Property Management in Vancouver

Yaletown is the heart of Vancouver leading the way in in lifestyle and entertainment. Yaletown received  its name in the 19th century when the Canadian Pacific Railroad moved its rail yards and repair facilities from Yale, in theFraserRiver canyon, to the new Yaletown in the False Creek North area. 

Historically it has been known as Vancouver’s warehouse district. This is evident today in the warehouses that line the streets which are protected under Heritage status and still hold there old charm with  exposed bricks and beams in building such as Murchies. Along Homer Streetyou will also several sought after condominium buildings such as The Beasely,  Beresford, Domus, Bentley, 1180 Homer, Ellison, 1241 Homer, and H&H.

Canadian Pacific Railway built a roundhouse in the area, which is still utilized to today as the Roundhouse Community Centre, at the corner of Pacific and Drake. It features the famous Centennial train, which is an important part of our Canadian history. This was the first to cross train to cross Canada upon completion of the railroad.

Yaletown is  home a variety of successful business including fashionable boutiques, pet outfitters, architectural firms, galleries, hair studios, and designer furniture stores. World renowned for its variety of exciting restaurants including: Glowball, The Opus Hotel and Elixer lounge, Goldfish, Coast, Pinky’s, Cacutus club, Yaletown Brewery and of lateTequila Kitchen.  Aamong the many wonderful establishments on Hamiliton Street you will find the stylish residential New Yorker, and Alda.   

Yaletown is a very desirable area for locals and visitors to live and play. Self contained within a small radius of only a few city blocks between Drake and Smith it is a world within itself.  Whatever you are looking for you are sure to find it here with a lifestyle that is second to none which is why many choose Yaletown to call home.

For more information on properties in Yaletown please contact Victoria Farrell www.downtownsuites.com

Housing Market Moderates for Spring-time Buyers

VANCOUVER, B.C. – April 2, 2008 – The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that while there were fewer housing sales in March 2008 compared to last year, residential prices continued to climb. Residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 2,997 in March 2008, a decline of 16.3 per cent from the 3,582 residential sales recorded in March 2007, and a decline of 25.7 per cent compared to the 4,033 sales in March 2006. New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties increased four per cent to 5,674 in March 2008 compared with March 2007, when 5,456 new units were listed.

“The market is continuing to balance, with sales and listings beginning to re-align with our 10-year averages,” says REBGV president, Dave Watt. “The selection of inventory hitting the market is wider than we have seen in the past few years, which gives prospective buyers more choices.” Sales of detached properties declined 20.2 per cent to 1,116 from the 1,399 detached sales recorded during the same period in 2007. The benchmark price, as calculated by the MLS Link Housing Price Index®, for detached properties rose 12.1 per cent from March 2007 to $764,616. Sales of apartment properties in March 2008 declined 10.6 per cent to 1,370, compared to 1,532 sales in March2007. The benchmark price of an apartment property increased 11.5 per cent from March 2007 to $389,609. Attached property sales in March 2008 are down 21.5 per cent to 511, compared with the 651 sales in March 2007. The benchmark price of an attached unit increased 10.6 per cent between March 2007 and 2008 to $473,543.

Craig Munn, Assistant Manager, Communications, REBGV

At Downtown Suites we keep in touch with all the news in the Vancouver market, and pass this information on to our clients.

Green building and green communities are changing the way we imagine housing, living and land use. I was pleased to come across this article by Nicholas Heap entitled, Hot Properties How Global Warming could transform BC’s Real Estate Market. It contains some very interesting information that I  wanted to share with you.

Building for the Future

British Columbians have embraced the construction of new green buildings in the heart of their cities. Since the early 1990s, there has also been a great upsurge of interest in “green” buildings.Green buildings are designed and built in the most environmentally friendly matterpossible every step of the way. Of particular interest to the land development community, perhaps, is the stress that green building approaches place on maximizing occupant health and comfort - objectives achieved through measures such as natural lighting, openable windows, and minimal use of petrochemical-based materials, since these emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Helped in large part by the establishment of the LEED green building standards, the present decade has seen an exponential increase in the visibility and demand for green buildings. Vancouver and Victoria are both home to a series of state-of-the-art green buildings in North America, including the C.K. Choi Building at UBC, the Vancouver Island Technology Park in Saanich, B.C.65, the LEED Platinum Dockside Green development on Victoria’s Inner Harbour 66, and what is described as the world’s greenest building – the CIRS complex now under development in False Creek Flats in Vancouver .67 There have also been an increasing number of developments with green attributes within the Interior of the province in recent years, including the use of ground source heat pumps for a number of large resort condominium developments in the Kamloops region. Even with this rapid growth, one large-scale study concluded that developers of green buildings may be hampering the growth of the sector by underselling the advantages of green buildings. Although the study confirmed that green buildings are indeed “quicker to secure tenants, command higher rents or prices, enjoy lower tenant turnover,” and usually cost less to operate and maintain, it concluded that the greatest financial benefits have been consistently overlooked by the real estate industry.

