Archive for August, 2010

365 Waterfront – Victoria apartments from Concert rise on former industrial property on the Gorge waterway

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

On the waterfront 365 days of the year

Suzanne Morphet
Sun

‘ It is a special village near the city, but far enough away from the noises of downtown,’ says 365 Waterfront resident Alan Newberry.

The goal for the interiors at 365 Waterfront was a seaside-luxury sensibility worthy of an ‘ oasis of calm in an urban setting,’ says Sharon Bortolotto, the new-home project’s interior designer. Bortolotto chose neutral colours and textures for homes and common areas, to evoke the marine environment. She points to ‘ the timelessness and the quality of the finishes and the spaciousness of the suites’ as the building’s defining characteristics.

365 Waterfront

Location: Victoria

Project size: 84 residences, 6-storey building

Prices: From $595,000

Telephone: 1/250-382-3382 E-mail: [email protected]

Web: 365 Waterfront.com

Developer: Concert Real Estate Corporation

Architect: Nigel Baldwin Architects Ltd./Richard Henry Architect, Vancouver

Interiors: BBA Design Consultants Inc., Vancouver

Occupancy: Immediate

When Concert Properties purchased land near Victoria’s Gorge waterway, the company didn’t need to come up with a name for the development. The address says it all: 365 Waterfront Crescent, or as Rod Wilburn, the company’s vice-president of sales and marketing, puts it: “Waterfront living 365 days a year.”

But as Wilburn points out, it’s not just about being on the waterfront, but being part of the Selkirk Waterfront Community, an award-winning, mixed-use development that was the home of the Victoria Sawmill for a century.

Jawl Development of Victoria purchased the 10-hectare property in 1991 from Fletcher Challenge Canada, then set to work planning a vibrant community that would be pedestrian-friendly, safe and attractive for living, working and recreation.

The recreation part was easy — the adjacent Galloping Goose rail line would become a biking, rollerblading and walking route. As well, Jawl built and donated facilities for a rowing and paddling club.

Designing the rest of the community was more complicated, but Jawl Development’s urban design team worked with a technical committee of city staff to produce an Urban Design Manual with detailed guidelines, including building heights and street widths. These were the first such guidelines for a large-scale project in Victoria and set a precedent.

(Selkirk Waterfront was precedent-setting in another way, too. Just as construction was getting started, the leaky condo crisis became public. According to West Coast Environmental Law, one of the first condominiums at Selkirk “was used as an example of a rain-screen performance building to show the industry how condominiums should be built.”)

As a result of the crisis in condominium construction, Selkirk Waterfront took longer than the anticipated seven years to be built.

Today, the site is complete, except for a small undeveloped lot at the south end. Terasen Gas has its Vancouver Island headquarters here, and the B.C. Ministry of Environment is here. As well, there’s a Montessori school, a daycare, an assisted-care facility for seniors, commercial space for restaurants, shops and a fitness centre. In the northern half of the site — furthest from the light industrial area and buffered by offices and commercial buildings — there are low-rise apartments, condominiums and townhouses.

And now there’s 365 Waterfront, a terraced concrete, steel and glass building that is four storeys at the front and six at the back, with 84 suites, including six penthouses.

“Virtually every suite in the building has some exposure to the water, and many have complete exposure to the water,” says Wilburn. “It’s like being on a ship: there’s unobstructed views over the water and the waterfront.”

The company didn’t have a lot of flexibility in the height and form of the building because of the community’s overall design guidelines, but Wilburn notes that in addition to water views, each suite’s principal living area has a southern exposure.

“Facing south is extremely valuable . . . The light is wonderful [and] because the building is a low-rise, you also have the sense of being connected with the trees and the streets and the park.”

The units are spacious, with generous decks and garden terraces. “Entertainment-size is the term we’ve used,” says Wilburn, commenting on the floor plans. The six penthouses appear to have almost as much outdoor living space as indoor.

The project was not built to LEED standards, but Concert did follow the LEED framework and best practices in sustainability. Each suite has dual-flush toilets and low-flow shower heads. Green roofs help absorb storm water and the uppermost roof area has ‘rough-ins’ to allow solar hot water heating to be installed in future.

According to Sharon Bortolotto, the interior designer for 365 Waterfront and principal of BBA Design Consultants, the idea was to create the feeling of seaside luxury and “this oasis of calm in an urban setting . . . it’s a great sophisticated development.”

Bortolotto chose neutral colours and textures for the suites, as well as the lobby, to evoke the marine environment. She points to “the timelessness and the quality of the finishes and the spaciousness of the suites” as the building’s defining characteristics.

