The report also suggested extending maximum heights in the area south of Pender to Union Street, between Columbia and Gore, to between seven to nine storeys, and up to 12 storeys through rezoning. Finally, staff recommended a maximum of three 15-storey buildings at Abbott and Pender, Carrall and Pender and a site behind the Keefer triangle at Columbia.
Fok told city councillors the proposed maximum heights aren’t high enough to interest developers — and that without new residential development, many Chinatown merchants will leave the historic area.
“Chinatown is not a museum,” said the Chinatown health food entrepreneur, adding that “because of the lack of viable and realistic solutions in this report our members are ready to depart permanently. They have lost faith and hope.”
Fok said his group supports heritage preservation but that Chinatown also needs more housing development. “Chinatown is culturally rich but commercially poor.”
Afterwards, in an interview, Fok said his group isn’t proposing maximum heights of 30 storeys — a proposal suggested by city staff last year, which set off huge concern in Chinatown that towers that high would overwhelm the area’s mid-rise, heritage character. But Fok said the maximum heights in the area south of Pender need to be taller than those proposed, adding 15 storeys “would be a start … but it depends on the particular site.”
The height proposals were supported by the Alliance for the Conservation of Historic Chinatown, a group concerned with preserving Chinatown’s cultural heritage. But the alliance was uneasy about the proposed locations of the three 15-storey buildings, especially the Keefer triangle site, which it worried could cast a shadow over the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden.
Alliance member Terence Pun thanked city staff for dropping the earlier proposal to build a 30-storey tower in the Chinese Cultural Centre site. “We don’t oppose high towers in the area but do oppose their construction in locations that would directly damage the defining character of Chinatown,” said Pun.
Meanwhile, the report also called for a maximum building height of 12 storeys in the Main and Hastings area, with 20 per cent social housing required in each development.
This recommendation was criticized by anti-poverty activist Wendy Peterson of the Carnegie Community Action Project, who said the proposal would lead to more condos in the Downtown Eastside, driving up land values and displacing low-income renters. Peterson urged council to suspend height increases until a study is done on what impact new condos, including the Woodward’s redevelopment, will have on rental affordability in the area.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Springtime house hunters out early thanks to tax credit
Sunday, January 24th, 2010Stephanie Armour
USA Today
A sale pending notice is posted over a realtor’s sign outside a home in Andover, Mass., in late December. By Charles Krupa, AP
The springtime spurt in home buying may hit before the snow melts this year as buyers scramble to meet an April 30 tax credit deadline.
The spring buying season typically takes off in March and runs through May. But buyers who want to claim this year’s tax credit — up to $8,000 for first-time buyers and up to $6,500 for repeat buyers — must have signed purchase contracts by April 30. And they have to complete the deal by June 30.
“I expect the buying season will be moved up,” says Jim Gillespie, CEO of Coldwell Banker. Sales “are going to take off in February and March and really take off in April. … My concern is that the move-up buyer hasn’t thought what they need to do. Their window is really short. They have to coordinate closing dates.”
The average time it takes to get a home loan processed is about eight weeks now — two weeks more than it used to be, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The tax credit’s impact on 2010 home sales is uncertain. Some economists expect the credit to pull sales that would have occurred later in the year into the first half.
“The tax credit will absolutely have an effect,” says Pete Flint, CEO of Trulia, a residential real estate search engine. “It is going to shift demand from the later part of the year to the first part. January and February will be very strong. The next three months, there will be a surge in demand.”
The credit is pulling in some consumers now.
“I’m actually in the middle of house shopping, and I decided to do it now so that I could get the $8,000 tax credit,” says Amity Gay, 26, who’s looking for a cottage-style house in Tallahassee.
Sellers should be prepared to appeal to first-time home buyers, who still make up the majority of buyers, according to Pat Lashinsky, president and CEO of ZipRealty.
And buyers should expect rising prices in some markets, including San Diego, Dallas, Minneapolis, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
At MetLife Home Loans, buyers are being preapproved now for new housing developments; an increase in demand is being attributed to the expanded tax credit.
