Agassiz 47 acres with riverfront sells $1.4 million over assessment

Re/Max Nyda Realty
Western Investor

— Group, Re/Max Nyda Realty, Agassiz, B.C., for Western Investor

Property type: Land

Location: 920 Hamilton Road, Agassiz, B.C.

Land size: 47 acres

Zoning: RR1 (rural residential)

Potential: Residential development

BC Assessment value (2020): $304,000

List price: $1.94 million

Sale price: $1.70 million

Brokerage: 3A Group, Re/Max Nyda Realty, Agassiz, B.C.

Brokers: Freddy Marks and Linda Marks

 

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

New 32-storey office tower set for Vancouver

Frank O’Brien
Western Investor

— New tower for 1166 West Pender opens in 2024 or 2025. | Reliance Properties

Reliance Properties of Vancouver has teamed with Texas-based Hines, one of the largest private real estate developers in the world, to announce a new 32-storey office tower at 1166 West Pender Street in downtown Vancouver.

This will be Hines’ first project in Vancouver, and the partnership is seen as the most notable office activity in Vancouver since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak more than a year ago.

“Reliance and Hines initiated and completed the partnership during the global pandemic, and our joint project will be the first post-COVID-19 office tower delivered in Vancouver that prioritizes health, safety and wellness into the design in a way not yet seen,” said Jon Stovell, president and CEO of Reliance Properties.

The site is the former Vancouver office for the Canada Revenue Service. That 140,000 square foot building will be demolished to make way for the new 361,000-square-foot Class AAA tower.

One of the major focal points of the project,and unique to Vancouver, will be the tower’s uppermost floors. The V-shaped top nine levels will feature private outdoor terraces, increasing new health, safety and wellness protocols. Underground parking will prioritize employee wellness with more bike stalls than parking stalls.

“Hines is one of the premier office builders in the world,” said Robert Levine, a partner and office specialist with commercial brokerage Avison Young, Vancouver, “I know Hines has been looking at the Vancouver market for years. I think it is a great testament to Vancouver that they are coming into the city now.”

Hines, headquarterd in Houston, currently has 165 developments underway around the world. Its property and asset management portfolio includes 576 commercial and residential properties, representing more than 246 million square feet, including approximately 13 million square feet in Canada.

“We chose Vancouver because we believe in its world-class economy and future, and this partnership was a natural fit because of Reliance Properties’ commendable track record and our shared values,” said Syl Apps, senior managing director for Hines. The company currently has Canadian operations in Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton.

A CBRE official called the announcement “a major boost in confidence.”

“Vancouver’s downtown office market activity has returned to approximately 85 per cent normal, albeit mostly small transactions,” said Blair Quinn, vice chairman of CBRE’s Vancouver commercial brokerage office.

According to Avison Young, the downtown vacancy rate as of the end of 2020 was 6.6 per cent, up from 4.4 per cent a year earlier, with more than 1.5 million square feet vacant, including about 560,000 square feet of excess space shoved back onto the market as subleases since the pandemic began.

“We know how important [safety and wellnes] will be to employees as they return to the office post-COVID-19 – and our objective was to design a building in partnership with Reliance that best helps our tenants attract and retain the highest-quality employees and talent in the Vancouver market,” Apps added.

The tower will target LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) WELL (a standard for advancing health and well-being in buildings) and WiredScore (improving tenant health through sustainable design and operational strategies) certifications.

There is no pre-leases signed as yet in the new tower, which is scheduled to complete in late 2024 or early 2025.

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

Toronto housing market raised to “high risk”

Ari Altstedter
Mortgage Broker News

 Canada’s housing agency raised its risk assessment for the Toronto market to high, while also warning of overheating at the national level as the pandemic-driven surge in home prices shows no signs of slowing.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. now rates five of the country’s major markets as having a “high degree of vulnerability” to a sharp correction in prices, with Ottawa and Halifax joining the smaller centres of Hamilton and Moncton in the category.

Across the country, 76% of homes brought to market in the three months through December were sold in the same period, a threshold that indicates overheating nationally, according to the agency’s Housing Market Assessment, released Wednesday.