The building was designed to appeal to empty nesters, people who’ve lived in a house and still want the spacious rooms and quality finishings a house can offer, but don’t need extra bedrooms or a basement.

Three bicycle storage rooms were included because Concert figured buyers would likely have an active lifestyle. And that’s exactly the type of people who are buying, says project sales manager Alison Wedekind.

“The average age of our buyers is 50-55 and we have a combination of working, semi-retired and retired professionals,” she says. “One of the things I find very telling about the demographic here is that the bike rooms are very well-used — a good sign that many people have made the choice to be here because of the building’s proximity to the Galloping Goose trail.”

Of the 84 suites, 65 have already sold, with three-quarters of the buyers coming from southern Vancouver Island, 10 per cent from the mainland and the rest from Alberta or further east.

Alan Newberry moved back to Victoria — his hometown — from Vancouver to buy a condo here and is delighted with the new 1,200-square-foot suite with two bedrooms and a den, which he shares with his partner Carol.

“It is a special village near the city, but far enough away from the noises of downtown, and because of its proximity to the water is a choice place to live,” he says. “It is something like Granville Island in Vancouver, only smaller and quieter.”

Newberry describes himself and Carol, both educational administrators in their earlier lives, as “retired active!”

“You might see us out Nordic walking or cycling or walking to the nearby organic bread bakery or walking on a beach trail downtown (25 minutes). My partner paddles with a club in the Gorge just outside our door, and she golfs.”

Another part of the appeal, says Newberry, was Concert’s “excellent reputation.” This is the company’s fourth project in Victoria, but it has been building rental housing in Vancouver since 1989 and is now a diversified real estate developer with commercial and industrial properties, in addition to apartments and condominiums in B.C., Alberta and Ontario. The company is owned by Canadian union and management pension plans.

“We say that we’re owned by 200,000 British Columbians,” explains Wilburn, “so we feel we hold ourselves up to a very high standard in terms of our integrity.”

Over the years, Concert has won many awards, including a Customer Choice Georgie Award two years in a row from the B.C. chapter of the Canadian Homebuilders Association. “We’re very proud of that one, because the customer is the boss,” says Wilburn.

“It’s probably the most successful project in Victoria. We’ve sold over 50 homes in the last year. For this type of building, that’s a very good success rate.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Iron and Whyte – 10th and Trimble – apartments a 24-household addition to West Point Grey’s ‘High Street’

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

‘Village’ exteriors enclose big-city interiors

Claudia Kwan
Sun

As an addition to the West 10th streetscape, Iron and Whyte will be distinguished by a cladding of white, painted brick, with black wroughtiron accents on Juliet balconies and window frames — a treatment that provided a name for the new-home project. As an addition, the building’s design has been arranged to make it look older, architect Kristina Kovacs reports. ‘ It’s a very classic, elegant building, sort of British traditional architecture, almost Georgian, but the modern touches and the contrast of the materials really makes it stand out.’

The rear treatment, and the big decks from which Iron and Whyte households can enjoy their prospects, of an old Vancouver neighbourhood: West Point Grey, English Bay and the North Shore mountains.

Kitchen-dining-living flooring will be engineered wood.

Among the Iron and Whyte kitchen specifications are a gas range by Viking; a fridge and dishwasher by Blomberg, and behind cabinet doors; countertops in HanStone, a manufactured stone; backsplashes of mosaic tile; and cabinet doors finished with a matte lacquer.

Bathroom flooring will be marble. Tub and shower surround will be faced in a polished porcelain. Vanity and bowl are one piece. Cabinet doors, as in the kitchen, will be finished in a matte lacquer. Photograph by: PHOTOS By Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun, Special To The Sun

Iron and Whyte

Project location: 10th and Trimble, Vancouver

Project size: 32 apartments, 4-storey building

Residence size: 1-bed 535– 762 sq. ft; 1-bed + den 638– 762 sq. ft; 2-bed 992 -1,089 sq. ft.

Prices: 1-bed from $379,900; 1-bed + den from $385,900; 2-bed from $649,900

Sales centre: 4372 West 10th

Hours: noon -6 p.m., daily

Telephone: 604-228-4355

Web: ironandwhyte. ca

Developer: MOSAIC

Architect: Kristina Kovacs, Neale Staniszkis Doll Adams Architects

Interior Design: Merike Lainevool, KODU Design

Occupancy: Winter 2012

When it comes to persuading people to buy into its latest project, MOSAIC is focusing on its prime location in the 10th Avenue “village” of West Point Grey.