“Our spring market got moved up at least two months because of this,” says Kent Geschwender, branch manager.
The tax credit was scheduled to expire on Dec. 1, 2009, but was extended and expanded by Congress.
Cedar54, 54th and Victoria Drive
Sunday, January 24th, 2010Buyer didn’t need to go far to be home again
Province
Cedar54 at Victoria Drive and 54th Avenue has a warm and inviting feel to it, as the project’s presentation centre demonstrates.
Cedar54 gives off that new-house feel in the most welcoming surroundings.
The bathrooms at Cedar54 have a spa feeling to them; the kitchens and bedrooms are modern and roomy
The Facts
WHAT: Cedar54, 30 residences, four-storey building
WHERE: 54th and Victoria Drive, Vancouver
DEVELOPER: Empire Developments
SIZE: 553 sq. ft. -1,114 sq. ft.
PRICES: $288,000 -$599,900
OPEN: Sales centre at 7087 Victoria Drive; hours: 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday to Thursday
Pamela Narayan had more than a few reasons for buying a residence at the Cedar54 new-home project at 54th at Victoria.
To begin with, her new home is in a neighbourhood that’s long been familiar. Narayan grew up just a few blocks away, on Jasper Crescent. She attended Douglas elementary school, David Thompson secondary and Langara College.
Her parents still live close by, and she works at their nearby family-owned pharmacy. “I always wanted to stay in this area,” Narayan says. “However the housing prices are not within my means, so Cedar54 was a nice alternative. I get the new-house feel in the area that I want, while staying within my budget.”
As well, Narayan says, the homes in the four-storey building have a welcoming feel, and promise easy access to neighbourhood amenities. “It is not a bunch of tightly packed high-rises like you see so often these days,” she says. “It’s very diverse; close to produce markets, banks, community centres and Killarney Market and Champlain Mall.”
The exterior of Cedar54 is clad in brick and cedar. Ron Basra of Re/Max Central Realty, organizer of the Cedar54 sales and marketing campaign, says western red cedar is a favourite building material of Empire Developments, whose principal is Rummen Johal. The company’s parent, Terminal Forest Products, is a major manufacturer of cedar siding and trim.
Basra began selling the Cedar54 homes about two months ago, and the response has been robust -about 65 per cent have now been sold -and Basra attributes that to the project’s location, the quality of design and construction, and the homes’ affordability. “Real estate is about location, location and location, and our project has a very prime location,” Basra says.
His customers don’t fit into one type, he says, although a desire to be close to immediate family members in the neighbourhood is among the considerations. “We have young families with kids attending schools in the area, singles just entering the market and neighbourhood residents trading down from $1-million homes into an attractive condo as they retire,” he says.
Cedar54 is within reasonable driving distance of downtown, the airport, Metrotown and Richmond. There’s terrific ethnic shopping along Victoria Drive, and the Fraserview public golf course is nearby, as are the extensive shops and services of Champlain Heights.
Narayan was also attracted to Cedar54’s sleek, modern design. “It still has a warm and inviting feel. I love the wood-cedar aspect; they really utilized the space and offered a wide range of price points and options. The ground level will have a few retail spaces. It will be interesting to see what will be there.”
Narayan was also impressed with the layout.
“I have seen other condos where the foyer is large and spacious, but then the living room is tiny. You have to think where you will be spending most of your time. I couldn’t see any wasted or disproportionate space.
“Having a storage area in proximity can be an issue with condos. Therefore having the flex space is a nice solution. You can keep your vacuum, Costco purchases and other bulky items out of sight.
“The bathroom has a spa feel to it, which is definitely a plus. The one-bed-room demo unit had a walkthrough closet -with rods and space on both sides -which was situated in between the bedroom and the bathroom. It reminded me of Carrie’s closet in the show Sex and the City.”
Basra notes that all the suites will include decor and kitchen packages that are commonly offered as options in other developments. “There are wide-plank laminate wood floors throughout, and each home includes a washer and dryer, stainless steel kitchen appliances, floor-to-ceiling pantry and storage space, and an indoor gas fireplace.”
