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TORONTO – The latest Royal LePage housing survey shows average price of a home in Canada increased between 1.2 per cent and 3.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2013.

It says the average cost of a standard two-storey home rose 3.6 per cent year-over-year to $418,282, while detached bungalows went up 3.8 per cent to $380,710.

Royal LePage says the price of a standard condominium rose 1.2 per cent during the quarter to an average of $246,530.

The real estate company says prices are expected to maintain a ‘‘healthy momentum‘‘ this year and rise a projected 3.7 per cent over 2013.

CEO Phil Soper says late 2013 saw the housing market transition to ‘‘buoyant sales volumes‘‘ and above-average growth.

He says that in the absence of ‘‘some calamitous event or material increase in mortgage financing costs,‘‘ he expects positive momentum to characterize 2014.

“We predict continued upward pressure on home prices as we move towards the all-important spring market.‘‘ he said.

“Talk of a ‘soft landing’ for Canada’s real estate market in the new year is misguided,‘‘ continued Soper.

‘‘We expect no landing, no slowdown, and no correction in the near-term. Conditions are ripe for as strong a market as we saw in the post-recessionary rebound of the last decade.”

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BC Assessment sent approximately 1,954,445 assessment notices to British Columbia property owners on December 31, 2013. Everyone should have received it by today January 6, 2014.

Your property taxes are calculated on the assessed value, so it is important to review it and even compare it to other properties for accuracy. The BC Assessment website has many tools to assist you, including looking up your neighbors assessed values. Do not delay, as the deadline to file a complaint / appeal is January 31, 2014.

Fast Facts on B.C. Property Assessments and 2014 Assessment Roll

• Total number of properties on the 2014 roll is 1,954,445, an approximate 1% increase from 2013.
• Total value of real estate on the 2014 roll is $1,141,848,449,910, a 1.35% increase from 2013.
• Total amount of ‘non-market change’, including new construction and development: approximately $17.54 billion, an increase of 5.38% from the 2013 roll of $16.64 billion.
• In B.C., approx. 87.7% of all properties are classified with some residential (Class 1) component. This equates to over $864 billion of the value on the total provincial roll.
• Over 98% of property owners accept their property assessment without proceeding to a formal, independent review of their assessment.
• Assessments are the estimate of a property’s market value as of July 1, 2013 and physical condition as of October 31, 2013. This common valuation date ensures there is an equitable property assessment base for property taxation.
• Changes in property assessments reflect movement in the local real estate market and can vary greatly from property to property. When estimating a property’s market value, BC Assessment’s professional appraisers analyze current sales in the area, as well as considering other characteristics such as size, age, quality, condition, view and location.
• Real estate sales determine a property’s value which is reported annually by BC Assessment. Local governments and other taxing authorities are responsible for property taxation and, after determining their own budget needs this spring, will calculate property tax rates based on the assessment roll for their jurisdiction.
• BC Assessment’s assessment roll provides the foundation for local and provincial taxing authorities to raise more than $6.2 billion in property taxes each year. This revenue funds the many community services provided by local governments around the province, including the public school system.

What is BC Assessment?

BC Assessment’s business is to provide a stable and predictable base for real property taxation in British Columbia. The corporation determines ownership and tax liability, classifies and values each property in British Columbia. To meet its goal, BC Assessment completes an Assessment Roll every December 31.

BC Assessment mails individual Assessment Notices, with entries recorded from the Assessment Roll, to all property owners in the province. Once audited and authenticated by the Property Assessment Review Panel, BC Assessment presents the Assessment Roll to various tax jurisdictions: municipal governments, regional districts and the Ministries of Education and Health. The Assessment Roll is used by tax jurisdictions to form the basis of their Tax Rolls. Tax jurisdictions set tax rates for each of the nine property classes.

BC Assessment maintains an extensive and up-to-date information database on all properties in British Columbia. Public access to this electronic database is available through BC OnLine. For a fee, BC Assessment will also produce custom information reports.

BC Assessment provides accurate property and value information to:

• tax authorities;
• property owners;
• municipal, provincial and federal government agencies;
• realtors, appraisers, lawyers, bankers, title search companies;
• other private and public agencies.

Sales and values of homes in the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Toronto rose during 2013, despite predictions of overheating

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Home sales and values in the major Canadian cities of Vancouver and Toronto have both risen year-on-year in 2013, confounding gloomy predictions.

Sales in Vancouver, British Columbia, rose 14% year-on-year, while in Toronto, Ontario, they were up 2% year-on-year.