“What we’re trying to do here is identify the kind of vulnerabilities that could be the precursors to market corrections or house-price corrections,” Bob Dugan, chief economist at the CMHC said in a conference call with reporters. “Those are the kind of conditions that could lead to downward pressure on house prices, or a downward correction on house prices.”

The combination of rock-bottom mortgage rates and the pandemic-induced desire for bigger living spaces has pushed Canada’s housing market to record levels over the past year. Smaller cities and suburbs have posted the biggest gains as the rise of remote work liberated buyers to look farther afield from where their employers are based.

Policy makers are being urged to take action to cool the market, as the continued run-up in prices threatens to exacerbate the gulf between the rich and the poor and may sow the seeds for a destabilizing drop in values later.

Toronto Gains

In Toronto, Canada’s biggest city, the CMHC’s increased risk assessment was driven by an acceleration of price growth, with ground-level homes and suburban parts of the metropolitan area leading the way, according to the report. Excess inventory in the rental market, due in part to a near halt to immigration during the pandemic, also contributed.

Outside Toronto, the four cities with the highest risk assessments — such as Hamilton, or scenic and more affordable Ottawa or Halifax — have been top destinations for those willing to move as far as necessary to find a bigger home or a better quality of life.

But the trend’s biggest impact has been on much smaller communities, including Tilsonburg or Woodstock in Ontario, each with 35% annual price gains through February. Dugan cautioned that the CMHC doesn’t conduct separate risk assessments for those areas.

“When you thought about price acceleration, you used to talk about places like Toronto and Vancouver,” Dugan said. “It doesn’t come through as loud and clear in the national numbers when some of the imbalances are occurring outside” the largest cities.

 

Copyright © 2021 Key Media

Metro Vancouver real estate market at ‘moderate’ degree of vulnerability: CMHC

Cheryl Chan
The Province

The Canadian Real Estate Association says Canadian home sales through its multiple listing service system dropped by 2.3 per cent last month compared with October. Photo by Richard Buchan/The Canadian Press

Metro Vancouver has a “moderate” degree of vulnerability in its housing market largely because of too many new rental units sitting empty, said the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. in a report Thursday.

It singled out excess inventory in new rental apartments, which has been hit hard by a drop in immigration and the number of international students, and loss of renters working in the service industry who may have lost their jobs due to the pandemic.

The excess inventory can be seen in the higher vacancy rate for newly completed apartments “that are asking for rents that are more than what is demanded by the market in these times,” said Eric Bond, senior specialist at CMHC. “Operators of those buildings might see some financial head winds in the short term.”

But this excess inventory is specifically in newly completed rental units, he noted, and does not reflect the broader rental market.

“Overall the region continues to face a shortage of rental housing options suitable for households with different incomes,” said Bond. “In the medium to long-term, new supply will be crucial to increasing housing access in the future.”

The report found that housing sales saw an “elevated level of activity” in late 2020 and into 2021, while new listings were falling in submarkets, increasing competition for scarcer homes. MLS prices increased 12 per cent year over year, it said, a pace not seen since 2017.

Sales rose faster than new listings in most areas in Metro Vancouver, showing a shift toward a seller’s market compared to a year ago, said the report.

It said overheating — where demand outpaces supply in the housing market consistently — is not currently a concern, but Bond noted this report is backwards-looking, analyzing data from the first quarter of 2021 and the last quarter of 2020.

Recent stories of homes selling quickly or selling significantly higher than asking prices may be an indication the trend will continue its uptick. “The market is quite active for buyers and sellers re-entering the market after taking a pause last year,” he said

 

© 2021 The Province

B.C. rental builds up despite freeze on rental rates

Wl Staff
Western Investor

 — Telus and Omicron are co-developers on 178-unit Nanaimo rental project. | Omicron

British Columbia’s restrictive rental environment, which includes a freeze on rental increases this year, and rising vacancy rates for new rentals has apparently had little effect on multi-family developers.

As of February, 768 new purpose-built rental apartments had started construction in Metro Vancouver, up 34% from a year earlier, and adding to the 5,207 units that broke ground in 2020, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC).

Yet, while the Metro Vancouver vacancy has increased to 2.6 per cent this year, up from the 1.1 per cent range since 2018, the vacancy rate for the more expensive apartments in new rental buildings spiked to 6.2 per cent.