Ten of the 30 homes will have outdoor fireplaces.
Many of the homes will have ample outdoor spaces attached.
Penthouse 1, for example, has just over 1,000 square feet of interior living space and a 1,250 square feet of exterior space.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Barbecue use an issue that needs evaluating
Sunday, January 24th, 2010Tony Gioventu
Province
Dear Condo Smarts: The unusually warm weather the past few weeks has brought the barbecues out in our strata complex. At the same time, many of us have opened up our units to air them out, and much to our dismay we came home last Friday at dinner to discover our unit filled with greasy barbecue smoke.
We have asked the owner below us — our council president — to make sure our windows are closed before they fire up, but all they say is the strata permits barbecues and they don’t have to listen to our complaining.
What are owners to do when others are so inconsiderate, and the result is a significant inconvenience?
— Molly Wilson, North Vancouver
Dear Molly: Barbecues are becoming a more contentious issue for strata corporations every year. It is not only the smoke damages that are done to homeowners’ units each year, but heat damage to buildings and two very dramatic fires in recent years that are causing so much grief.
If an owner, tenant or resident uses barbecue in any way that unreasonably disrupts your use of your strata lot, or causes damage to your property, that is most likely a nuisance under your bylaws. The strata council has an obligation to enforce the bylaws, yes even against council members, and if they fail to do so, owners frequently seek court orders against the corporation for failing to do so.
The smoke can cause health hazards, property damage to porous fixtures such as carpets, wallcoverings and window coverings, and personal property. The greater risk to all wood-frame or combustible-type buildings is the fire. Many strata owners use barbecues on their decks and balconies.
Outside spaces are still adjacent to combustible materials. Just because the inside of the building has sprinklers doesn’t mean the exterior is protected.
This is a risk-management decision of the strata corporation, and now even that of your insurance companies. Many strata corporations are finding themselves facing much higher policy costs this year, and one of the contributing factors is a history of claims relating to barbecues, and associated fire and water damages.
Every strata corporation in B.C. needs to make a serious evaluation whether they wish to permit barbecues or not, and consult with their insurance provider to understand the implications of costs and insurance coverage.
Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners’ Association. Send questions to him at
© Copyright (c) The Province
Social media gurus I Vancouver
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010Vancouver online gurus share tips in new books
Gillian Shaw
Sun
Social media mavens and authors (clockwise from lower left): Steve Jagger, Rebecca Bollwitt, Tris Hussey, Darren Barefoot, Julie Szabo and Shane Gibson gather at a Yaletown coffee shop. Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, PNG, Vancouver Sun
Vancouver is backing its growing reputation as a centre of excellence for social media by kicking off the new year with a bonanza of new books on the topic by local authors.
The bookapalooza offers an excellent social media primer, covering everything from creating a blog to saving yourself and your company from the most egregious socmed missteps.
Here’s a snapshot of the books:
Create Your Own Blog: 6 Easy Projects to Start Blogging Like a Pro
Written by Tris Hussey — a self-confessed science geek who once ran a lab at Duke University and has since turned his attention to blogging, teaching and photography — this is a chatty and informative guide that is a perfect anecdote to a blogging phobia. I met Hussey, a charter member of the Professional Bloggers Association, through social media networks and soon learned– from our e-chats and meeting in real life — that he’s quick to offer help and great at translating tech garble for the less technically inclined.
It can be a challenge for geeks to deliver information at a level that the newcomer can understand, but with Create Your Own Blog, Hussey has delivered a template that makes sense, even if you can hardly set up your own Twitter account.
Hussey is a fan of WordPress, which is available as a free hosted online blogging service at wordpress.comand as wordpress.org,where you can download the files you need to install a WordPress blog on your own server. But he talks about other options and his instructions are applicable to different blogging platforms.