Average property prices in Vancouver were up 2.1% in the year to December 2013 at CAN$603,400 and rose 6.3% in Toronto to CAN$483,200, according to the  MLS Home Price Index composite benchmark.

Vancouver sales of detached, attached and apartments in 2013 reached 28,524, compared with 25,032 in 2012, but were 11.9% down on the 32,390 total in 2011, according to Real the Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).

Taking the month of December 2013 alone, sales rose 71% to 1,953, compared with 1,142 in December 2012 and were 8.1% above the 10-year December sales average of 1,807.

In Toronto, sales for the whole of 2013 reached 87,111, up around 2% on the 85,496 in 2012, says the Toronto Real Estate Board.

Experienced Vancouver real estate marketer and columnist, Nicola Way, of BestHomesBC.com, says overseas property buyers play a role in boosting the numbers, but it is difficult to tell by how much.

She tells OPP Connect, “Despite ongoing warnings of an overheated market, Vancouver, like Toronto and Calgary, registered higher property sales than expected in 2013. Total sales in Metro Vancouver were up 14 percent compared to 2012 showing demand for all types of housing – detached, attached, and condos – is not abating any time soon. This demand has also created a rise in the average price of a home.

“Certainly, overseas buyers play a role in boosting these figures, but how much of a part they play is still not known, as Canada does not keep records of a buyer’s country of residence.

“This may change, but in the meantime, all we can do is speculate. However, with Vancouver consistently being rated one of the top cities in the world to live, alongside its reputation for having excellent schools, current low levels of interest rates, and an increasing number of direct flights to Pacific Rim cities, overseas buyers continue to be attracted to Canada’s west coast.”

REBGV President, Sandra Wyant, says last year’s home sale total ranks as the third lowest annual total for the region in the last ten years, according to the region’s Multiple Listing Service.

“Home sales quietly improved last year compared to 2012, although the volume of activity didn’t compare to some of the record-breaking years we experienced over the last decade,”

The number of homes listed for sale on the MLS® in Metro Vancouver fell 6.2% in 2013 to 54,742 compared to 58,379 in 2012 and 8.1% down on 2011’s total of 59,539. However, it is around the 10-year average.

December home sales in Toronto reached 4,078 for the month, up from 3,582 in December 2012, says the Toronto Real Estate Board.

Dianne Usher, President of the Toronto Real Estate Board says, “After a slow start to the year, sales growth accelerated to a brisk pace in the second half of 2013.

“Despite the inclement weather in December, we finished the year with a respectable gain in transactions compared to 2012.”

The average price for a home sold in December was CAN$520,398, up 8.9% compared with December 2012’s figure of CAN$477,756.

New listings for the Toronto market in December were down by almost four per cent over the same period.

Copyright 2013 OPP CONNECT

TARA PERKINS
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Real estate agency Royal LePage is expecting Canada’s housing market to shift in favour of sellers in the first half of this year, and is forecasting a strong spring.

The agency, which represents more than 15,000 Canadian real estate agents and is part of Brookfield Real Estate Services Inc., is also predicting that house prices will maintain their momentum.

“We predict continued upward pressure on home prices as we move towards the all-important spring market,” Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper stated in a press release.

“In addition to normal demand, housing prices in Canada this year will be influenced by buyers who put off purchase plans in the very soft spring of 2013. Talk of a ‘soft landing’ for Canada’s real estate market in the new year is misguided. We expect no landing, no slowdown, and no correction in the near-term. Conditions are ripe for as strong a market as we saw in the post-recessionary rebound of the last decade.”

Canada’s housing market never officially tipped into buyer’s market territory during the correction that ensued beginning in the summer of 2012, but it was fairly close, hovering on the edge between a balanced market and a buyer’s market as determined by the ratio between sales and new listings, Mr. Soper said in an interview. During the latter half of last year sales volumes increased faster than new listings, and the market remained in balanced territory but tipped towards becoming a seller’s market.

“This is the most optimistic view of the housing market since the recession, that’s in half a decade,” he said.

Many economists have been surprised by the buoyancy of home prices in the wake of the lengthy sales slump that persisted in the market from the summer of 2012 to this past spring.

Economists both in Canada and abroad are keeping a close eye on Canadian home prices as they debate just how overvalued the market is. While many Canadian economists estimate that home prices here are in the neighbourhood of 10 to 20 per cent too high, economists at Deutsche Bank recently said they believe prices are 60 per cent too high.

The Calgary Real Estate Board recently said that the benchmark price of a single family home in the Calgary area is now $472,200, up 8.6 per cent from a year earlier. The benchmark in Vancouver is $603,400, up 2.1 per cent from a year earlier despite that city registering the steepest market correction in the past two years.