In the City of Vancouver, the vacancy rate for new rental buildings – completed in the past five years – soared from 1.4 per cent to 8.7 per cent, year-over-year, according to CMHC.

B.C. has also capped any rental increases to the rate of inflation once the current 18-month rental freeze ends.

Still, a boom in new rental apartments is building from Metro Vancouver to Vancouver Island.

Starlight Developments, a division of Starlight Investments, has submitted a rezoning proposal to the City of Burnaby for the biggest rental build in B.C.

The proposal includes the retention of four concrete rental towers with 528 units and the addition of three high-rise, concrete towers and 1,200 new rental homes – totaling 1,728 suites when the development is complete.

The Starlight property is within the City of Burnaby’s Lougheed Town Centre Plan, which calls for the transformation of the area into a dense, mixed-use community supported by rapid transit.

Starlight is the largest multi-residential owner-operator in Canada. It’s British Columbia portfolio has grown significantly with recent $4.8 billion purchase of the Northview Apartment Real Estate Investment Trust portfolio, and Aqua at Plaza 88, a rental housing tower, in New Westminster. Starlight now manages approximately 4,800 rental suites in the province.

Vancouver Island

Meanwhile, telecommunication giant Telus and partner Omicron, of Vancouver, are proposing a $70-million project with 197 rental units in Nanaimo’s Old City Quarter as public and private sector investment in the city’s construction sector is shaping up to have another strong year.

“We are seeing a trend this year toward public investment,” Jeremy Holm, Nanaimo’s director of development approvals, said Tuesday.

 Despite the pandemic, Holm anticipates 2021 building permit value will be similar to 2020 which reached $243 million. Of that, $203.8 million went to residential construction, 65% of which was rentals.

Interest in investing in Nanaimo is coming from off-Island developers, including Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, Holm said.

The Telus Living Nanaimo proposal would be one of the city’s largest private-sector rental projects, Holm said. Up to 500 residents would live on site once complete.

This proposal would see 1.75 acres subdivided off Telus’ existing 2.75-acre property, where it has its Nanaimo office.

Units would rent at market rates said Pablo Yuste, architect and principal at Omicron, which is providing development management, design, engineering, and construction management.

“This project is strategically focused at the middle rental market as this is the area that is currently underserved,” he said in an email.

The two six-storey buildings, covering 164,000 square feet, would be connected through landscaping. Construction cost is pegged at $50 million, Yuste said.

Nanaimo would receive $2 million in development fees and the project is expected to create between 650 to 700 jobs.

Omicron is planning for a development permit approval this spring. Construction would take approximately 24 to 30 months, he said.

Other housing projects include a two-building, 79-unit rental development on Haliburton Street on the city’s south end by Parkshore Projects Ltd. Approved in January 2021, it follows a similar project next door by the same developer.

-With files from Times Colonist

 

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

Bank of Canada lays out plans for quantitative easing

Shelly Hagan
Mortgage Broker News

 The Bank of Canada provided the greatest guidance yet into how it plans to slow purchases of government bonds as the economic recovery accelerates, fueling expectations it could begin doing so as soon as April.

In a speech on Tuesday, Deputy Governor Toni Gravelle said the central bank is winding down emergency liquidity programs it deployed to grease markets when the coronavirus hit last year, including programs to buy provincial and corporate debt. He also provided insight into how the central bank plans to pare back its main government bond purchasing program — including a pledge that any tapering will be gradual.

Policy makers have been buying a minimum of CA$4 billion in federal government bonds each week to help keep borrowing costs low. Economists say that pace may no longer be warranted, with an outlook that appears to show the economy growing at a much stronger clip than officials had been expecting.

Tapering in April is “as near a certainty as these things can be,” Andrew Kelvin, chief Canada strategist at TD Securities, said by email. “If they were planning on maintaining bond purchases at these levels, it would’ve made sense to push back against tapering expectations.”

The central bank also wants to avoid taking ownership of too large a share of the outstanding bond market. Currently, the bank owns a little more than 35% of the total market of outstanding government of Canada bonds. Governor Tiff Macklem has said that when holdings rise above 50%, market functioning could get distorted.