“The target audience is a combination of mid-20s to early 30s singles or professionals who want to live in Point Grey -maybe they went to high school here or just like the neighbourhood,” says MOSAIC development manager Michael Brown of the Iron and Whyte project. “There are also empty nesters downsizing from homes in the area.”

After all, what’s not to love?

The micro-community — essentially the four blocks of West 10th Avenue between Discovery and Blanca — is an established neighbourhood, Brown says, with more than 130 businesses, many independently owned. Those businesses, which do not include any big-box stores, range from retail shops to grocery stores, cafes and restaurants, and dental and medical clinics.

Brown points to the convenience village residents will enjoy right outside their front doors. It’s a short bike ride — or a slightly longer walk — to Locarno Beach. Pacific Spirit Park, the University of British Columbia, and the University Golf Club are not much farther away.

Just down the road are Queen Mary elementary and Quadra Day Care, but that may not be a huge enticement; more than 80 per cent of the 32 apartments in the building are one-bedrooms or one-bedroom-and-dens, which Brown believes will limit their potential to attract young families.

On the plus side, Brown says MOSAIC really focused on the afford-ability factor. Twenty-seven units are priced under $525,000, which also means they are eligible for a rebate on the harmonized sales tax paid on the purchase. That was a happy accident of focusing on keeping the prices low, rather than a primary goal. Still, Brown believes it’s exceptional value for a Point Grey location, and he thinks most buyers will end up living there rather than renting out their condos.

While MOSAIC’s desire was to situate Iron and Whyte within the village, it also wanted the building to be distinguished from its neighbours. The wide four-storey building is covered in white, painted brick, with black wrought-iron accents on Juliet balconies and window frames. This also serendipitously provided a name for the project.

That look may distinguish Iron and Whyte, but the project is also distinguished for another reason.

“MOSAIC has developed a handful of projects in westside Vancouver over the past decade, but this is the first time it has taken on a mixed-use apartment building there,” reports Brown. “It just seemed like the natural fit for the site.”

Architect Kristina Kovacs of Neale Staniszkis Doll Adams Architects says MOSAIC wanted the facade to be quite traditional, to feel as if it had been in the neighbourhood forever.

“It’s a very classic, elegant building, sort of British traditional architecture, almost Georgian, but the modern touches and the contrast of the materials really makes it stand out,” she says.

There was symmetry established with the placement of columns of multi-paned windows along the front of the building. The first floor includes commercial space — it will likely be used for offices or shops — and Kovacs also made the residential entryway prominent, situating it in the middle of the building, with a canopy raised higher than those to either side. (By comparison, some other mixed-use buildings nearby have residents enter their homes by nondescript entryways.)

The back of the building faces a lane, and has views of the water and mountains, and quite decently sized decks on which to enjoy the outlook. Because of a rather noticeable change in elevation on the site, sloping downward from the front toward the back, even the “ground floor” units in the back are raised up an entire floor, located above the parking garage.

Interiors have a modern feel, relative to the traditional design of the exterior. They’re designed to be as open and airy as possible, with the living, dining, and kitchen areas — where people spend the majority of their time at home — close to windows, and bedrooms a little more removed.

Kitchens feature European-style matte white cabinetry, with the refrigerator and dishwater concealed behind panels. Meantime, the Viking range hood and natural gas stove gleam in stainless steel. A kitchen island can be added as an optional upgrade, as can a microwave; counters can be swapped out for marble, but the existing composite stone looks stylish.

Bathrooms have Kohler fixtures, and an expansive rectangular sink integrated into the countertop should make cleanup a breeze. The mirrored vanity cabinet is double-wide, while honed marble tiles on the floor add subtle style. In the living areas, wire-brushed engineered hardwood floors are hypoallergenic and low-maintenance.

The palette throughout is neutral, incorporating off-white, stormy grey, oatmeal, and milk chocolate.

“The goal with the interior finishes was to have very simple elegance, a clean crisp look” says Kovacs. “That way people can personalize it by themselves without any concern about it becoming dated.”

For anyone unconvinced by location, price or design, Michael Brown says one additional factor that should be considered is MOSAIC’s reputation for quality and attention to detail in over a decade as a developer of townhouse and row house projects around the Lower Mainland.

In giving a tour of the display suite, he points to how the grout lines for the bathroom floor and tiled walls line up exactly.

Smiling, he says: “That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about here.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Resale prices rise 13.6% nationally

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

Sun

Prices for Canadian homes sold and bought in June were 13.6-per-cent higher than prices in the previous June, a national survey of real estate transactions reports.

The advance was strongly influenced by the Vancouver number, of 16.3 per cent, and the Toronto number, 16.2 per cent, the Teranet-National Bank National Composite House Price Index reports.