By the time you reach the end of Chapter 2, installing and setting up your first blog, you’ll be online and ready to take on the next challenge, which is figuring out your writing voice and how you are going to build a conversation and your online community. Good tips and advice include how to avoid bad domain names (like the Italian Power Generator, powergenitalia.com),how to pick a blog theme, how to avoid copyright infringement and many other issues that come up for beginner bloggers.
I had a one-line contribution to this book with Hussey quoting me from a speech in which I suggested, “Don’t put something online that you don’t want to see it printed on the front page of the paper.”
From there, Hussey goes on to the more advanced lessons, like video blogging, business blogging and others, including the question many ask: How to make money through your blog.
The book is laid out with highlighted tips and definitions, so it makes a great blogging textbook — not surprising coming from one who is an excellent teacher.
www.sixbloggingprojects.com
Sociable!
Some time ago when I was interviewing Stephen Jagger for a story on businesses using social media, the Vancouver entrepreneur and cofounder of Combustion Labs Media, which operates the popular real estate software company Ubertor.com,laughed when I told him my Twitter account was protected from new followers because I worried who else besides my family would care to read my 140-character ramblings.
“You write for hundreds of thousands of people every day and you’re worried about what people will think reading your tweets,” he said.
Good point. And delivered in Jagger’s joking kind of way, that is more encouraging than critical.
It’s a mentoring trait he has carried out in the new book he co-authored with Shane Gibson, a Vancouver entrepreneur, speaker and sales performance specialist. The pair walks the talk in the book, which they created by recording their conversations and discussions, sending the recordings overseas to be transcribed and editing the transcript into Sociable! Working mostly out of downtown coffee shops, they had the book published through Amazon.
Illustrated with some very funny cartoons by Vancouver’s Rob Cottingham of the social media marketing firm Social Signal, it is a rapid-fire read that comes across like you’re sitting in Blenz with Jagger and Gibson.
While I don’t quite agree that with their “old media is dying” as one argument for engaging in social media, they are right in their assessment that new channels are opening up and companies must learn to be comfortable with them or they risk being left behind in the digital rush.
Consumers and businesses are engaging across multiple platforms and you must be ready to meet your readers, your clients and your customers where they are.
While Jagger and Gibson are master networkers, they understand the importance of creating and engaging in online communities, not seeing them merely as a sales channel. Their book should be required reading for the business person who leaps onto social networks, blasting out, “Buy my product,” messages that do nothing but ensure they’ll be regarded as online pariahs.
Their No. 1 rule is to stop pitching and start connecting. “Not unlike someone trying to sell insurance at a dinner party, many will shun the social media marketer that solely talks about their product and does not add value. … If you are there for the short transaction, you are going to be on peoples’ blacklist very, very quickly.”
www.sociablebook.com
Friends With Benefits
For those of you who thought social media might be a little dull, Julie Szabo and Darren Barefoot, co-founders
of Vancouver’s Capulet Communications, are spicing it up with this tell-all book. A followup to their earlier book, Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook, Friends will prove lucrative for readers, not lurid for its delivery of a comprehensive guide to an often bewildering and growing area.
Shel Israel, author of Twitterville, compares Friends to The Boy Scouts Handbook of his youth, a useful guide that teaches preparedness, ethical behaviour and “useful how-to stuff on a whole lot of subjects related to social media in business.”
It starts off with strategy and once you’ve read those first eight chapters, you’ll be ready to move on to the last four chapters, which take a look at the tools of the trade and how to use them.
This is a book that shouldn’t only be read by the front-line workers; it needs to be on the boardroom bookshelf. For the decision-makers in a company, what they don’t know about social media can hurt them and their brand.
It can also turn traditional crisis management on its head, as Szabo and Barefoot point out in their chapter “Damage control in the digital age.”
“As well as hastening the blow, the Web amplifies a crisis because everyone seems to be getting in on the action,” they write.
They even share their own story of blogger backlash, when a pitch they were making for a company drew the ire of a blogger who lambasted them in a post that remained on the first pages of a Google search for their company for months to come.