In remarks before the CFA Society Toronto, Gravelle highlighted how the tapering process will work, indicating the central bank is seriously considering the option. He said the process will be “gradual and in measured steps” and will conclude with net purchases at zero when the “recovery is well underway.”

“We will eventually get down to a pace of QE purchases that maintains — but no longer increases — the amount of stimulus being provided,” Gravelle said.

The timing of getting to this so-called “reinvestment phase” will be guided by the central bank’s economic outlook, said Gravelle. Adjustments to the program are distinct from any change to the policy interest rate, he added, downplaying any chance of an imminent hike of the Bank of Canada’s 0.25% overnight policy interest rate.

“It won’t necessarily mean that we have changed our views about when we will need to start raising the policy interest rate,” Gravelle said.

Financing Facilities

With the discontinuation of some of its programs, Gravelle said the maturity of short-term funding facilities held by the central bank will reduce its balance sheet to about CA$475 billion by the end of April, about CA$100 billion smaller than its current level.

Gravelle said the central bank will suspend its main short-term financing facility in May and won’t extend three other asset purchase programs expiring in coming weeks for commercial paper, provincial bonds and corporate bonds. It doesn’t intend to sell assets it already bought in the corporate or provincial bond purchase programs.

The bank’s decision to end its emergency programs about a year after initiating them is a testament to the recovery in market functioning and global financial conditions, he said.

“We can take these steps because now there is ample system-wide liquidity for financial institutions to draw from,” Gravelle said. He noted the bank can reactivate any market programs should market stress re-emerge.

 

Copyright © 2021 Key Media

Butler Mortgage CEO talks new role

Fergal McAlinden
Mortgage Broker News

For Dave Butler (pictured), there are few things more important in business than branding.

As CEO of Butler Mortgage, the industry veteran has overseen the company’s growth into a mortgage giant from coast to coast. Now, he has his sights on developing another of its brands, taking a step back from his role as the company’s lead agent to focus on its premium BM Select service.

The move had been in the pipeline for a while, with Butler having long noted the potency of the company’s two distinct brands: the more rates-focused Butler Mortgage, and the service-oriented Select division. “What’s very unique to our brokerage is the fact that it has two different brands,” he said. “You’ve got the Butler Mortgage side, [where] it’s a rates game, and then you’ve got the other side of the company, BM Select, whose logo says it all: ‘premium service, select clientele.’

“Our side of the company is not focused on interest rates – we are focused on service and we are focused on planning. We are looking for select clientele: if you want someone to give you the premium service, to have four different people at that organization monitoring your file at all times, then you need premium service and you are a select clientele.”

Butler, whose focus has switched to developing the Select brand by bringing in new staff and getting its social media and online presence up and running, noted with pride the company’s commitment to its distinct divisions.

“We think it’s interesting that our brokerage has been able to identify, promote and build two brands,” he said. “I’m old school, maybe; I think brands are everything. I believe business comes down to branding. I think it’s really interesting to note that a very small brokerage with no more than nine licensed agents on it is doing one billion dollars’ worth of volume – and we’re doing it with two distinct brands.”

Indeed, with Butler having built much of his success around referrals rather than online traffic, there seemed ample opportunity to grow BM Select by focusing on that side of the business – with the added benefit that Daniel Patton, the division’s vice president and director of sales, has stepped seamlessly into Butler’s lead agent role.

“The whole point – and Dan and I have talked [about this] for many years – was to get me out so that I could focus on building the infrastructure within our organization: getting more and more underwriters and fulfilment people, so that we can then go and hit our database, and we can market and try to bring in more leads,” he explained.

As for the landscape BM Select faces as its expansion takes off? While Butler said he remained cautious against making predictions, he viewed the current Canadian housing market as “vibrant.”

“We think it’s an interesting time, because we welcome growth in the Canadian real estate market,” he said. “We also don’t mind if there’s consolidation. The supply and demand issue is going to be [a factor] moving forward for the next couple of years; we don’t think that there’s going to be much of a downtrend, but a levelling off would be very healthy.”

BM Select’s performance over the last several years has been spectacular, with Butler chalking up multiple accolades for his yearly mortgage volume funded. Still, he said that he expected that success to multiply in the coming years amid the division’s ambitious expansion.

