Noelle Knox
USA Today

With so many For Sale signs hanging in front yards, home prices — which posted a record 3.5% drop last month — are likely to fall through the end of the year, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

The median existing home price fell in October for the third month in the row to $221,000 as more sellers were forced to lower their asking prices. Those price cuts, coupled with a dip in mortgage rates, appear to be making a difference as home sales ended a six-month losing streak and unexpectedly edged up 0.5% in October.

With a 7.4-month supply of homes for sale, “sellers will have to overcome their state of denial and start dropping prices even more to clear this market,” says Joel Naroff, chief economist of Naroff Economic Advisors. “And once that happens, we will then have to convince buyers that prices have stopped falling. We are a long way from that point.”

Buyers were more interested in buying single-family homes than condos last month.

The median price for an existing, single-family home was $221,300, down 3.4% from October last year. Sales of existing single-family homes rose 1.3% from September, but were down 11% from October last year.

Condo owners felt even pain as the median price skidded 5.3% to $214,300. Sales dropped 4.8% from September and 14.5% below October a year ago.

There may be a silver lining: the faster the price declines, the faster the correction will be over.

“We do not believe that housing has yet hit bottom, but the steepest declines are probably behind us,” says Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for Global Insight.

The hardest hit last month were homeowners in the South, where the median price plunged 7% to $185,000 from a spike in October. Home sales slipped 1.2% from September to October, and were 8.8% below a year ago.

In the Northeast, prices skidded 5.2% to $254,000. Sales declined 2.9% from September, and were 9.8% off from October last year.

The median price in the Midwest was $170,000, a dip of 1.2% below October last year. Sales were flat, but off 10.2% compared with October last year.

The median price in the West was $340,000, down 0.6% from October 2005. Sales rose 6.4% from September to October, but were 18.9% lower than a year earlier.

Lower mortgage rates might help explain part of the bounce. The average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate loan fell to 6.36% from 6.4% in September.

Home replacement costs are soaring as labour and materials get more costly

Michael Kane
Sun

B.C. homeowners are being urged to make sure they have enough insurance to pay for rebuilding if disaster strikes in this era of skyrocketing construction costs and rampant renovation.

Some could find the replacement cost quoted in their homeowner policies is inadequate if it hasn’t been raised to reflect soaring prices for labour and materials, said Lindsay Olson, Pacific region vice-president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Others could be left holding the bag if they’ve failed to notify their insurer about improvements that have added value to their property.

“You should let your insurer know if you’ve added a deck or taken out the wall-to-wall and put in hardwood floors, or whatever,” Olson said.

The replacement cost needs to be sufficient to restore the value lost in a fire, or other catastrophe, and also to pay for demolition and debris removal.

Insurance premiums can be reduced if improvements make an older home safer, as happened to Graham Simms of North Vancouver’s Lynn Valley.

As part of a major $140,000 renovation on his 1958-era home, he replaced old wiring and the original fuse box with modern breakers. Although the replacement value of the home is up from $165,000 to $225,000, Vancouver-based Canadian Direct Insurance reduced his annual premium from $522 to $330.

“We have changed the majority of the house and they view it as newer,” Simms said. “So I am very pleased.”

Typically premiums rise with the value of the home. Homeowners should also bear in mind that it takes longer to get work done in today’s overactive market which pushes up carrying costs and time in temporary accommodation, said Larry Dybvig of Vancouver real estate appraisers Grover Elliott & Co.

He recommends additional “bylaw coverage” for owners of older homes in case current municipal building codes require the replacement home to be built to a higher standard than applied to the original building.

A study by Dybvig’s firm earlier this year found that residential construction costs have risen by about 50 per cent over the past five years.

The replacement cost is normally far less than the market value of the property, which includes the land, but much more than the market value of the structure.

“A house built in 1928 that the market might value at $25,000 clearly would cost a lot more to replace,” cautioned Jason Grant of the BC Assessment Authority.

Most insurers build inflation protection into their policies so that the property continues to be insured for its value if there is a total or partial loss, said Karen Hopkins-Lee, chief underwriter with Canadian Direct Insurance.

“This year we have applied a five-per-cent inflationary factor but we are actually going through another review to ensure that it is adequate for greater Vancouver,” Hopkins-Lee said.

“There was a tremendous jump after the Kelowna fires when all of this came to light. It is something that undergoes continuous review.”

Easily 25 per cent of the homes destroyed in the 2003 Okanagan fires were under-insured, some by as much as 50 per cent, said Fred Lindsay of Kelowna’s A1 Appraisals.

However, owner-occupiers with guaranteed replacement cost written into their policies received the full replacement cost, Lindsay said, while out-of-town owners who rented out their properties received only the amount stated in their policies.

“If the replacement cost was $200,000 and owners of the rental homes only had the house insured for $120,000, then they got $120,000.”