Barefoot and Szabo draw on case studies to emphasize their points and include Q and A sessions with some online influencers like ReadWrite-Web’s Marshall Kirkpatrick on how to make a successful pitch.
Among their lessons: be honest, don’t fib. If you don’t know what astroturfing and sockpuppeting refer to, maybe read up on it before someone in your company makes those mistakes. Barefoot and Szabo explain them — the first referring to faking grassroots support, while sockpuppeting is creating fake web profiles to promote or advocate for a company or organization.
“Exposed examples of astroturfing are legion,” they write. “In 2006, science journalist Antonio Regalado exposed a YouTube video critical of Al Gore as being product by DCI Group, a public relations firm with Exxon-Mobil and General Motors on its client list.”
capulet.com/friendswithbenefits
Blogging to Drive Business: Create and Maintain Valuable Customer Connections
Vancouver blogger Rebecca Bollwitt, known online as Miss 604, has teamed up with Eric Butow, who runs web design and e-marketing firm Butow Communications Group, to write this business blogging primer.
Along with advice on launching a blog, it deals with the broader questions of online strategy and why and how blogs can fit into a business plan.
It includes a number of case studies, from Molson Coors Brewing Co. to the Canucks, using the challenges and successes of companies that use blogging and social media to explain best practices.
A bigger picture look than Hussey’s book on blogging, it deals with such issues as who should write your company’s blog and how blogging fits into an overall marketing strategy.
“Blogs are not a panacea for your business challenges,” Bollwitt and Butow write. “You can’t just post a message saying ‘Hello, world!’ or something to that effect on your blog and expect people to come beating down your door.
“Your blog should complement your other marketing tools to help drive business.”
While a lot of companies, as you’ll be able to read about in the book, have successfully launched blogs, others are still questioning their value and debating whether or not they should join in.
Bollwitt and Butow answer those questions and more. bloggingtodrivebusiness.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Downtown is too much the focus of Vancouver’s city hall
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010Opportunities to advance affordable-housing initiatives in other parts of the city are being missed
Bob Ransford
Sun
Among the many messages broadcast by the return of the revolving W above Hastings and Abbott, Bob Ransford argues, is the urgent need for the return of oversight by the elected leadership at Vancouver’s city hall of the appointed leadership. Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG, Special to the Sun
Does Vancouver city hall have a myopic focus on planning and development in the downtown peninsula that is diverting attention from some of the larger planning challenges that loom in neighbourhoods across the city?
So much of city hall’s talk about housing and development initiatives just in the last month or two focuses on what is a relatively small part of a much larger city.
Meanwhile, Vancouver’s once red-hot real residential real estate market has quickly heated up again. It won’t be long before the main topic of conversation on the street is once again about whether or not the working class can afford to live in Vancouver.
As I have said many times, there is no magic bullet that will bring an end to the housing affordability struggle. However, increased housing supply will help balance supply and demand and somewhat slow the upward climb in prices.
Vancouver‘s downtown can’t supply all that housing or even most of it. The 21 communities outside the downtown peninsula will need to accommodate future growth if there will be any prospect of keeping housing prices within reach of the middle class.
But accommodating that growth in existing neighbourhoods won’t be easy. It requires lots of citizen engagement in designing the future of their neighbourhoods. It requires innovation in development and construction to provide a diverse range of housing types and the kind of density that supports sustainable growth. It requires careful and thoughtful planning to ensure that which makes Vancouver’s neighbourhoods special is not threatened.
Most important, it requires a new vision for what Vancouver’s neighbourhoods can be -as complete communities where existing residents feel comfortable aging in place and where new residents are provided with the same level of local services and amenities that have long made those neighbourhoods great places to live.
There can’t be any vision without leadership and there isn’t going to be any leadership if city hall continues to focus primarily on the downtown and the area immediately around it.
This is not a criticism of this or any other city council because it is not really a political problem. The lack of leadership on planning issues comes from a system in Vancouver that, unlike many other cities, delegates almost all power to the planning department. Maybe it is time to question whether this system still works well for Vancouver at this point in its evolution as a city.