“We have a goal,” he said, “that we will go from $500 million for our particular team to over $1 billion. We want to double our volume in the next three to five years. We’re going to be [hiring] double and triple the staff that we currently have now. My job is to build that team, and let Dan handle the rest.”

 

Copyright © 2021 Key Media

New deep-water port pitched for near Powell River, B.C.

Glacier Media
Western Investor

 — Powell River in B.C.’s Jervis Inlet. | Submitted

A deep-water port has been proposed for B.C.’s Jervis Inlet aimed at increasing the West Coast’s container cargo capacity.

Jervis Ports Inc. (JPI) is proposing the $10 billion facility near Powell River to reduce Lower Mainland road traffic and Port of Vancouver supply chain congestion and wait time problems.

Among the proponents of the port is former BC Liberal Party leader Gordon Wilson.

Gary Fibrance had been JPI’s president until his death in January.

“Jervis Ports Inc. is a private company that has as its primary corporate mandate the examination of the potential for establishing a West Coast port facility primarily for container importation and bulk export excluding oil related products from and to the Asian markets,” said Wilson, who recently assumed the role of company president.

“We are actively in discussion with potential First Nations partners and as such any public discussion on our part at this time would be premature and inappropriate.”

The company was incorporated in May 2020.

The federal government has prohibited commercial ships from being within 400 metres of whales in marine habitat that is close to the site proposed for the port.

Gus Angus has lived in the area for 45 years. He called the Jervis port idea a pipe dream.

“It’s impossible here,” Angus said. “There are only a few sheltered bays that would ever accommodate large vessels. It’s ludicrous.”

Wilson, a former Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA, did not comment on the whale situation.

But Angus said Jervis Inlet’s marine mammal population has boomed over the years. The area is home to migrating humpback whales as well as resident and transient killer whales.

Angus added that seal and sea lion populations have also increased.

A major part of the puzzle for any Jervis Inlet port is landside logistics: how to move freight to and from dockside and into the North American supply chain via rail or road.

Fibrance was a member of the Third Crossing Society (TCS) advocating for a road link to Powell River from Squamish.

According to JPI’s website, the project would eliminate the need for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s (VFPA) proposed $3 billion Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project currently under review – a project Jervis Ports called “a short-term improvement at best.”

JPI said the Jervis Inlet port would divert rail traffic from the Vancouver region and eliminate the need to spend $3.5 billion to eliminate Metro Vancouver transportation bottlenecks.

VFPA president and CEO Robin Silvester said March 3 that increasing port capacity with projects such as Terminal 2 is essential for Canada to be able to handle the projected growth in transpacific trade. The Port of Vancouver is aware of the Jervis Inlet project proposal but declined to comment on it because it is a project led by others.

Transport Canada spokeswoman Sau Sau Liu said it has received no correspondence regarding JPI’s proposal.

 

 

© Copyright 2020 Western Investor

REX Sues Zillow, the NAR Over Listing Display

Laura Agadoni
other

No matter how thin the pancake, it always has two sides. And that sums up the complaint real estate tech platform REX has with Zillow (NASDAQ: ZG) (NASDAQ: Z) over listing displays.

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It’s a testy time in the residential real estate world, as the traditional way of doing business continues to be shaken up with the meteoric rise of real estate tech companies. These tech outfits are cutting into the action. Traditional Realtors have beefs with industry giant Zillow — a company so meaningful to the industry that 80% of homes in the United States have been viewed on its site.

And smaller tech companies have beefs with Zillow, too. It seems as if everyone in the real estate game is fighting for (what else?) territory. Here’s what’s happening with the latest lawsuit against real estate tech giant Zillow.

REX sues Zillow

REX, a digital platform and full-service real estate brokerage, filed a federal antitrust complaint against Zillow, Trulia, and the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the largest, most powerful real estate trade group in the country, on March 9.

Zillow, the site most people use when home shopping, started on Jan. 12 segregating listings into two tabs: “Agent listings” and “Other listings.” To get in the agent listings tab on Zillow, you need to belong to the NAR. REX is not a member of the NAR, as Zillow and Trulia now are, so REX’s listings fall into the “Other listings” tab, along with people who sell homes “for sale by owner” (FSBO), homes listed by agents who aren’t NAR members, and foreclosures.