The average price of homes that sold over the Multiple Listing Service in the Toronto area last month was $520,398, up by 8.9 per cent from the average selling price in December, 2012. The average selling price in Toronto for all of 2013 was $523,036, up 5.2 per cent from the average in 2012.

© Copyright 2014 The Globe and Mail Inc.

Peter Grainger
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Some clever Vancouver realtors are using a high-flying marketing technique that’s taking selling homes to a new level.

Jordan and Russ Macnab are tapping into drone technology to get the upper hand in Canada’s hottest real estate market.

They’re using quad copters to capture bird’s eye views of the properties they sell – and even flying them through homes – to create breathtaking promotional videos.

 

“We kind of wanted to showcase the properties like Hollywood-style trailers. We just wanted to make them as cool as our properties are that we’re trying to sell,” Jordan said.

The brothers hire a crew to help out with the production of each video, and Russ, the self-described “techie” of the brothers, operates the drone.

“You can use them in apartments and lofts, stuff like that, but where it comes into play is with these big mansions that have awesome yards and huge pools and grand entrances that I can fly through the front door,” he said. “Those are the houses that are gonna stand out and make use of that.”

The Macnabs are able to fly the drones inside the rooms of homes and condos, but must obtain a special permit from Transport Canada every time they use it for commercial purposes.

They’re even required to submit a flight plan of the drone’s path through the homes.

“They don’t want just some random person buying one of these things and flying it into a crowd of people,” Russ said. “They can be dangerous. They spin really fast, you can lose control of them.”

But the red tape is worth it for the brothers, who are breaking into Vancouver’s luxury real estate market with their one-of-a-kind videos. So far, it seems clients love it.

“Right now the buzz is awesome,” Jordan said. “People want their property to have this angle first, so it’s going to be busy. We’re going to be busy.”

Unmanned drones were first developed as military technology, but are increasingly being used for commercial purposes.

Online retailer Amazon.com announced in December it is testing octocopters to deliver packages to customers in as little as 30 minutes, and could see widespread use in four to five years.

 © 2014 BellMedia

Renewed confidence and pent-up demand in the real estate market causing price appreciation following slump

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The Royal LePage House Price Survey and Market Survey Forecast released today showed year-over-year price increases across all housing types surveyed in Vancouver.

The average price for detached bungalows increased 4.0 per cent year-over-year to $1,041,300 and standard two-storey homes increased 3.3 per cent to $1,139,050, while condominiums rose 2.3 per cent to $492,500.

“The moderate year-over-year changes in home prices don’t really tell the whole story of Vancouver real estate over the past year,” said Bill Binnie, broker and owner, Royal LePage North Shore. “Today’s market is markedly different than it was 12 months ago. Last year was a down year with both buyers and sellers behaving cautiously. This year we have seen a lot more sales and houses coming on the market, showing that confidence has returned.”

According to brokers in the region, the number of homes changing hands surged in the latter part of the year.  “The last half of 2012 and first half of 2013 were quite slow, but the market is now gaining momentum, most likely due to confidence in the marketplace and in the value of the real estate, as well as pent-up demand,” said Chris Simmons, broker and owner, Royal LePage Westside and Royal LePage City Centre.

Looking ahead, Royal LePage forecasts that home prices in Vancouver will rise by 4.4 per cent in 2014. “Prices will be up moderately but I don’t think you’re going to see much in the way of large increases unless demand from new arrivals to the city exceeds expectations,” added Binnie.

Simmons suggests that some single family houses in certain areas of Vancouver will see above average price appreciation because there is still a lot of demand for these units with limited supply. “Condo and townhouse prices will not appreciate as much because there’s a good amount of supply and a steady stream of new units appearing on the market,” he added.

Nationally, the average price of a home in Canada increased between 1.2 per cent and 3.8 per cent in the fourth quarter.

The survey showed year-over-year average price increases in the fourth quarter of 2013 of 3.6 per cent to $418,282 for standard two-storey homes and 3.8 per cent to $380,710 for detached bungalows, while the average price of a standard condominium rose 1.2 per cent to $246,530. Prices are expected to maintain healthy momentum into 2014, with Royal LePage projecting a 3.7 per cent increase nationally from 2013 and a shift to a seller’s market in the first portion of the year in a number of regions.