The June advance nationally was identical to the May advance.

In the other metropolises surveyed, the 12-month rise ranged from 7.1 per cent in Halifax to 12 per cent in Ottawa. In Calgary, it was 8.3 per cent and in Montreal, 8.7 per cent.

June was the third consecutive month in which prices were up from the month before in all six metropolitan areas surveyed. The monthly rise of the composite index — 1.5 per cent — was the largest since last August. The monthly rise was 2.7 per cent in Ottawa; 2.4 per cent in Toronto; 1.4 per cent in Montreal; 1.3 per cent in Halifax; 0.8 per cent in Vancouver; and 0.2 per cent in Calgary. For the composite index, it was the 14th straight monthly increase, the longest such run since October 2006.

“Since the resale market has been slackening across Canada — from April to July of this year, more existing homes came on the market than were sold — it is too early to conclude that the relatively vigorous prices rises of April, May and June launched a trend,” said the Teranet-National Bank report. “The prospect of harmonized sales taxes coming into effect July 1 in Ontario and B.C. may have stimulated sales in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa in the preceding months.”

The price index is calculated from transaction information collected from public land registries. Only dwellings that have been sold at least twice are considered in the calculation.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

One in 10 with a mortgage face foreclosure

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Alan Zibel, AP Real Estate Writer
USA Today

Michelle Frisse, 6, sits with her doll during a foreclosure rally in Oakland in July. The Frisse family lost their house in Antioch, Calif., to foreclosure. By Paul Sakuma, AP

WASHINGTON One in 10 American households with a mortgage was at risk of foreclosure this summer as the government’s efforts to help have had little impact stemming the housing crisis.

About 9.9% of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment as of June 30, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.

That number, which is adjusted for seasonal factors, is down slightly from a record-high of more than 10% as of April 30.

In a worrisome sign, the number of homeowners starting to have problems with their mortgages rose after trending downward last year. The number of homes in the foreclosure process fell slightly, the first drop in four years.

The news comes despite record low mortgage rates. Rates fell to the lowest level in decades for the ninth time in 10 weeks as concerns grow that the economy is weakening.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate for a 30-year fixed loan was 4.36% this week, down from 4.42% last week. That’s the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971.

The average rate on 15-year fixed loan dropped to 3.86% from 3.90%. That’s the lowest on records starting in 1991.

Average rates on five-year adjustable-rate mortgages were unchanged at 3.56%. Rates on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages fell to an average rate of 3.52 from 3.53%.

More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007, according to foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac. Economists expect the number of foreclosures to grow well into next year.

The number of Americans missing payments and falling into foreclosure has followed the upward trend in unemployment, which has shown no sign of easing soon.

“Ultimately the housing story, whether it is delinquencies, homes sales or housing starts, is an employment story,” Jay Brinkmann, the trade group’s top economist, said in a statement. “Only when we see a consistent increase in employment will we see an increase in sales and starts, and a sustained improvement in the delinquency numbers.”

There was some modestly encouraging news. The percentage of mortgage borrowers receiving foreclosure notices fell slightly to 4.57% in the April-to-June quarter. That’s down from 4.63% in the January-to-March period and the first drop in four years.

And the percentage of loans receiving their first notice of foreclosure also dipped, to 1.1% from 1.2%.

Besides forcing people from their homes, foreclosures and distressed home sales have pushed down on home values and crippled the broader housing industry. They have made it difficult for homebuilders to compete with the depressed prices and discouraged potential sellers from putting their homes on the market.

Government efforts haven’t made much of a difference.

Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who have enrolled in the Obama administration’s main mortgage-relief program have been cut loose through July, the Treasury Department said last week. The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments.

Roughly 32% of those who started the program have received permanent loan modifications and are making their payments on time.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Staying true to his father’s vision – the Old Surrey Restaurant

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Philip Aguirre keeps his French roots while serving a loyal clientele

Tracey Tufnail
Sun

Philip Aguirre has run the Old Surrey Restaurant — opened by his father Valentine in 1974 — since 2007. Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Sun

AT A GLANCE

Old Surrey Restaurant

Where: 13483 72 Avenue, Surrey 604-596-2313

Hours: Closed for lunch, Dinner: Tuesday to Sunday from 5 p.m. Closed Mondays

www.oldsurreyrestaurant.ca

Food: 3 1/2 out of 5

Ambience: 3 out of 5

Service: 4 out of 5

Overall: 3 1/2 out of 5

Tucked away in a surprising spot in semi-suburban Surrey, Old Surrey Restaurant has been quietly going about its business for 36 years, an almost mythical length of time in the restaurant business.