REX concludes that having a separate tab for non-NAR members benefits NAR members and hurts non-NAR members. REX claims Zillow is violating antitrust laws by competing unfairly to benefit NAR brokerages, which ultimately hurts consumers.

Is Zillow guilty?

When you search for homes on Zillow, homes that fall under the agent listing tab are displayed first. To see other homes, you need to click the “Other listings” tab. The way REX describes this procedure in its lawsuit is a bit deceiving, however. In it, REX calls the “Other listings” tab a “recessed, obscured, and deceptive tab that consumers do not see.” In reality, here’s what you see:

Image source: Zillow.

REX alleges that because it isn’t a member of NAR and, therefore, doesn’t need to pay NAR fees, it can pass those savings onto homebuyers. That may well be true. And if better deals are to be had on homes listed in the “Other listings” tab, people will click that tab to search for them.

So whether having two tabs hurts REX, start-up companies like REX that aren’t part of the NAR, and homeowners who sell without an agent remains to be seen, as it’s too early to test the theory regarding whether separate tabs favor one group over the other.

Does Zillow have the right to segregate listings?

The question remains as to whether Zillow has the right or, conversely, must segregate listings in the manner in which it’s currently doing. A Zillow spokesperson told Politico that Zillow is “required” to segregate listings based on rules it now must follow. The spokesperson is referring to the fact Zillow is now a participant in the Multiple Listing Services Internet Data Exchange feeds (IDX). The Zillow spokesperson interprets IDX rules to “require participants to segregate listings.”

Here’s what the IDX rule is

REX says Zillow violates antitrust law because it hides listings. And Zillow says it’s required to segregate listings based on its NAR status. Is it?

This is the actual rule, published on NAR’s site: “Where MLS participatory rights are available to non-member brokers or firms as a matter of law or local determination, the right to IDX display of listing information may be limited, as a matter of local option, to participants who are Realtors.”

The Millionacres bottom line

Zillow is the No. 1 real estate listings website in the United States. As such, it engages in practices that not all groups like. But whether Zillow is breaking the law with this one remains to be seen. Real estate investors should keep a close eye on this lawsuit.

Unfair Advantages: How Real Estate Became a Billionaire Factory

You probably know that real estate has long been the playground for the rich and well connected, and that according to recently published data it’s also been the best performing investment in modern history. And with a set of unfair advantages that are completely unheard of with other investments, it’s no surprise why.

But those barriers have come crashing down – and now it’s possible to build REAL wealth through real estate at a fraction of what it used to cost, meaning the unfair advantages are now available to individuals like you.

 

 

© 2018 – 2021 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved.

Teck Resources donates $10 million to help build emergency room at new St. Paul’s Hospital

Tiffany Crawford
The Province

A rendering of the new St. Paul’s Hospital at the False Creek Flats.

Teck Resources Limited has donated $10 million to help build an emergency room at the new $2 billion St. Paul’s Hospital at the Jim Pattison Medical Centre.

The new ER will be named the Teck Emergency Department and will address wait times for access to treatment, non-emergency illnesses and injuries, and help patients with complex mental health and substance use needs, according to the company.

Construction will also include the use of virus-killing copper to protect staff and patients from bacteria and viruses. Teck was also involved in TransLink’s pilot program to install copper on busses and SkyTrain.

St. Paul’s is one of the busiest emergency departments in British Columbia, reaching 85,000 visits a year, up from 65,000 in 2010, according to Teck.

Construction of the new hospital kicked off earlier this month, the largest hospital redevelopment project in B.C.’s history.

The new hospital, on Station Street in the False Creek Flats, will have capacity for up to 548 beds, a net increase of 115 beds over the hospital in downtown Vancouver that it is replacing.

The new facility will be a “full-service” acute-care hospital, and will offer HIV/AIDS care, emergency and critical care, mental health and addictions program, and be home to several provincial programs and referral centres, including heart and lung care, specialty surgeries and transplants, and eating disorders.

It will continue to be a teaching hospital for University of British Columbia medical school students and British Columbia Institute of Technology nursing students.

The hospital is expected to open in 2027.

 

© 2021 The Province