“A few short months ago, the country’s housing market emerged from a year-long correctional cycle of dramatically slowed sales volumes. Later 2013 was marked by a transition to buoyant sales volumes and above average price growth,” said Phil Soper, president and chief executive of Royal LePage. “In the absence of some calamitous event or material increase in mortgage financing costs, we expect this positive momentum to characterize 2014. In fact, we expect a market tipped decidedly in favour of sellers for the first half of the year, after which we project a shift to a more balanced market.”

“We predict continued upward pressure on home prices as we move towards the all-important spring market. In addition to normal demand, housing prices in Canada this year will be influenced by buyers who put off purchase plans in the very soft spring of 2013,” continued Soper. “Talk of a ‘soft landing’ for Canada‘s real estate market in the new year is misguided.  We expect no landing, no slowdown, and no correction in the near-term. Conditions are ripe for as strong a market as we saw in the post-recessionary rebound of the last decade.”

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The man in charge of Vancouver planning says approving a project that exceeds the city’s height restrictions was a no-brainer.

Vancouver GM of planning and development Brian Jackson tells us there’s a general height limit of 500 feet for the site of the $500M Burrard Gateway mixed-use project at Drake Street (along Burrard and Hornby), but the tallest of the three buildings will hit 550 feet. (However, it still doesn’t meet the 659-foot Shangri-La Tower, the tallest building in the city.)

“This site was identified for greater height in order to provide a visual terminus in alignment with the Burrard Street Bridge,” Brian says. (That sounds so suave, we’re adding “nice visual terminus” to our pick-up lines.) The city’s general policy on building height restrictions identifies strategic locations for the development of higher buildings in the downtown, located on one of Vancouver’s three primary streets of Georgia, Burrard, and Granville.

A JV of Jim Pattison Developments (40%) and Reliance Properties (60%) is behind the project—a 13-storey office building, a 55-storey condo tower, and a 35-storey tower, connected by a seven-storey podium for rental housing and retail uses, including a Jim Pattison Downtown Toyota Dealership and grocery store. Amenities will include park improvements, additional bike lanes, and a community centre for the neighborhood’s LGBT community, which were all part of getting city re-zoning approval. Brian adds the project also meets the city’s goals for Green Building Performance with LEED Gold while advancing the city’s objective for carbon neutrality by achieving a 40% to 50% reduction in energy consumption (from 2010 levels).

TARA PERKINS
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Preliminary December sales data from several cities indicate Canada’s housing market is entering the new year in solid shape, with prices again showing more strength than economists expected.

After the protracted sales slump that hit the market in the summer of 2012, economists were surprised by the degree to which it rebounded during the latter half of last year. The spring market got a jolt from falling mortgage rates and, ironically, sales got an even bigger boost in the late summer and early fall from rising mortgage rates – which spooked some buyers into jumping into the market before rates rose further.

Changes in home prices typically lag changes in home sales, and so despite the pickup in sales, economists were still expecting that the lengthy downturn would eventually slow price growth down to a trickle. But it hasn’t.

“Prices have been much stronger than we anticipated them to be,” said Toronto-Dominion Bank real estate economist Diana Petramala.

A few large cities have now released data for December, which is traditionally a relatively slow month, and the figures point to a market that is far from a runaway train but continues to hold up better than anticipated.

The benchmark price of a single family home in the Calgary area is now $472,200, up 8.6 per cent from a year earlier. The benchmark in Vancouver is $603,400, up 2.1 per cent from a year earlier despite that city registering the steepest market correction in the past two years. The average price of homes that sold over the Multiple Listing Service in the Toronto area last month was $520,398, up by 8.9 per cent from the average selling price in December, 2012. The average selling price in Toronto for all of 2013 was $523,036, up 5.2 per cent from the average in 2012.

Economists had been expecting the large supply of condos that are coming on stream in cities such as Toronto to weigh significantly on prices, Ms. Petramala said. While that hasn’t happened so far, she expects that it will over the next two years, noting that the number of condo units scheduled to be finished in Toronto this year is more than double historical levels.

“Heading into 2014, 2015, as some of these condos start to come on the market we should see price pressure ease,” she said. She expects national home prices to grow by about 2 to 4 per cent over the next five years.

“According to pure economics, we should be seeing prices softening,” said Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce economist Benjamin Tal. “The fact that it is not happening suggests the market is more resilient than we thought.”

The full national housing picture won’t be known until the Canadian Real Estate Association discloses national numbers later this month – smaller cities and towns have not seen the same sales momentum as the country’s urban centres of late – but the number of homes that changed hands in 2013 is now expected to come in slightly above 2012, defying expectations at the outset of 2013 that the market would register a decline.

© Copyright 2014 The Globe and Mail Inc.