Alabaster Homes? development offers ?homey? touch to owners looking to downsize

Mary Frances Hill
The Province

Yukon Residences

Where: 450 West 59th Ave., Vancouver

What: 32 one-, two- and three-bedroom (garden flats); and three- and four-bedroom (townhomes)

Residence sizes and prices: One, two and three- bedroom garden flats: (511 to 1,626 square feet) and townhomes (1,410 to 1,640 square feet), from $600,000 (garden flats) and from $1.7 million (townhomes)

Developer and builder: Alabaster Homes

Sales centre: 301 — 1788 W. Broadway

Sales centre hours: Call for appointment at 604-558-5850

To find inspiration for her work on the design of the spaces at Yukon Residences, Brenda Chiu looked to the features of the building and the community that surrounds it.

“It is important for the interiors to feel home-y, beautiful and timeless. [In this case], it really reflects the building’s architecture and the neighbourhood,” says Chiu of the Alabaster Homes’ development at West 59th in Vancouver. “The interior esthetics were inspired from the exterior architectural style.”

Considering that the building was crafted in a manner reminiscent of Victorian architecture, Chiu and the designers at Area3 Design thought it was befitting to decorate indoors in a “transitional” style. Transitional design brings in some elements of the contemporary, but in an understated way, blending it with a decidedly traditional look. This style appeals to many of the home buyers attracted to Yukon Residences, who are downsizing from larger houses.

Chiu describes the method behind creating a traditional vibe, with a touch of contemporary upgrade: she and Area3 Design designers started by setting the tone and colour scheme with the hardwood flooring and cabinetry colour. One scheme, comprising white cabinetry with warm taupe oak-stained engineered hardwood, “is classic and timeless,” she says. Chiu chose the second theme, which includes grey cabinetry with coordinating grey stained oak engineered hardwood flooring, for its “modern transitional” characteristics, she adds.

Area3 Design then created interest through layering contrasting finishes and materials, such as the chevron marble backsplash and contrasting colour quartz countertop. The transitional appeal can be found in the details.

“Transitional details can be seen on the shaker cabinetry, crown mouldings, interior door panelling, and the wide-set lavatory faucet with cross handles,” says Chiu. “Every design detail has been selected carefully to enhance the transitional characteristics and to give the home owners an exceptional quality-built home.”
Chiu and her colleagues are experienced in designing for homes that appeal to older buyers looking to sell their larger homes for smaller suites that are easier to maintain. She says these buyers would do well to arm themselves with a plan to purge, and, importantly, to gauge the layout of the new space.

“I think the worst thing is moving all the your furniture and finding out that it won’t fit and you just live with it,” she advises.
“This makes the rooms not functional and creates stress. So, it’s a good idea to come up with a furniture plan before moving into a new home.”

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.

March home sales hit record high, Canadian Real Estate Association says

Craig Wong
The Vancouver Sun

OTTAWA – Home sales across the country hit a record high last month, propped up by transactions in the fiercely hot market of Toronto, further fuelling concerns about the city’s real estate sector.

The Canadian Real Estate Association said Tuesday home sales over its Multiple Listings Service system increased by 1.1 per cent in March to top the previous monthly record set in April 2016. On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales totalled 46,353, up from 45,856 in February.

Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter said where you stand on the issue of Canada’s housing market depends on where you live.

“Almost the entire province of Ontario’s housing market is now on fire, while most of the rest of the country wonders what all the fuss is about,” Porter wrote in a research note.

Policy-makers, think tanks and the Bank of Canada have issued repeated warnings that while concerns of an overheated housing market may be confined to the Toronto area, a correction could have repercussions for the national economy given the sheer scale of the city’s real estate industry.

The latest sales data came ahead of a meeting between Mayor John Tory and the federal and Ontario finance ministers to discuss soaring home prices in the Greater Toronto Area, which have leapt by more than 30 per cent in the last year.

The actual national average price for homes sold in March this year was $548,517, up 8.2 per cent from a year ago. Excluding Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto, the average price was $389,726.