Built in 1919, the former private residence was opened as a restaurant in 1974 by classically trained French chef Valentine Aguirre. The historic building offers an interesting, intimate venue for dining, with traditional decor including some fascinating photographs of old Surrey on the walls, hardwood floors and five separate dining rooms on two floors.

Valentine’s son, Philip Aguirre, has been running the show at Old Surrey, as well as the kitchen, since 2007. Keeping things fresh is a balancing act between being true to his French roots and catering to an increasingly sophisticated dining clientele.

“Our reputation was built on French traditional cooking,” Philip Aguirre tells me in a telephone interview. “But our customers also want change and innovation; I think we have been pretty successful doing that.”

He’s certainly doing something right because business was pretty good when I was there. The restaurant has noticed the impact of the harmonized sales tax “not at all,” Aguirre informs me when I ask. Old Surrey specializes in “special occasion” dining and has a strong base of returning customers, he says.

“We are not just a second-generation restaurant, we have third-generation customers,” he says proudly. “The grandchildren of original customers come here for their first wedding anniversary. People celebrate family occasions here, we become part of their family after a while.”

Old Surrey’s menu is heavy on old-school French cooking with more than a casual nod to the 100-mile diet trend — much of the menu is sourced from the family farm in Chilliwack, the change and innovation Aguirre refers to.

The farm supplies the kitchen with organic veal, lamb and pork, and Aguirre makes use of the entire animal. The farm also produces various vegetables throughout the year, with every effort made to buy local otherwise.

Seasonal specials rotate every two months and Aguirre offers a number of special-event menus centred on celebrations like Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. But it is the summertime Chateaubriand special that is most popular.

Offered every year from July to September, this menu centres around an Old Surrey specialty, table service complete with something else almost mythical on the restaurant scene these days — flambe carts. At a very reasonable $45 per person (minimum of two) for four substantial courses, this is a bargain — and it’s not just dinner, it’s dinner and a show.

The warm-up act is Prawns Provencal (half a dozen, fresh and lightly cooked with garlic, onion and fresh tomato) but it is the followup of Caesar salad that is the star of the show; Aguirre informs me it’s also the most requested item on his menu (even when it’s not on his menu).

In some sort of sleight-of-hand trick that an alchemist would be proud of, your experienced waiter (Spiro Saites, who has been tossing Caesar dressing here for 22 years, is the longest serving of a loyal, efficient service staff) deftly whips up a rich, frothy dressing and tosses it with crunchy greens (fresh), croutons (freshly baked) and Parmesan (you guessed it, fresh), presenting you with an enormous fragrant, garlicky mountain; Caesar salad doesn’t get much better than this.

The theatrics continue with large (eight-ounce) AAA Canadian tenderloins spectacularly flamed in cognac, accompanied by healthy servings of simply prepared vegetables — roasted potatoes, organic green beans and carrots, again from the family farm.

More hypnotized than hungry by this stage, we were relieved to see the Cherries Jubilee (fat, tasty fresh Okanagan cherries, which get the flambe treatment with a double whammy of kirsch and cherry brandy before being ladled over vanilla ice cream) were a more manageable size.

On a subsequent visit we decided, while nibbling on our amuse bouche — divine homemade pita crackers with fresh fig and prosciutto — to try to exercise restraint with the a la carte menu by starting simply with soup; a shrimp bisque that was deeply flavoured and redolent of cognac, but a little on the cool side.

The Aguirre family farm produced both our main courses (again, huge servings). A delicious rack of lamb ($29) was perfectly caramelized on the outside while being juicy and the requested medium within and served with the very traditional and perfect foil of a mint demi-glace; while the free-range veal scaloppini was more flavoursome than tender, with its hollandaise a little on the cool side again — something we put down to being a late reservation on what had obviously been a very busy evening. Despite bulging waistlines, we tried for dessert but the menu had been decimated by the time we got around to it, with two of the three selections sold out. A substitution was available but there was only a single serving of that, too. Pity, the Espresso Creme Brulee sounded great.

Old Surrey’s wine list is 90 per cent B.C. (Burrowing Owl, Blue Mountain, Kettle Valley, Lang and Road 13 all make an appearance) and several wines are available by the glass.

The Chateaubriand special ends Sept. 4, but tableside service of Caesar (for a minimum of two people only, $12 per person), Chateaubriand (again for two, only $37.50 per person) and Cherries Jubilee (also for two, $18 per person) is available year-round on the a la carte menu. Other special menus are listed on the restaurant’s website. Reservations are recommended — especially if you want dessert.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Government concessions needed to sell the HST

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

I have asked the companies involved about prices possibly being reduced — as the government has outlined — I have got quizzical looks and laughter rather than commitments.