The scale of productivity and health benefit is potentially enormous, and may exceed the value of all real estate expenditures (not just energy, operations and maintenance but other costs such as rent/mortgage as well). If developers, owners and valuers can understand how to tap this benefit, the commercial advantage that they would gain would become the most significant aspect of Green Value. To date, the rapid development and growth of the green building phenomenon has largely come about through voluntary and market forces, albeit with the active support of the building and planning professions and government regulators. Formal regulatory support for energy-efficient and/or “green” buildings by the provincial government has been limited to measures such as the province’s Energy Efficiency Act (which serves more to prohibit the use of grossly inefficient appliances or building components), and provincial sales tax exemptions for some energy efficient equipment. With its own municipal charter, the City of Vancouver was able to adopt the ASHRAE 90.1 (1989) energy-efficiency standard in 1991, and the City subsequently adopted the stricter ASHRAE 90.1 (2001) standard in 2004.69

Beyond this, one of the most remarkable lifestyle transitions within the past generation has been the reinvention of the downtown core in many of B.C.’s larger urban centres. High density, high-amenity urban neighborhoods are now starting to emerge throughout the Lower Mainland, on Vancouver Island, and in the Okanagan. These fast-growing urban areas are being populated by large numbers of people attracted to a completely different set of Hot Properties. Lifestyle ideals than those used to sell the old ideal of the large lot detached suburban home.

While the expert marketing of these “smart growth” ideals has been a significant factor in the success of B.C.’s emerging new urban form, it is also true that many B.C. residents are independently motivated to live within vibrant and diverse mixed-use neighborhoods in which the use of a car for transportation becomes a choice rather than an obligation.

Hot properties: How global warming could transform B.C.’s real estate sector is © 2007 David Suzuki Foundation ISBN 1-897375-12-3 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data for this book is available through the National Library of Canada

Author, Nicholas Heap

http://www.reibc.org/Conference/Hot_Properties.pdf

Housing starts move higher in February The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 256,900 units in February, up from 222,700 units in January, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).“New home construction in February was boosted by the significant rise in multiple-family starts,” said Bob Dugan, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre. “The robust results achieved this month are mainly attributed to increased condominium starts, which reflect strong condominium sales over the past year or two. Despite this sizeable growth in February, we continue to expect that the trend in housing starts will decrease gradually between now and the end of 2008.”In February the seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts increased 18.0 per cent to 223,700 units compared to January. Urban multiples jumped 30.3 per cent to 140,700 units in February, while singles rose 1.8 per cent to 83,000 units.The seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts increased in four of

Canada’s five regions in February. Urban starts registered an increase of 45.2 per cent in British Columbia, 26.2 per cent in Quebec, 16.9 per cent in the Atlantic region and 16.4 per cent in

Ontario. The Prairies bucked the trend and registered a decline of 9.6 per cent in February. Urban multiple starts were up in all regions except in the

Atlantic and the Prairies. Urban singles were up in all regions except

British Columbia and the Prairies.

Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 33,200 units in February.  Actual starts, in rural and urban areas combined, were up an estimated 8.1 per cent in the first two months of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. In urban areas, actual total starts increased by an estimated 10.4 per cent year-to-date. Actual urban single starts from January to February 2008 were down 11.0 per cent compared to the same period in 2007, while multiple starts grew by approximately 25.9 per cent over the same period.

victoria@downtownsuites.com 

I am excited to be part of the Downtown Suites Sales Team. As a realtor I believe that it is important to have an in depth knowledge of the area in which you are working. I have lived in Vancouver for the majority of my life and my finger is on the pulse of the city and the current market conditions. I have been here to witness all the changes to the Downtown area including the growth of Yaletown/ False Creek North and the new development properties; which have changed our skyline.

My clients include a variety of individuals from local to overseas investors. I help them to purchase and sell a variety of properties from million dollar penthouse suites to modest one bedroom suites. I treat all of my clients equally with integrity, confidentiality and respect. Whether you are thinking about buying or selling a condominium suite or an investment property; I will assure that your needs are met successfully in a professional and honest manner.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss current market conditions, or if you would like a current market analysis of your property. The reason that I am in the Real Estate industry is that I truly want to help people to succeed in meeting their goals.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Victoria and Jocelyn are sitting with Carol Sill at Waves wireless cafe on Hastings and Richards, going over the finer points of blogging and how this will be expanded for Downtown Suites, Ltd. We are looking forward to seeing more on the neighbourhoods in Vancouver, especially some of the newer developments such as Millennium Water, Exchange and L’Hermitage. Lofts, suites, and condos are their specialty and we’re excited to expand our horizons this spring.

In this video, Victoria Farrell and Nicholas Meyer discuss aspects of buying property in Vancouver for non-resident investors.

At Downtown Suites we offer a full service to help foreign investors. Here Victoria Farrell and I explain some of the ins and outs.

We recently did a video session introducing Victoria Farrell, who has just joined our Downtown Suites team specializing in real estate sales. Here’s the first of three:

Downtown Suites has long been a member of the Better Business Bureau, and as their new card came to us recently in the mail, I decided to show it in this brief video clip.