Compared with a year ago, actual sales in Canada, not seasonally adjusted, were up 6.6 per cent. Gains in the Greater Toronto Area led the way with a 17.0 per cent increase.

But it wasn’t just Toronto posting whopping hikes.

Sales in the Ontario cities of London and St. Thomas increased 44.4 per cent compared with March 2016, while in the Niagara region they grew by 30.0 per cent. Ottawa climbed 28.6 per cent.

Sales in Greater Vancouver, once the country’s hottest real estate market, fell 31.5 per cent compared with a year ago. But the region was up 4.1 per cent on a month-over-month basis.

CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal said it looks like the Vancouver market has hit bottom and started to recover.

Sales in Vancouver cooled last year in the wake of a tax on foreign buyers. Tal said the drop was due to domestic buyers waiting to see what the impact of the tax would be, but they are now back in the market.

“I think Vancouver will see a very strong spring,” he said.

CREA said the number of newly listed homes increased 2.5 per cent in March, led by gains in the Toronto region, Calgary, Edmonton and B.C.’s Lower Mainland.

The national sales-to-new listings ratio was 67.4 per cent in March compared with 68.3 per cent in February. There were 4.1 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of March 2017, down from 4.2 months the month before.

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.

Impact of foreign buyers tax may be on the wane

Joanne Lee-Young
The Vancouver Sun

Blistering Toronto home price gains have federal and provincial politicians in Ontario talking about a speculation tax on non-resident home buyers. It’s a conversation happening privately as campaigning B.C. NDP and B.C. Green party politicians are calling to expand or double similar taxes here in the name of housing affordability.

Fresh statistics suggest the impact of B.C.’s foreign buyer tax for homes in Metro Vancouver is on the wane, with March sales surging by almost 50 per cent.

The number of units sold in the Vancouver area in March jumped by 48 per cent compared to February, which is more than the historical average of about 25 per cent. 

The sharp increase comes off a “relatively weaker January and February,” said Bryan Yu, deputy chief economist at Central 1 Credit Union, agreeing with others that, aside from the psychological aftermath of the foreign buyer tax, there’s also adjusting for the “pretty bad winter” in Vancouver this year.

Nevertheless, “things started to gain momentum as the weather improved,” said Royal LePage’s Port Moody-based broker Randy Ryalls.

He added that there have been some large sales increases in certain areas such as Burnaby, where the number of detached sales went from 47 in February to 100 in March and apartment sales increased from 137 to 220.

“It is definitely true that, outside of the top, things are very hot again,” said University of B.C. real estate finance professor Tom Davidoff, adding that aside from some initial numbers, he is also hearing chatter on the street that is reminiscent of frothier times. “I was walking around in Kits the other day and overheard a conversation: ‘it was $100K over ask, with no contingency and we still didn’t get it.’” 

In Vancouver, “the decline in the number of homes changing hands has slowed, as the lagged effects of the 15 per cent tax on foreign purchases seem to be dissipating. Many suggest that the Vancouver housing market has bottomed,” wrote Sherry Cooper, chief economist at national mortgage company Dominion Lending Centres on Tuesday.

Signs of this uptick are emerging as there is still some debate over the long-term effect of B.C.’s foreign buyer tax at a time when the B.C. NDP and the B.C. Green party have unveiled housing plans that call for greater government intervention in the real estate market.

The B.C. NDP proposed to close “loopholes that let speculators dodge taxes and hide their identities, and (charge) a yearly two per cent absentee speculators’ tax to crack down on empty homes.”

The B.C. Green party proposes a sliding scale for property transfer taxes peaking with a rate of 12 per cent on homes above $3 million.

It is calling for a foreign buyer tax of 30 per cent that would be applied to the entire province.

“Extending the foreign buyer tax across B.C. from Metro Vancouver is designed to ensure that other housing markets, in Victoria and elsewhere, are not targeted for speculation in order to avoid the tax.”

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.

Data-mining is on the rise in both Europe and the U.S.

EVAN DUGGAN
The Vancouver Sun

Badminton said commercial real estate players should also be paying close attention to urban innovation and technology, as cities like Vancouver become more densely populated and globally connected.