Barbara Yaffe
Sun

The British Columbia and federal governments need to get creative in resolving the pickle they’ve got themselves into over the harmonized sales tax.

It is now clear, following last week’s dismissal by B.C.’s Supreme Court of a lawsuit trying to quash the citizens’ anti-HST petition, that the two governments must take action.

It is not the B.C. legislative committee, now charged with considering what to do with the hot-potato petition, that has the real power to address this issue. The committee will merely preside over a sideshow that ultimately will go nowhere, given that all roads lead to negative or non-binding outcomes. For example, if the committee decides to return the matter to the legislature for a vote, the B.C. Liberals surely would refuse to nix the tax. Alternatively, if a September 2011 referendum is held and voters reject the tax, the government again is not legally obliged to act on that outcome.

So, the matter really needs to be addressed by the provincial and federal governments, which, by law and through a tax agreement, mandate and regulate the harmonized abomination and have power over what must be done to make it minimally palatable to the population.

Because British Columbians have spoken. At present the tax is not acceptable. It must be made so. It is not simply, as the government wishes it were, a case of telling British Columbians that the tax is good for B.C.’s economy.

Citizens have heard this message ad nauseam from MLAs, MPs and economists. This argument may be sound but clearly it is not sufficient.

It is time for the B.C. Liberal government, backed by the federal Conservatives, to offer tangible concessions to taxpayers in a bid to win the support they never got to implement the new tax.

The Gordon Campbell crowd immediately should announce, as the Dalton McGuinty government in Ontario did to positive effect, that coffee and newspapers will become HSTexempt.

Again, following the Ontario government’s lead, Finance Minister Colin Hansen should start mailing cheques to middle-and lower-income British Columbians to help them adjust to the tax — just as the B.C. government received $1.6 billion in transition funds from the federal government to help it adjust.

It may be that the two governments will have to renegotiate their tax agreement in order to boost Ottawa’s financial help for the transition. This is a price that must be paid for the governments’ remarkably inept handling of the file.

Furthermore, the Campbell government should commit to issuing quarterly public reports, starting a year after the HST implementation, that will back up its pledges that consumer prices will come down as a result of an estimated $2-billion reduction in costs for B.C. businesses.

People quite simply do not believe that this will happen, even though common sense holds it should as the business sector stops paying provincial sales tax on its inputs.

To date, I’ve noticed higher prices on everything from my takeout coffee to my cable bill. Whenever I have asked the firms involved about prices possibly being reduced — as the government has said — I have got quizzical looks and laughter rather than commitments.

If people are to have any confidence that consumer prices eventually will come down, they will need proof.

A government agency should be assigned to probe, on a regular basis, prices being charged to consumers to ensure that what the government has said will happen will. Promises are cheap.

Only after such concrete measures are taken to address the electorate’s concerns about the HST will citizens be prepared to accept the tax, however grudgingly, and move on.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Rennie Monthly Market Review for July 2010

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

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Search for stability lifts B.C. commercial real estate sales to $1b in first half of 2010

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Derrick Penner
Sun

A post-recession appetite for investments more stable than stock markets helped drive British Columbia to a record $1 billion in significant commercial real estate sales in the first half of 2010, commercial realtor Avison Young said Tuesday.

That $1-billion figure, which counts commercial transactions worth $5 million or more, is 43-per-cent higher than the $715 million that investors spent in the second half of 2009, and compares with $643 million spent in the first half of the recession-plagued previous year.

And 70 per cent of that investment — $711 million — has been poured into shopping centres, including some very large transactions.

Michael Gill, a principal in Avison Young’s Vancouver office, said that is a function of the type of properties investors are looking for combined with the recognition of property owners that they can fetch decent prices for retail properties.

“Investors have indicated they like retail, they like food-anchored [malls], they like stable cash flow,” Gill said.

And with the prices that investors have paid to secure cash-flow generating properties, Gill said owners have “elected to sell into that marketplace.”

The sale of Lougheed Town Centre on the Burnaby-Coquitlam border for $133 million was the largest transaction Avison Young tracked in the first half of 2010. The Ontario Pension Board sold it to a private investor.

The Ontario Pension Board also sold Brentwood Town Centre in Burnaby for $100 million and Bosa Development Corp. sold the Semiahmoo Shopping Centre in south Surrey for $82.7 million.

Outside of Metro Vancouver, Victoria’s Bay Centre sold for $90 million. In total, 21 of the 45 sales over $5 million that Avison Young tracked were for retail properties.