Since the fires, Lindsay said insurers in the Okanagan have become much more diligent in trying to ensure that everybody has accurate replacement cost coverage.

“Over the past two or three years everybody has seen their insurance premiums going up but if you look at your policy, you will also see that they have increased the amount of insurance on your house significantly.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

Olympic disruptions are a problem facing all strata councils

Tony Gioventu
Province

Q Each year my wife and I travel somewhere exotic in the world. We often rent our unit for three to six months to similar people from other countries wanting the B.C. experience.

Only now we’ve been told by our strata council that we cannot have short-term rentals any more, even though our bylaws don’t define what a short-term rental is.

We tried applying for a hardship exemption, but one of the council members accused us of trying to live in the lap of luxury at the expense of the other owners who have to put up with our tenants.

Isn’t there some sort of intervention by the government when the strata corporation acts unfairly against owners?

— Tomas Wong, Vancouver

A The Strata Property Act is self-regulating legislation and the provincial government does not regulate the Act or intervene if there is non-compliance. Strata corporations resolve their disputes either through agreement, mediation, arbitration or through the courts.

Your strata adopted a bylaw in 2002 that prohibits rentals entirely, except for exemptions granted by the act and for hardship rentals.

So short-term rentals such as yours would be prohibited as well.

(The decision to grant a hardship exemption is decided by the strata council, not by individual council members).

Your question does raise a business matter that applies to every B.C. strata corporation and their rental bylaws as we approach 2010.

Owners who might be looking to earn a quick profit by renting their units short-term during the Olympics may find they face stiff penalties if they are in violation of the bylaws.

There are security issues with multiple access keys and a higher rate of transient visitors.

The spirit of the games will result in vacationers wanting to celebrate and access the buildings at odd hours, resulting in noise and disruptions.

Damage caused to buildings and common property by visitors and revelers will end up costing landlords and the strata. Parking is already in short supply, so allocations for visitor and tenant parking will be at a premium.

Extra pressure will be placed on common areas, exercise rooms, pools and laundry facilities.

All of these issues can easily be anticipated through strata bylaws long before the event making the games a great asset rather than a rental headache after they’re done.

Tony Gioventu is the executive director of the Condominium Home Owners Association (CHOA). Contact CHOA at 604-584-2462 or toll-free 1-877-353-2462, fax 604-515-9643 or e-mail [email protected]

© The Vancouver Province 2006

 

BOUTIQUE TOWNHOMES: Company known for custom mansions brings exacting detail to this little jewel

Jeani Read
Province

We’re thinking exclusive as well as central when we look at Maison and its unique boutique townhomes.

Formwerks and Listraor have teamed up to make a little jewel of a residential project, designed to extend the heritage look of the character neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant (now quickly being upscaled into South Main, or SoMa).

It blends traditional exteriors with new interiors for the best of both worlds in this historical streetscape, says Ken Leong, president of Re/Max Ken Leong, Maison marketers.

“We wanted to add to and complement the streetscape,” he says. “We have other examples around us of buildings that blend in as well. It blends old and new in a perfect location.”

Maison is on a beautiful corner, too, says Leong, who loves the view through the development’s iron-gate entry, of the three silver steeples of an old Greek Orthodox church — as well as the city views and street views the townhomes enjoy, with their graceful old trees and homes.

Known as specialists in custom mansions, Formwerks has only recently stepped into the boutique townhome field, with great results. The company has taken detailing to a whole new level, right up to the custom-made black, rounded downspouts that reflect the proper period — plus millwork and brickwork that’s reflective of the original heritage specifications.

The location is impeccable, too, with the boutiques, cafes, restaurants, galleries, grocery stores and delis of SoMa right at hand and Whole Foods and the new Canada transit line expected a few blocks away in a few years.

There’s shopping at City Square at 12th and Cambie, and a new community centre under construction at Kingsway and 7th.

The future Olympic Village is right at the foot of Quebec and a huge new park is going in on the east side of Cambie Bridge — “the epicentre of many different things,” says Leong. There’s fancy west-side stuff along Cambie, and the hip, antiquey and new local design shops along SoMa. Wallpaper Magazine did a writeup on SoMa, says Leong, dropping an ultra-cool name, saying “SoMa is ‘it.'”

But it’s the housing that’s the most important story, says Leong. Maison has the benefits of single-family housing within the price-point of multiple-dwelling homes. “There are plenty of apartment-style homes available in Vancouver, but few single-family ones within the price range of many buyers,” he says.

Here, you get your own street address, nobody above you, and many homes have both front and back access in the rowhouse tradition, making them feel like separate dwellings.

As well, Formwerks has obsessed about the individual homes’ detailing as much as the larger development’s. Check out the front doors with their burnished-metal hardware and charming glass inserts, the mullioned windows framing those pretty views and the top-floor master suites — some of which come complete with a small den to the side, for that late-night TV viewers, that 24/7 computer junkie or

. . . yes . . . that baby.