I was hoping 2010 might bring a new focus in planning, but the last few months seem to be proving otherwise. Just this last week, city council dealt with two big downtown development policy issues. First, building heights for new development in what is referred to as the historic area, including Chinatown, Gastown, Victory Square and Hastings Street.
Also on the agenda was the issue of view corridors in the downtown peninsula and planners’ recommendations to allow four new skyscrapers that will punctuate the skyline.
The completion of the Woodward’s Downtown Eastside development was also celebrated last week with much fanfare — deservedly so.
But it isn’t just Woodward’s and downtown building heights that have been talked about lately.
Council approved the first project under the city’s much vaunted STIR Program (or Short-term Incentives for Rental Housing Program): a new 20-storey tower at Davie and Bidwell in the West End. In return for building 49 market rental units, Millennium Developments was allowed to triple the allowable height and almost triple the density for a new 98-unit condominium tower.
When STIR was launched in July, the city heralded it as proof of city hall’s “leadership in difficult economic times to encourage continued development activity.” The program was supposed to be implemented quickly “to allow the private sector to develop new rental housing stock in the short term to assist with housing affordability.” So far, only the one project has been approved and one more — also in the West End — is in process.
Commercial real estate expert David Goodman calls the STIR Program “a dismal and laughable failure.” In his recent newsletter, he pointed out that restrictions preventing old rental buildings from being redeveloped under STIR are limiting the ability of STIR to encourage any significant supply of new rental housing.
A few months ago, council also approved the planning direction for the North False Creek area, paving the way for a high-density mixed-use neighbourhood built around BC Place Stadium and GM Place and a new event venue/civic plaza.
Look outside the downtown and you’ll see work is only in the early phases for a two-year planning process to develop a land-use policy plan for the Cambie corridor that will focus on opportunities to integrate development with transit along and around the Canada Line. I wish I could say the same kind of planning is taking place around the long-established Expo Line and Millennium Line SkyTrain stations. It’s shocking that the Broadway and Commercial station, a major Vancouver transit hub, has so little density around it.
CityPlan was adopted 15 years ago, providing a framework for planning over 20 years in the city’s 23 neighbourhoods. So far, only nine neighbourhoods have plans in place. Twelve are without 20-year plans 15 years later. The first two plans, for Dunbar and Kensington-Cedar Cottage, are almost 11 years old. Perhaps it’s time for a new neighbourhood planning process and a new focus from city hall. Without it, there’s little hope of affordable housing in Vancouver.
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: [email protected]
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
December push pulls 2009 out of historic house-start hole
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010Last month’s numbers testify to return of home builder confidence and, therefore, of new-home-buyer confidence
Peter Simpson
Sun
Polygon Homes president Neil Chrystal isn’t alone in his expectations for ‘a bright future,’ suggests this image of a gathering of prospects last October on the first day the company sold homes in its Luma tower in Burnaby.
Phew, that was close! Were it not for a surge in housing starts in December, 2009 would have been remembered, or forgotten, as the worst year for starts in the Lower Mainland since 1962.
Now, if you remember the 1960s (frankly, if you do, you likely weren’t participating in them) 1962 was memorable because that was the year Johnny Carson debuted on The Tonight Show, Nelson Mandela was jailed, the Cuban Missile Crisis was headline news, and Telestar, the world’s first active communications satellite, was launched. The point is, 1962 was a very, very long time ago.
Fast forward to December. A total of 875 starts — both detached and attached homes –were needed last month to surpass the 2000 total of 8,203, thereby avoiding that dreaded worst-since-’62 label. Honestly, I figured the chances of reaching 875 were slim. After all, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., only 793 starts were recorded in November, and December is somewhat of a wind-down month, what with the seasonal holidays and all.
Surprisingly, 1,010 starts were recorded in December, bringing the year-end total to 8,339. A statistical bullet might have been dodged, but no one is celebrating. The starts total lagged 11,252 behind the homes started in 2008. That means production and installation of kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, electrical, lumber, roofing, concrete, windows, doors, etc. were also greatly curtailed.