Gill expects more retail properties to trade hands in the second half of 2010, though perhaps not at the same rate as the first half.

Sales of office properties was the next biggest segment of commercial sales activity, with 12 transactions worth $188.9 million, but Gill said the reluctance of owners to put buildings up for sale may have played a part in that situation.

The $64-million sale of Production Court, an office complex on the south slope of Burnaby Mountain, was the largest office transaction Avison Young tracked in the first half of 2010.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Home sales plunge 27%, to lowest rate on record

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Stephanie Armour
USA Today

A home for sale in Springfield, Ill., Monday, Aug. 23, 2010 By Seth Perlman, AP

Home sales plunged in July to record lows as buyer demand withered after the expiration of a federal home buyer tax credit — a drop that shows troublesome weakening in the housing market recovery.

Sales of existing homes tumbled 27.2% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million units from 5.26 million in June, according to a report Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors. Sales are at the lowest level since the report began being released in 1999, and sales of single-family homes — which account for the bulk of transactions — are at the lowest level since May 1995.

“This qualifies as a double dip in housing,” says Mark Zandi, with Moody’s Analytics.com. “It’s particularly disconcerting given that fixed mortgage rates are lower. The recovery is weakening. These are pretty ugly numbers.”

Economic fundamentals aren’t working to buoy the housing market, economists say, and the real engine that is needed to turn the recovery around is more private sector jobs.

“Jobs, jobs, jobs,” says Robert Dye, senior economist with PNC Financial Services Group, adding that government stimulus efforts such as another tax credit are unlikely to create lasting benefits. “Another tax credit will pull demand forward and then a hollowing out (of sales) again.”

Economists say they were surprised by the size of July’s drop in home sales, which indicates buyers have scant confidence in the housing market. Existing-home sales fell 35% in the Midwest in July, 29.5% in the Northeast; in the West, they fell 25% and they were down 22.6% in the South.

“This is extraordinary, how low the demand is, “ says Joel Naroff, of Naroff Economic Advisors. “The (housing) sector is still flat on it’s back.”

The number of homes on the market also grew, which tends to dampen prices. Housing inventory at the end of July increased 2.5% to 3.98 million existing homes available for sale, a 12.5-month supply at the current sales pace, up from an 8.9-month supply in June. A six-month supply is considered normal.

One reason the market is hurting is that buyers and sellers are in a standoff over prices. Many sellers are reluctant to lower their prices. And buyers are hesitating because they think home prices haven’t bottomed out.

“It really is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Aaron Zapata, a real estate agent in Brea, California. “If all buyers perceive that home prices are coming down, then they will stop making offers — and home prices will come down.”

Some economists say any turnaround in the housing market is going to take time. Sales are expected to perk up in October and November, but even then, so many homeowners have so little equity in their homes that many can’t afford to buy a new home.

“Even if you have 10% (equity) left in your house, you don’t have enough to get you to another house unless you downsize dramatically,” Naroff says.

The median sale price was $182,600, up 0.7% from a year ago, but down 0.2% from June.

Prices and sales in major metropolitan areas

Metro area

Median Price

Change from 1 yr ago

 

July ’09

Jul ’10

Price

Sales

Atlanta

$132,800

$117,700

-11.4%

-17.4%

Baltimore

$268,800

$265,200

-1.3%

-17.9%

Boston

$358,100

$385,200

7.6%

-26.3%

Cincinnati

$132,600

$127,400

-3.9%

-35.3%

Dallas-Ft. Worth

$155,200

$155,300

0.1%

-27.8%

Houston

$163,900

$161,400

-1.5%

-25.8%

Indianapolis

$121,100

n/a

n/a

-15.0%

Kansas City

$151,600

$142,400

-6.1%

-38.4%

Miami-Ft. Lauderdale

$214,600

$207,500

-3.3%

-14.6%

Minneapolis-St. Paul

$171,000

$175,000

2.3%

-42.0%

New Orleans

$172,900

$163,800

-5.3%

-17.6%

New York-N. New Jersey-Long Island

$394,800

$414,300

4.9%

-24.9%

Philadelphia

$244,200

$238,400

-2.4%

-34.3%

Phoenix

$137,700

$141,700

2.9%

-25.5%

Pittsburgh

$128,500

$130,300

1.4%

-34.5%

Portland

$246,000

$253,400

3.0%

-28.1%

San Antonio

$160,600

$161,600

0.6%

-23.0%

San Diego

$372,100

$389,400

4.6%

-15.2%

St. Louis

$143,400

$147,700

3.0%

-36.1%

Washington, DC

$337,700

$351,100

4.0%

-18.4%

Source: National Association of Realtors

Contributing: Associated Press

Copyright 2010 USA TODAY

Governments add to house prices through taxes and zoning rules

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Even allowing ‘mortgage helper’ suites drives up costs