Considering almost all of the buyers for Maison are in their 30s with young kids or kids on the way, that’s a detail tha could mean a lot.

Granite counters, solid wood cabinetry, stainless appliances, high ceilings, spa-like bathrooms with extra storage — drawers and a custom linen closet — go a long way to finish the package. As ReMax Leong might say, “Call it home.”

Wait. They DO say that.

And the best part? No waiting. Or, hardly any. Occupancy is any day now. Some lucky people are already there.

QUICK FACTS

MAISON

What: Maison is 14 townhomes in Vancouver

Where: South Main

Developer: Formwerks Development Ltd. and Listraor Development Corporation.

Sizes: Two-bedroom and den and three-bedroom homes; 1,141 sq.ft. — 1,346 sq.ft.

Prices: $549,900 — $649,900

Open: Open Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m., 10th at Quebec, 604 609-2600, www.maisonliving.ca.

© The Vancouver Province 2006

 

Capitol Residences finishes have flourish

Michael Sasges
Sun

There’s no business like show business, Irving Berlin once wrote (and Ethel Merman frequently sang). Please think of residency in the sixth, and final, Vancouver Sun condo-giveaway contest prize as an opportunity to discover how true that declaration might be.

The Capitol Residences, location of the Week 6 prize, will rise 43 floors above downtown Vancouver’s Seymour Street, its exceptional ascent expedited by a historic agreement between developer and city hall on additions to the Orpheum Theatre next door.

The Capitol Residences developers, Wall Financial Corp. and Rob Macdonald of Macdonald Development Corp., have agreed to construct a bigger stage for the Orpheum, a rehearsal hall and music school and loading and unloading facilities.

The city agreed to increase the allowable square footage – and, therefore, height – of the Capitol Residences project.

The agreement is the largest ”cultural-amenities” agreement in city history.

”It’s very rare to get 43 storeys in a residential tower,” says Bob Rennie, the organizer of the Capitol Residences sales and marketing campaign.

” . . . from levels 30 on there will be amazing views, right over to English Bay. And the height was only achieved through helping the Orpheum and the [Vancouver] Symphony [Orchestra].”

The apartments in the Capitol Residences will be built to – in Rennie’s words – ”penthouse-worthy” specifications, with lots of stone and steel and “architectural” plumbing fixtures.

The prize home will be located on the tower’s eighth floor, a one-bedroom, one-bath residence of almost 600 sq. ft. Views will be to the south.

In the kitchens, the floors will be finished with marble tile; the counters and splashes, with granite or stone slab; and the cabinet doors will be frameless, with the upper doors glass. The developer has selected a GE stainless-steel appliance package, including a gas cooktop; a stainless steel sink from Kindred; and a single-level faucet with sprayer from American Standard.

In the bathrooms, more marble tile will be under foot. Limestone or marble slab will top countertops and splash. Vanities, double and single, will feature porcelain basins and American Standard faucets and fixtures.

Features all residents will enjoy include a concierge; a residential terrace; a fitness centre; meeting rooms; and a lounge.

Capitol Residences previewing will begin this weekend, Rennie reports, with selling scheduled to begin in February.

Sky Diner, Silk Hat: Where did they go?

 

Shelley Fralic, Vancouver Sun

Published: Saturday, November 25, 2006

You’ve likely been caught sneaking a peek at the downtown Vancouver skyline and wondering, perhaps with fondness, whatever happened to all those lovely old low-rise buildings, with their thicket of neon signage, that once populated our urban core.

That nostalgic reminiscence has never been more apt than for the corner of Georgia and Granville, where the stately six-storey 1927 Hudson’s Bay building once towered over the streetscape, and where the sidewalks that head south to the bridge were once dotted with popular dance halls, discreet supper clubs and eateries with fanciful names like Clancy’s Sky Diner and The Silk Hat.

Today, of course, the downtown core has grown up into a forest of tall steel and glass towers, some residential, most built for business, but each seeming to jostle for bragging rights as Vancouver’s newest, biggest and shiniest on the block.

The rush to civic maturity has changed the downtown profile forever, and while many would argue that it’s not for the better, it’s an urban planning debate you can’t help but lose.

Because every successful city has to grow up, and while it doesn’t always happen gracefully, densification is inevitable.

And Vancouver’s downtown body mass has certainly morphed into something quite different than the shape it showed at birth.

Nowhere is that more evident than at the corner of Georgia and Granville, arguably the city’s most famous intersection.

If you took that trip down memory lane, you’d know that it’s here the let’s-meet-at-7 p.m. Birk’s clock once stood, before the stately landmark, and its store, moved north to the corner of Hastings.

It’s here that post-war lovebirds would link arms on a summer night and meander south toward the Granville bridge, under a thicket of neon, perhaps to catch a movie in one of the old single-screen cinemas, or enjoy a pint at The Castle.

Granville Street still attracts the crowds, of course, but its millennial mien is less romantic and somewhat harder-edged these days, morphing as it did in the mid-’70s into a hotly debated pedestrian mall now boasting a motley mix of dodgy shops (arcades and tattoo parlours) alongside chic boutiques (David Gordon Shoes).

The single-screen movie houses also transformed, their chandeliers, pipe organs and heavy velvet drapes lost to modernization in the rush to create a new entertainment experience called the multi-plex.

The Capitol Theatre, which opened in 1921, was the granddaddy of the original Granville theatre row, the patriarch of an entertainment family that included the Vogue, the Coronet, the Odeon and the Orpheum.

It was also the first downtown theatre to undergo major renovation, when it was subdivided in the 1970s and fitted out with six brand new movie screens, the biggest in the region.

And so it served the core, for the next 30 years, filling seats and popping corn until the suburbs and the really big multi-plexes rendered it somewhat obsolete for the sophisticated cinephile.

Today, the Capitol is cashing in one of its nine lives, its screens having gone to black and its site now set to take shape as a 43-storey skyscraper called the Capitol Residences, a condominium complex that is among the six developments featured in The Vancouver Sun’s Condo Giveaway Contest.

It’s all part of a Georgia and Granville renaissance that is taking its lead from Coal Harbour to the north and Yaletown to the east, where residential neighbourhoods have handily taken root in the footprints of old Vancouver.

It’s part of a transition, too, in our city’s modern real estate universe, one that is seeing more and more house hunters, first-time buyers and empty-nesters alike, choosing the authentic urban life, choosing to wake up every day right in the thick of things.

They’re eschewing square footage and white picket fences for a frontyard cluttered with four-star hotels, glass-fronted department stores, industrial views, noisy transportation routes and overflowing office towers.

It’s all about lifestyle literally on your doorstep, and that the Georgia and Granville address comes with a priceless Vancouver pedigree, a nostalgic scrapbook of the city’s memories, is as it should be.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

REAL ESTATE I The value of sales shot up 51 per cent to $91 million in a year

Derrick Penner
Sun

Real estate markets in British Columbia’s resource-rich North are continuing to boom with rocketing sales and prices, which defy the slowing trend across the rest of the province.

The B.C. Northern Real Estate Board saw a 29.5-per-cent jump in Multiple-Listing-Service-recorded sales during October compared with a year ago, the B.C. Real Estate Association reported Friday.

The value of those sales also shot up 50.5 per cent to $91 million compared with $60.5 million a year ago.

The North’s 523 transactions in October represent only seven per cent of the 7,196 sales across B.C., but Northern Board president Ted Shepherd said the dramatic rise reflects the optimism of communities witnessing a resurgence of forestry, oil and gas drilling, mining and port construction in Prince Rupert.

“You have to realize, when the boom started down south, the North was still lagging behind,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd added that in Prince Rupert, where he works as a realtor, prices declined from 1999 to the spring of 2005.

“So the increase [in sales and prices] is a recent thing,” he added. “We’re just playing catch up.”

Buyers in the newly resurgent North include investors from bigger cities, Shepherd said, but improved economic prospects are also drawing regional expatriates back home and spurring northerners to buy recreational property.

The B.C. Northern Real Estate Board stretches from Prince Rupert through Prince George to the Alberta border including Fort St. John and Fort Nelson, but excluding Dawson Creek.

Cameron Muir, chief economist for the B.C. Real Estate Association, said there is typically a lag between the rise in demand and growth in supply to satisfy it.

In the meantime, buyers, especially people moving into the markets, bid up prices to make sure they can secure homes.

“It’s been a few years since we’ve been able to look at the North as the [top growth market] in the province,” Muir said. “And that’s a result of those factors in their regional economy around resources.”

New-housing construction in the United States has cooled, which will be of concern to northern forest-industry communities, but Muir added that demand in other commodity sectors, such as coal, oil and gas and other minerals, remains strong.

Provincially, however, sales slid by 11 per cent in October to 7,196 units compared with 8,112 in October 2005, the fourth straight month of decline.

A lot of the decline, Muir added, has to do with the average house price rising 20 per cent to $410,728 in October compared with a year ago.

Overall, Muir said the economy is doing well with solid gross-domestic-product growth, strong employment growth and wage increases that are outpacing inflation. “That underpins the housing market,” Muir added.

“The difference now is that we’ve seen such a run up of prices . . . now, we’re reaching the point at which consumers’ affordability limits are being reached.”

However, as long as interest rates remain relatively low and the economy holds, Muir doesn’t believe there will be any significant correction in real estate prices.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006