On April 11, Badminton — an Englishman who has lived in Vancouver for the past nine years — shared some of his thoughts on smart cities with commercial real estate stakeholders at the Vancouver Real Estate Forum.

“I don’t think I’ve met anyone here (at the forum) who wants to maintain the status quo,” Badminton told The Sun in an interview after his presentation. “I think people really want to push the thinking about what real estate can be. They know to be competitive in commercial real estate they’ve got to offer something different.”

Vancouver has much work to do to earn a reputation as a smart city, he said. “It doesn’t mean that they’re not going to make progress in the next few years. It just means that there has to be some capital investment in that,” he said. “We’re going to have to look to businesses leading the way, as well as citizens being engaged.”

THE CITY OF BARCELONA SETS A GOOD EXAMPLE

While facing economic challenges, Barcelona’s city planners started looking for ways to optimize their city’s operations, he said. They wanted to make the city smarter.

“They started investing in data pipes. They started investing in smart lampposts and sensors and smart waste to really optimize,” he said. The city is now saving millions of euros a year, he said.

“They had to be brave at the beginning, but they did the cost analysis and they realized the payback was going to be pretty good. Now they’re ahead of the game and everybody is trying to catch up.”

Badminton said people in the commercial real estate industry need to realize that space and property is about humans and community. Everything else is secondary.

“A lot of people think there’s a lot of distance between people in Vancouver. I think a lot of that distance can be closed by developing the right kinds of commercial spaces and businesses to bring people together,” he said.

Badminton likes to drop talking points like “data is the new oil.” He mentions stats such as: By 2020, 2.83 billion people in the world will have smartphones; and by 2050, 86 per cent of the global population will live in cities.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS

By 2020, there will be 50.1 billion devices worldwide that are connected to the Internet, he said. “That growth is incredible. What do we do with all that data?”

The answer, he said, is to use it to build and operate smarter cities.

“We’re surrounded by things that are watching us, listening to us, soaking up our data and putting us into reports and helping companies get closer to what we actually want,” he said.

BRISTOL IS OPEN AND THE ARRAY OF THINGS

In England, the University of Bristol and Bristol city council have jointly launched Bristol is Open. It’s a venture that is turning Bristol into a programmable city with an underground fibre broadband network, a super-computer city operating system, a fleet of self-driving cars and a canopy of data-collecting lampposts around the city.

“(Using that data) means that everyone is getting their job done a lot better,” he said.

Last summer, Chicago launched the Array of Things, an urban sensing project that will include 500 sensor nodes around the city that measure air quality, climate, traffic and other urban features. The open data is expected to help researchers, city officials and software developers understand and solve problems that the city faces, while making operations more efficient.

Developers and planners here need to get on board with similar projects and quickly, Badminton said.

“It’s going to have an immense impact on your business and the way that businesses work together going forward and on the people who live in cities.”

Badminton said commercial real estate brokers and developers are responsible for helping to maintain the “soul” of the city.

“Cities that set their own agenda are the most resilient,” he said. “We can program our cities the way we want them to be.”

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc

Steve Randall
REP

Housing markets in Toronto and Vancouver are heading in opposite directions but a prominent real estate executive believes that the downward turn for Vancouver may not last.

Royal Le Page president and CEO Phil Soper has given his assessment of the market as his brokerage releases its latest House price Survey. The figures show a 12.6 per cent year-over-year gain for house prices nationwide in the first quarter of 2017 to $574,575.

The two hottest housing markets are in focus, particularly for their differing trajectories.

“For the first time in several years, real estate markets in Vancouver and Toronto are headed in opposite directions,” said Soper. “The Vancouver market stalled, as confused consumers took to the sidelines after a series of uncoordinated moves by all three levels of government. With the housing shortage becoming more acute, Toronto easily stepped forward to assume the title of Canada’s most overheated real estate market.”

But while sales have dropped in Vancouver, and RLP’s data shows a 40 per cent decline in activity in the Lower Mainland, Soper says that those who chose not to sell their homes when the foreign buyer tax was introduced, may now go ahead.