Each housing start creates nearly three person-years of employment, a fancy term for three full-time direct and indirect jobs for one year. Homebuilding is a huge economic generator for communities.
Early last winter and spring, the real estate market softened considerably. Builders -small and large -were holding standing inventories of completed, yet unsold homes of all types and price ranges. Builders who had experienced the highs and lows of many real-estate cycles found ways to turn these new challenges into opportunities for their businesses, tradespeople, suppliers and homebuyers.
The builders met with their subtrades and suppliers -many of whom were sitting idle and contemplating their own futures -explained the challenging situation, asked them to participate in the cost-cutting process, then reduced prices significantly, some homes by $100,000 or more. Creative marketers devised innovative sales programs that captured the attention of homebuyers. Some were even advertised as “bulk liquidation sales.” Hey, it is what it is. And if lower prices to consumers are the result of this so-called guerrilla marketing, good on them for their creativity.
The lower prices, combined with historically low mortgage rates, created some sweet deals for homebuyers, who were able to take their time looking for homes that best matched their needs and financial obligations. I recall telling a reporter that “the panic has been taken out of the purchase.”
In late spring and early summer, as standing inventory was reduced or eliminated, builders gained the confidence to start new projects. For example, one builder boldly and successfully launched two projects simultaneously, one in Coquitlam, the other in Cloverdale. The sales generated starts, creating jobs. As promised, the builder was loyal to the subtrades and suppliers who stuck by him.
In the fall, people lined up overnight for a chance to buy condominiums at attractive pre-construction prices. The sales office opened at noon Saturday. By close of business Sunday, 135 of 180 condos had sold. The fact the condo was in Burnaby, not downtown Vancouver, created a buzz. Shortly afterwards, another builder released a nine-storey condo building in the Mount Pleasant area. The first phase sold out on opening weekend. The second phase is doing well.
Yet another builder released the second phase of a low-rise condo project in Surrey, which had been on hold for many months. Sales were brisk on opening weekend and the project is close to a sellout.
There are many similar stories of successful launches of new-home projects. One housing economist referred to the turnaround as a “post-recession growth phase.” Another commented that the rapid rebound might signal that the economic recession in this region was not as severe as in other regions.
The B.C. Real Estate Association reported that homes sold through the Multiple Listing Service in B.C. soared in December, an increase of 132 per cent from the same month in 2008. Sales of homes sold through MLS in 2009 rose 23 per cent from 2008. Prices increased two per cent.
So, what about 2010? CMHC is forecasting 13,000 starts for the Lower Mainland, and within the home-building community the confidence is continuing. Builders are launching new projects throughout the region, including some massive master-planned neighbourhoods.
One builder plans openings of four condo projects. Another has six on the go, or planned. Yet another builder, in business since 1905, has nine projects in the ground or planned. I could name more, but my point is that these commitments show confidence in this region, now and in the future.
I try not to reference specific builders in a column such as this, but a recent full-page open letter in this section warrants special mention.
On Jan. 9, Polygon Homes president Neil Chrystal, under the heading, “A bright future,” encouraged everyone to enjoy the upcoming Olympics, summarized the challenges of 2009 and looked ahead with optimism to the promise of a better 2010: “We look forward with confidence, helping to build a strong future for British Columbia … one of the most beautiful places in the world.” Good for Chrystal and Polygon.
There are, however, some clouds on the horizon. There is talk of interest-rate hikes mid-year, and, of course, the HST kicks in on July 1. And as cash-strapped governments at all levels scramble to balance their books, I am worried homebuyers will bear the brunt of higher home prices because of increased taxes, fees, levies and development cost charges imposed on new homes.
All stakeholders need to consider themselves partners in progress and work to remove impediments to housing afford-ability. If you are in the market for a new home, a few words of advice. Shop within your means. Speak with a mortgage professional to determine how much you can afford, then get pre-approved. Allow for possible interest-rate hikes. Don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions. Research the builder.
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