Don Cayo
Sun

With taxes, levies, fees and restrictive rules adding nearly $80,000 to the cost of an average new home in Metro Vancouver, it’s easy to finger governments as the bad guys in driving housing costs sky-high. Photograph by: Reuters files

With taxes, levies, fees and restrictive rules adding nearly $80,000 to the cost of an average new home in Metro Vancouver, it’s easy to finger governments as the bad guys in driving housing costs sky-high.

But that’s just the obvious. Government influence on house prices — not all of it for wrong reasons — is far greater than that. It includes:

– Maintaining ownership of a great deal of park and other public land, which drives up the price of what’s left to develop.

– Requiring owners to withhold from development countless thousands of additional acres through policies from the ALR to provision of parking to subdivision amenities.

– Limiting density in many residential neighbourhoods.

– Subsidizing people to choose bigger homes than they might otherwise afford through residential property tax rates set far lower than the cost of service, government mortgage insurance that lets people borrow more money more cheaply than they otherwise would, homeowner grants that pay up to half the property tax bill, and tax-exempt capital gains, which makes a home (at least, one in the right place at the right time) a savvy investment as well as place to live.

– Allowing seniors and, as of April, other families to defer their property tax payments, at low interest rates, until they sell their home or die.

– Exempting owner-occupied residential land from the “highest and best use” principle generally used in assessing property values, thus allowing people to maintain single-family homes on large tracts of land that could house many more.

The collective impact of these things is huge. And the policy rationale isn’t always evident — although the political advantage it gives to the politicians in power usually is.

When it comes to how much land we devote to parks and public spaces, or even the ALR, these are public choices. There are real values to such set-asides — and real costs. The trick is to balance public wants with public willingness to pay.

But perks like artificially low tax rates, homeowner grants and tax deferrals, while popular with the beneficiaries, always wind up privileging one group at the expense of another. Tens of thousands of B.C. homeowners are shielded from the true cost of owning their homes by subsidies paid by taxpayers at large, including those who can’t afford to buy.

Policies aimed at helping keep seniors in their homes, for example, also keep a lot of “juniors” completely out of the market for centrally located single-family homes. They’re left, if they can afford to buy at all, to choose between raising the kids in a condo or committing to a long, long commute to and from the burbs.

Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president of the B.C. Business Council, points out that Ottawa’s contribution to skewed policy — the tax-free capital gains allowed on a principal residence — is just as unfair. It privileges homeowners in a handful of cities where home values are soaring over people who can’t afford to buy, or who live in slow-growth areas.

“What it does is create unearned windfalls,” he says. “Look at a city where the price triples while you live there, and somebody you went to school with in a place where the price doesn’t move. And your only effort was to stay in the house until the price goes up.”

The impact of speculators on the market, at least as judged by visibly vacant homes, seems focused on condos, and mostly in just a few neighbourhoods such as Coal Harbour.

But property tax consultant Paul Sullivan, who with his wife, a builder, keeps a particularly close eye on West Side transactions, says almost half of condo pre-sale buyers won’t ever live there, and almost a quarter flip the properties before they’re ready to occupy.

Andy Yan, an analyst and researcher at Bing Thom Architects, sees this kind of speculation as hurtful to the economy, and suggests taking a leaf from places like Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia, which have found ways to curb it. Yan suggests more focused use of the Property Transfer Tax, exempting the kinds of transactions people make as they move through a normal life cycle, but nailing speculators. And then there’s a final policy area where it’s what governments don’t do that influences housing costs in two contradictory ways. It’s the issue of the ubiquitous “mortgage helpers” — basement suites that, legally or illegally, allow buyers to purchase much more home than they could otherwise afford. These both drive up the cost of residential property (though the net result is greater affordability), and provide low-cost rental units to those who can’t afford to buy.

There’s no way to know how many of these escape the taxman’s notice. But to the extent that neither income tax collectors nor property tax assessors aggressively track these suites down, they enjoy a degree of tacit official blessing.

There is, of course, a case to be made for not cracking down on a key source of low-cost housing in such a high-cost city, or for policies that may help to keep a mix of families of different ages and stages in residential neighbourhoods.

But the point is that house prices are neither totally beyond our control, nor the fault of just one government, business or consumer group. We’ve all helped to drive them up to the level where most of us find them a strain.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun