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Archive for September, 2008
Google-powered phone unveiled
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008Sinead Carew, Reuters
Sun
Executives hold the new G1 phone running Google’s Android software in New York September 23, 2008. Photograph by : Reuters/Jacob Silberberg
NEW YORK – T-Mobile USA, a Deutsche Telekom AG unit, will sell the first phone powered by Google Inc’s Android operating system under the brand name T-Mobile G1, said its partner Amazon.com Inc on Tuesday.
The phone, made by Taiwan‘s HTC Corp <2498.TW>, is seen as Google’s answer to Apple Inc’s iPhone and is the Web search leader’s biggest push yet in the cell phone market.
Amazon.com said its digital music store will be loaded on the G1 allowing users to search, download, buy and play over six million songs, pitting the device directly against the iPhone.
The G1 phone has a touch-sensitive screen, a computer-like keyboard, Wi-Fi connections and includes most Google applications and services, including Google Maps with StreetView, Gmail and YouTube.
The new phone will feature Android Market, where customers can find and download applications to expand and personalize their phone.
© Reuters 2008
Incentives designed to lure condo buyers
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008Some projects are trimming prices while others offer help with the mortgage
Derrick Penner
Sun
Property developers are looking to incentives and even price cuts in some cases to tempt buyers into a market that has seen sales slow.
The enticements include decorating allowances, cash back, mortgage buy-downs or upgrades in materials.
Price corrections are happening in specific locations and among specific property types as the market adjusts to one in which homeowners are the dominant buyers and investor buyers exit the scene, according to Jennifer Podmore-Russell, managing partner of the development research firm MPC Intelligence.
Podmore-Russell, in an interview, said some pockets of Surrey saw price adjustments several months ago, as have areas of Langley.
Price cuts, she added, have occurred among projects that used overly aggressive assumptions about price appreciation and needed to be readjusted to levels more competitive with other projects and the newer listings on the realtors’ Multiple Listing Service.
“A normal market doesn’t mean we don’t see price corrections,” Podmore-Russell said. “That’s exactly what it takes to get back to a normal market.”
However, she said “a lot of the pricing changes have been blown out of proportion.”
Her outlook is for sales of new units in the development pre-sale market to average 11,000 to 14,000 per year over the next couple of years, compared with 16,000 in 2007.
Embassy Development Corp. is one developer that has advertised price reductions from two per cent to 12 per cent on the last 11 units in its two-tower Legacy project near Brentwood town centre in Burnaby.
Embassy president Ryan Bosa said the company adjusted the pricing on these specific units because they had “one-off” layouts to fit the structure of the building and probably weren’t the most desirable.
Bosa said the summer was also a slow period for sales, and “we figured we would do a bit of an advertising blitz” to spark more interest, which has worked to drive more traffic to its sales centre.
Developer Ledingham McAllister is offering different incentives on a couple of its projects — a $10,000 decorating allowance on units in its Silhouette project and five-per-cent cash back on September sales in its Perspectives building near Lougheed Town Centre.
Ledingham McAllister president Ward McAllister said incentives are offered during slow sales to encourage buyers “to get off the fence” so the company can meet its sales targets, but he hasn’t seen more than minimal discounting.
“I don’t think there’s much discounting going on in the market at all,” McAllister said. “People are thinking that prices are going to come down, and we don’t believe they are.”
Housing forecasts by Canada Mortgage and Housing and Central 1 Credit Union, he added, support that opinion.
However, McAllister does believe that developers will slow down on new construction over the next while and “supply is going to tighten up drastically.”
Mark Belling, president of Fifth Avenue Real Estate Marketing Ltd., said such incentives are nothing new — they just haven’t been needed over the past few years when investor buyers were a bigger part of the market.
“So incentives have basically shifted from trying to attract investors in more buoyant times to the current time when it’s more about sustainable supply and demand,” Belling said.
And the type of incentive will depend on the market a developer is aiming at, he added.
Projects geared toward first-time buyers, Belling said, might use mortgage buy-downs or other affordability options.
The developer Larco is offering mortgage assistance at its Morgan Creek development in South Surrey in its recent advertising — $13,495 to $23,095 spread out over two years of payments.
Decorating allowances or appliance upgrades, Belling said, might be more common in projects aimed at more discretionary consumers.
“Discounts are happening in the form of incentives, absolutely,” Belling said. “So I think it’s great for consumers.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
Strata Document Review Service
Sunday, September 21st, 2008Other
Council can’t impose fees without rule or bylaw
Sunday, September 21st, 2008Tony Gioventu
Province
Dear Condo Smarts: I own two rental units in Vancouver. A number of us owners have noticed that our strata fees are not being allocated the same way ,so I started asking questions.
Without my knowledge, one of my tenants had requested the additional use of a parking stall. The council granted the request but there was a charge of $125 per month. After three months the tenant stopped paying the rental, so the council decided to add it to my monthly strata fees.
Without advising me, the property manager adjusted my direct withdrawal amount to pay the parking-space rental. Several other owners have also noted similar problems. I have two questions: How do we stop the strata from charging for items we didn’t authorize? And how does the strata get to charge additional rental fees above strata fees?
— JW, Edmonton
Dear JW: Legislation permits the charge of user fees for common property and common assets if the fee is reasonable and it is set out in either a bylaw duly passed and registered by the corporation, or a rule created by council that has been ratified at the next general meeting.
Council itself does not have the ability to impose the fee. Council may create a rule that sets out the conditions of the user fees and the rates, and then the owners by majority vote have to ratify those user fees and rates at their next general meeting.
User fees are designed to permit additional benefits to owners, tenants and occupants on a user-pay basis. They include items such as additional parking, storage lockers, common grounds for uses like greenhouses and community gardens, moorage at marinas, health facilities and golf-course memberships.
Strata councils also need to understand that rules and bylaws are enforced against the individuals who enter into the agreements or violate bylaws. If the tenant stopped paying, the strata corporation has the right to remove the use of the space; it does not have the right to impose this against your strata fees and direct payments without your consent.
It is in the best interest of both the landlord and the tenant to identify such additional costs and bylaw fines and penalties in your tenancy agreement before you agree to the rental. Landlords who rent strata units in B.C. need to be aware that they ultimately are liable for their tenants’ actions if the tenant departs and they are left with fines and costs incurred by the tenant.
A common cost landlords do not anticipate is a large insurance deductible if, for example, the tenant floods the building. If the tenant has no insurance or is unwilling to pay the amount, the landlord may be faced with the cost.
Contact your council or manager and address the matter quickly. If there are additional costs or violations, the strata must — under section 135 of the Strata Property Act of British Columbia — provide you with notice of a violation of a bylaw or rule, and an opportunity of a hearing or written response before any fines or penalties may be imposed.
Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners’ Association (www.choa. bc.ca). E-mail him at tony@ choa.bc.ca.
© The Vancouver Province 2008
Condo buyers kept in dark
Sunday, September 21st, 2008Province
Each day that B.C.’s elected representatives fail to resume their seats in the Legislature serves as a reminder to the rest of us that our politicians have failed in their commitment to serve the people.
One example of their neglect is the failure of then-Liberal finance minister Gary Collins in 2003 to make good on a promise to revamp the inadequate and antiquated Strata Property Act.
It’s been five years and they’ve done diddly squat.
So much for the hundreds of thousands of condo owners and potential strata buyers in B.C. who aren’t getting the homeowners’ protection that is their right.
Indeed, the Vancouver Island Strata Owners Association says many of the more than 460,000 residents in B.C. with condo-property investments are at risk because of strata provisions that haven’t been publicly scrutinized or updated since 1998.
In the meantime, strata home ownership has increased to represent one in four taxable properties in B.C. — generating a sizeable chunk of revenue for the surplus-bloated provincial government.
Victoria‘s insouciance means B.C. is lagging behind other provinces in failing to keep up with the massive changes that have occurred in the strata-ownership market, especially on the West Coast, over the years.
There are a host of key deficiencies in our legislation — according to the association whose extensive review is available at www.visoa.bc.ca — that create hassles and hurdles for condo owners seeking information from, or about, strata councils and developers.
These inadequacies are responsible for many dysfunctional strata communities. They cause stress on owners, particularly first-time buyers and retirees, and help erode the market value of condos. They include: n Lack of adequate requirements for disclosure of property condition and financial data.
n Lack of prosecution or penalties for developers who ignore or breach the law.
n Lack of an adequate dispute-resolution process; the current one does more to indulge irresponsible actions than address them.
n Lack of protection of the rights of strata homeowners due to inadequate standards for licensing strata managers.
One of the most important recommendations brought to the government’s attention by the island association is the need for a dispute-resolution process for strata condo owners similar to the one offered by B.C.’s Residential Tenancy Branch for landlords and tenants.
“Strata owners require simple, direct and affordable access to due process for enforcing the [act] and resolving issues,” the report states.
“The transparency and accountability needed in strata legislation should start with the process used to develop it.” Indeed, condo owners and prospective strata-property buyers have been waiting too long for government to clean up its Act, particularly considering the hefty Property Transfer Tax they’re required to pay the B.C. government on every purchase.
Government estimates of revenue from the PPT for fiscal 2008-09 run as high as $1 billion, a substantial chunk of that money will come from the sales of new and previously owned strata condos.
Their owners deserve better.
© The Vancouver Province 2008