“There is now reason to believe that the market correction underway in Vancouver may be short-lived,” said Soper. “The reality is that as much as 90 per cent of the housing activity that disappeared overnight in the Lower Mainland after the tax was introduced was from Canadian residents, not foreign investors. Homebuyers are waking up to this reality and may be ready to rush back into the market.”

For Toronto, Soper says the co-operation between federal and provincial governments is a good thing and that hasty regulations could cause a sharp correction in the market.

Elsewhere, he says the market is balancing with Alberta looking brighter and Quebec emerging as one of the healthiest housing markets in Canada.

Despite risks to the economy, including global factors, Soper says that the Canadian housing market is healthier than it has been for years but concluded: “Our concerns with the state of Canadian real estate begin and end with Toronto and Vancouver.”

Copyright © 2017 Key Media Pty Ltd

Canadian Real Estate Wealth

It was a record-breaking month for Canadian real estate in March.

The association says home sales over its Multiple Listings Service system increased by 1.1 per cent in March to top the previous monthly record set in April 2016.

Sales were up on a month-over-month basis in more than half of the local markets measured, led by Greater Vancouver and the nearby Fraser Valley region in B.C. as well as London, Ont., St. Thomas, Ont. and Montreal.

Compared with a year ago, sales were up 6.6 per cent as gains in the Greater Toronto Area led the way.

“The current strength in national home sales mainly speaks to what’s going on in and around Toronto,” said CREA President Andrew Peck. “Elsewhere, sales either remain slow or well below previous heights. All real estate is local, and REALTORS® remain your best source for information about sales and listings where you live or might like to in the future.”

The actual national average price for homes sold in March this year was $548,517, up 8.2 per cent from a year ago.

Excluding Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto, the average price was $389,726.

With Toronto’s red hot housing market overshadowing the rest of the country, CREA took the opportunity to warn the government about the impact federal regulations – aimed at cooling Toronto’s market – could have on markets across the country.

“The latest Canadian housing market statistics suggest that the drum-tight housing market balance in Toronto and nearby cities stands in contrast to housing market trends elsewhere in Ontario and other provinces,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s Chief Economist. “Because housing market balance varies by location, federal or provincial policy measures aimed at cooling demand in Toronto risk destabilizing housing markets elsewhere.”

Copyright © 2017 Key Media Pty Ltd

The Vancouver Sun

OTTAWA — Home sales across the country hit a record high last month, propped up by transactions in the fiercely hot market of Toronto, further fuelling concerns about the city’s real estate sector.

The Canadian Real Estate Association said Tuesday home sales over its Multiple Listings Service system increased by 1.1 per cent in March to top the previous monthly record set in April 2016. On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales totalled 46,353, up from 45,856 in February.

Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter said where you stand on the issue of Canada’s housing market depends on where you live.

“Almost the entire province of Ontario’s housing market is now on fire, while most of the rest of the country wonders what all the fuss is about,” Porter wrote in a research note.

Policy-makers, think tanks and the Bank of Canada have issued repeated warnings that while concerns of an overheated housing market may be confined to the Toronto area, a correction could have repercussions for the national economy given the sheer scale of the city’s real estate industry.

The latest sales data came ahead of a meeting between Mayor John Tory and the federal and Ontario finance ministers to discuss soaring home prices in the Greater Toronto Area, which have leapt by more than 30 per cent in the last year.

The actual national average price for homes sold in March this year was $548,517, up 8.2 per cent from a year ago. Excluding Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto, the average price was $389,726.

Compared with a year ago, actual sales in Canada, not seasonally adjusted, were up 6.6 per cent. Gains in the Greater Toronto Area led the way with a 17.0 per cent increase.

But it wasn’t just Toronto posting whopping hikes.

Sales in the Ontario cities of London and St. Thomas increased 44.4 per cent compared with March 2016, while in the Niagara region they grew by 30.0 per cent. Ottawa climbed 28.6 per cent.

Sales in Greater Vancouver, once the country’s hottest real estate market, fell 31.5 per cent compared with a year ago. But the region was up 4.1 per cent on a month-over-month basis.

CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal said it looks like the Vancouver market has hit bottom and started to recover.

Sales in Vancouver cooled last year in the wake of a tax on foreign buyers. Tal said the drop was due to domestic buyers waiting to see what the impact of the tax would be, but they are now back in the market.

“I think Vancouver will see a very strong spring,” he said.

CREA said the number of newly listed homes increased 2.5 per cent in March, led by gains in the Toronto region, Calgary, Edmonton and B.C.’s Lower Mainland.

The national sales-to-new listings ratio was 67.4 per cent in March compared with 68.3 per cent in February. There were 4.1 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of March 2017, down from 4.2 months the month before.

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.

Report draws attention to ?missing middle?

Chuck Chiang
The Vancouver Sun

More housing is needed that’s not single-family detached homes or high-rise condominiums if the region’s affordability crisis is to be brought under control, the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade says.

And politicians need to make it easier for developers to build in-between types of housing or local businesses could be suffocated by the region’s inability to attract young talent to live and work here, the board’s latest housing report says. 

The report was to be released at a board housing forum on Tuesday after nearly a year of research, said the board president, Iain Black.

He said his group’s last economic scorecard, in May, rated Vancouver’s affordability at 15th out of 17 cities surveyed — with only Shanghai and Hong Kong rated more unaffordable.

“Out of that report came a number of priorities, including our inability to attract and retain 25 to 35 year-olds, and that is directly tied to affordable housing and public transit,” Black said. “These middle-income earners either have young families or want young families, and they want to choose communities that are desirable to live in, but also physically located close to where they work. We have a great disadvantage in attracting that demographic right now.”

The housing report makes seven recommendations. The main one is giving higher priority to medium-density projects such as duplexes, courtyard apartments, townhouses, laneway houses and secondary suites. The aim of these is to attract young families that can’t fit comfortably in a small highrise condo unit but cannot afford a single-detached home.

The recommendations calls for a more developer-friendly environment to promote these options, dubbed “missing middle” housing, by creating clear deadlines for project approval, allowing a list of previously accredited developers to get fast-track approvals, and changing the community amenity contribution rules away from time-consuming case-by-case negotiations to a set price per unit or per square foot.

Black said some projects in Metro Vancouver are taking five to seven years to get from conception to construction.

“You cannot legislate or bylaw your way out of this problem. You need to do it with partnerships with the people who actually build these things, who are actually putting capital and shovels into the ground.”

A number of the report recommendations are already taking shape in some cities. The City of North Vancouver, for example, processes development permit application and building permit applications at the same time, instead of requiring applicants to get one permit approval before seeking the next one. Black said such changes are still the exception rather than the rule, and a “cultural change” is needed at the municipal level.

“This is not an indictment of the status quo,” he said. “It is, however, an honest assessment that things need to change. And they must change immediately … and the municipalities’ responses have been positive.  They all realize that we need to change, and the current response is not working. This is the start of this conversation.”

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.

LePage warns of ?market whiplash? in housing

Garry Marr
The Vancouver Sun

Concerns that government is going to slap more rules on the housing market, particularly aimed at Toronto’s residential sector, appears to be growing among the real estate industry.

Royal LePage joined the chorus of those repeating that Ottawa and its provincial counterparts should tread cautiously before considering everything from rent control to a tax on foreign investors.

“An unfortunate side-effect of heavy-handed government regulatory intervention is that we risk market whiplash,” Phil Soper, chief executive and president of LePage, said in a statement.

“In the coming weeks, it is possible that six months of pent-up demand will be unleashed on the market, sending prices sharply upward again; this when the pre-intervention 2016 trend was a natural market slowdown based on eroding affordability.”

The comments from Soper were released Tuesday before a meeting between federal finance minister Bill Morneau, Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa, and Toronto Mayor John Tory who has talked about his city implementing a vacant home tax like the one brought into Vancouver this year. That tax is said to be aimed at foreign buyers and speculators buying units but not renting them out.

Soper took aim at the British Columbia government’s foreign buyer tax which slapped an additional 15 per cent levy on out-of-country buyers in the Vancouver region as of Aug. 2.

Related

• Toronto’s red hot housing market has spread bidding wars as far as London, Ontario
• Teranet-National Bank home price index rises 13.5 per cent, the largest March increase in a decade

“For weeks now, we have witnessed a steady fall in real estate values in the Lower Mainland, with sales activity down some 40 per cent compared to recent norms,” he said. “There is now reason to believe that the market correction underway in Vancouver may be short-lived.”

The main victims of the B.C. tax were Canadians who had planned to sell or buy a home but held off because of the fear the investment from Chinese buyers was driving the market and responsible for a housing shortage, Soper said.

“The reality is that as much as 90 per cent of the housing activity that disappeared overnight in the Lower Mainland after the tax was introduced was from Canadian residents, not foreign investors. Homebuyers are waking up to this reality and may be ready to rush back into the market,” he said.

Data from the Toronto Real Estate Board this month showed prices in Canada’s largest city were up 33 per cent in March from a year ago, but Soper thinks government needs to proceed slowly. TREB has also said its own study has found about five per cent of the Greater Toronto Area market can be traced to foreign buyers.

“The hasty introduction of new real estate-related regulations or taxes in Ontario, in the absence of data and analysis to support these policy moves, could lead to a sharp price correction, impacting not only household wealth, but damaging the broader Canadian economy as well,” said Soper.

© 2017 National Post

Prime locations are just too valuable and are making way for condo development

John Mackie
The Province

The Chevron gas station at 1698 West Georgia just sold for $72 million and will be redeveloped as condos.

Now the Esso station at Burrard and Davie is up for sale, which means there soon may be no gas stations on Vancouver’s downtown peninsula.

The listing for 1205 Burrard St. by Collier’s International doesn’t include a price, but states the city’s West End plan allows a 300-foot tower on the site. That’s lower than the West Georgia site, where the new owner, Anthem Properties, can build up to 385 feet.

Property records show Imperial Oil sold 1205 Burrard to 7-Eleven Canada for $25,607,448 last September. It was assessed at $36,355,300 for 2017.

It was part of a package when 7-Eleven bought 148 Esso stations in B.C. and Alberta last year when Imperial Oil decided to sell off its retail operations.

No one from Collier’s or 7-Eleven Canada was available for comment. But Chevron’s Adrien Byrne said the sky high price of Vancouver real estate has oil companies assessing the value of their properties.

“(West Georgia) was one of the most productive stations in the Chevron network in B.C., but the real estate value really changed the economics of operating that as a gas station,” said Byrne. “It would make sense, given the potential of that site and the city planning, to sell that for redevelopment.”

The city seems to have anticipated the closure of the downtown gas stations, because it changed the zoning of their sites in the West End plan in 2013.

“I have no concerns as there are six gas stations just over the Burrard Bridge to the south and several more east of the downtown core,” said Vision councillor Raymond Louie.

“There are also at least three EV charging stations (for electric vehicles) in the area for those that have made the decision to switch to a cleaner source.”

But how much longer many of those gas stations will remain open is uncertain.

Chevron recently sold a station at 5505 Dunbar for $19.4 million, and has five more stations on the west side for sale, including 2783 West 4^th, 3220 Cambie, 7525 Cambie, 8320 Oak, and 3692 West Broadway.

Chevron also put its Burnaby refinery up for sale last year. But Byrne said that even if all the stations for sale are closed, Chevron will still have 19 stations in the city, including a small station at 3^rd and Burrard.

The company that purchased the Chevron station on West Georgia is local — Anthem’s vice-president is Kevin Falcon, the former provincial cabinet minister.

But the listing for the Esso station on Burrard seems to be aimed at an international buyer who may not be familiar with the downtown core.

“The property is located on the southwest corner of Burrard Street and Davie Street in Vancouver’s West End, and the gateway to Davie Village,” it reads.

“The West End is located on the Downtown Peninsula, bordering world-renowned Stanley Park, the popular English Bay Beach and the downtown business district.

“The downtown core is located minutes away, making this area an ideal home for office workers, as well as those who seek independence from their cars.”

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.