September « 2006 « Les Twarog Vancouver Real Estate and Condo Blog

Archive for September, 2006

B.C.’s new-home buyers take double blow with high prices, six-per-cent GST

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

36-per-cent rebate on tax applicable only if house costs less than $350,000

Fiona Anderson
Sun

The high price of new houses in British Columbia means buyers are out of pocket in two ways: First, because of the high prices themselves; second because almost all now have to pay the six-per-cent goods and services tax.

GST is payable on the purchase of a new home, but a rebate kicks in for houses under $450,000. The size of the rebate depends on the price of the house, with homebuyers entitled to a 36-per-cent refund if the house costs less than $350,000. Once the $350,000 threshold is reached, the amount of the rebate dwindles to zero as the price nears $450,000.

The aim of the GST rebate program was to help middle- and low-income purchasers in every region of the country, said David Gamble, spokesman with the federal finance department.

But in B.C., most new single-family homes now cost more than $350,000, so the average low- or middle-income buyer is hit with a big GST bill, according to Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association.

The association has been lobbying the federal government to revisit the thresholds that were put in place when the GST was implemented in 1991. At the time, only 25 per cent of new homes in Vancouver cost more than $350,000. Now almost all of them do, Simpson said.

According to numbers from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., between January and May this year, 97.5 per cent of new homes in Vancouver cost more than $350,000. What’s of even more concern to Simpson is that the same is now true elsewhere in the province, with almost 90 per cent of new homes in Abbotsford and Victoria, and more than half of the homes in Kelowna and Nanaimo, above $350,000.

So moving outside Vancouver to find affordable housing is no longer an option, Simpson said.

Cities in the province take six of the top-10 spots in CMHC’s national numbers for new houses costing more than $350,000. Calgary, despite its blistering hot real estate market, doesn’t even make it into the top 10, having only 25 per cent of its new homes above the threshold.

When the GST was put in, the government promised to review the threshold levels every two years and make adjustments as necessary, Simpson said. But there has been significant changes in the housing market since, and no adjustments, he added.

“We’re extremely grateful for the one-per-cent drop [in GST implemented in July], but along with that [the government] needs to take a good look at the rebate thresholds and make adjustments, like they promised, to reflect areas of high housing costs,” Simpson said.

Gamble said his department has been reviewing the thresholds. “Finance officials will continue to monitor the situation and any recommended changes will be considered in the context of assessing fiscal priorities,” Gamble said.

But Gamble wouldn’t say whether any recommendations to change the thresholds had been made to the minister, saying such information would not be public. It would be up to cabinet to change the thresholds, he said.

Gamble said analysts concluded that housing affordability remains relatively healthy in most markets.

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Live web camera views African wildlife

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

After the success of Eaglecam, Arthur Griffiths’ firm is broadcasting from a watering hole at Kruger National Park

Nicholas Read
Sun

VANCOUVER – For everyone who sat up night and day watching two bald eagles live out their wild lives atop a tree on Vancouver Island, there is now a sequel, much bigger and grander in scope.

Download www.wavelit.com, click on Africam Wildlife Channel, and there it is, life at an African watering hole, complete with lions, elephants, zebras and hyenas.

And once again, it’s being brought to you by former hockey mogul-turned-Internet CEO, Arthur Griffiths.

It was Griffiths’ company, Infotec Business Systems, that made it possible for millions of people around the world to follow the heartbreak of two eagle eggs breaking apart last spring.

Eaglecam was a surprise success for Infotec, but one Griffiths and his company paid close attention to.

“I’ve travelled the world on business related to this company, and people from every walk of life said they were watching it and their kids were watching it. Everyone was watching it,” Griffiths said in an interview Monday.

Thus, his thinking goes, if people were that turned on by just two animals, think how excited they’ll get by hundreds, which is what wavelit promises.

A camera has been placed at the Nkorho Bush Lodge near a watering hole in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the camera, which began broadcasting live on Saturday, will simply record and transmit whatever’s there, live and in colour.

Giraffes, water buffaloes, springboks, impalas, wild boar, you name it, says Griffiths. Just as with Eaglecam, nature is the director.

Even at night when comparatively little is going on — remember that Kruger is nine hours ahead of Vancouver, so the best time to watch here is in the evening, he says — viewers can still hear a cacophony of night sounds.

The basic site is free, although on Monday it was difficult to access with a Mac system. Griffiths said he was looking into that.

However, later in the month, a subscriber site will be introduced with more features, including different camera views and perhaps interviews with wildlife experts.

The site also pays for itself through advertising, Griffiths says.

He is also planning to hook up a similar system at the top of Grouse Mountain so viewers can watch the daily goings-on of Coola and Grinder, the two grizzlies that live at the mountain’s refuge for endangered wildlife.

That should be available in one to two weeks, he said. “I feel confident,” Griffiths said, “that this will surpass anything we’ve seen yet.”

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Beware! Inside every computer is a cyber-crook just waiting to pounce

Monday, September 11th, 2006

Sun

Online facts of life, Part 1:

1. Financial institutions never use e-mail to notify customers that there are problems with an account.

2. Legitimate businesses never ask for a user name and password unless the customer has initiated the communication.

3. There’s no one in Nigeria willing to share a fortune with you even if you facilitate its transfer out of the country.

These facts may seem obvious, but people who ignore them are swindled every day by an invisible army of increasingly sophisticated e-criminals who use the Internet to steal money and identities, and appear to do so with impunity.

The Nigerian letter scam has been around almost as long as the Internet itself and has now been extended to other countries. The typical ruse is that a relative of a dead or deposed dictator, exiled government official or some other member of privileged society has socked away an unimaginable amount of cash in a rainy day fund and needs to find a bank account in the free world in which to deposit it, for which the holder of that account will be richly rewarded. Your bank account was chosen because your e-mail address was among the millions lifted from a CD the Nigerians bought from an online Viagra dealer. All you have to do is send along your banking information to begin the process of being ripped off.

But online crime has advanced far beyond the crude techniques of the letter scam. Now, you’re likely to receive an e-mail from a supposed bank or broker, complete with logos, graphics and even security warnings, that looks and acts like the genuine article. Except that it’s not.

One of the most convincing fakes of late appears to be an RBC Financial site that instructs recipients to re-submit confidential information because the company is updating its servers to combat phoney e-mails. Who’d expect that an e-mail warning about fraud would itself be a fraud?

One security expert admitted that he was almost taken in when he received an e-mail advising him of a problem with an online bank account he had just opened. But he called the bank and learned it was a hoax.

Fraudulent e-mails often direct recipients to sites that collect personal and financial information for the purpose of identify theft. There’s even a term for this kind of criminal data mining — phishing.

A phishing assault poses the additional risk that the e-mail may contain malicious software, called a trojan, that can install itself on a PC where it lies in wait for an unsuspecting user to log on. Masquerading as a benign sofware application, for instance, it gathers account numbers, ID, passwords and transaction information and transmits it to persons unknown.

Online facts of life, Part II:

E-mail messages from financial institutions that request a reply in kind are likely bogus. Select and copy the message without clicking any hyperlinked text. Go to the official website of the institution from which the e-mail purportedly emanated. Click the “Contact Us” link and paste the entire message in an e-mail message or in the dialogue box provided. The institution will tell you if the message is legitimate.

While awaiting a reply, delete the original message and then delete the delete folder. If the e-mail really came from a honest dealer, it will send another. All suspect e-mail messages should be deleted. Don’t even click on links that invite you to unsubscribe.

Don’t use the same password for every site and change passwords frequently. Use a firewall and anti-virus software, but be warned that some phishing sites seem so authentic they may slip through the spam screen.

Financial institutions are discovering that security is an ongoing challenge; it doesn’t take cyber crooks long to crack the codes. Although companies, governments and other organizations are taking extraordinary measures to protect their sites, there is no guarantee that they haven’t been compromised. In a recent survey, all the participating institutions said their sites had been attacked.

That leaves it up to the individual to guard against the misappropriation of confidential information. Just as the homeowner secures the front door, the driver locks the car and the tourist avoids dodgy areas of town, the computer user must assume personal responsibility for keeping identity theft in check.

It’s a digital jungle out there; take care.

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Voice-phishing alert

Monday, September 11th, 2006

Province

Consumers may have become wise to e-mail scams designed to steal bank account numbers and other personal information, but fraudsters are now taking a new tack to get at their money over the phone, experts say.

“Our main concern there is these voice-phishing guys were spoofing a method that legitimate institutions use very often in terms of getting hold of their customers,” says John Kane, a spokesman for the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, a federal watchdog for the financial services sector.

“Our concern there was that consumers wouldn’t really have a way of telling the real from the false.”

The technique known in web lingo as “phishing” involves a scam artist posing as a bank or other official to convince their targets to give up sensitive information.

Older e-mail phishing scams prompt potential victims to click on a link on an official looking e-mail to confirm account details.

Some refer to a security breach or an upgraded security system that requires verification, while others try to scare unsuspecting users with talk of recent repeated attempts to access their account from a foreign-based computer.

But while the newer scam may also come in an e-mail, a more sinister version dubbed as “vishing” or “voice phishing” comes as an official-sounding phone message asking the consumer to call the bank back at a given number to confirm account details.

The number is actually set up by the fraudster, who uses an automated service that prompts consumers to “log in” by providing account numbers and passwords using the phone keypad, then captures those numbers.

“We figured people were already sensitized somewhat to the e-mail sort and, even if it contained a phone number in it, people were somewhat sensitized to that avenue,” Kane said. “What these fraudsters were apparently doing was using machines to call people automatically and leave a voice message on their home phone saying there’s a problem, give us a call back at the bank and here’s the phone number.”

According to Phonebusters, the national anti-fraud call centre operated by the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police, there were 11,231 reported identity-theft complaints last year that swindled consumers out of a total of $8.6 million in Canada.

Maura Drew-Lytle, spokeswoman for the Canadian Bankers Association, said: “Some of the phishing people have pretended they are the government trying to get your social insurance number. It is any sort of personal information that they can get to use to commit some sort of fraud.”

Drew-Lytle said Canadian banks may call and leave a voice messaging saying they suspect fraudulent activity on your card, but they will never send an e-mail to a customer asking him or her to call them back at a specific phone number.

She suggested that someone concerned about a possible scam should call the bank back at the number listed on a recent statement or on the back of a bank card to confirm it is a legitimate inquiry.

“The other thing with phishing or vishing is that these are mass either e-mails or voicemails that are sent out to all kinds of people. They don’t know who you are,” said Drew-Lytle.

She said if the call is legitimate, it will address you by name, and that’s the same with e-mail, not: “Dear valued customer.”

SUSPICIOUS? WHAT TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO

Advice for consumers who receive a phone call, message or e-mail, purportedly from their financial institution, that they suspect may be fraudulent:

– Do not respond to an e-mail asking you to disclose personal information, such as an online password, your debit- or credit-card numbers or your personal identification number.

– Do not use the phone number provided in the e-mail or in the phone message without first verifying that it is valid.

– To confirm that a phone number provided is legitimate, contact your financial institution using a number you have looked up yourself.

– As part of a legitimate conversation, you will not be asked to verbally provide your personal identification number or password.

– Always be cautious about how and with whom you share personal and financial information.

Source: Financial Consumer Agency of Canada

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Tips for traveling – don’t put too much info on the luggage tags

Sunday, September 10th, 2006

Michael Martinez
Province

Q: What do you recommend people put on their luggage tags? I put only a phone number because I had heard that thieves will know your home is vacant if you put your address on tags.

A: You’re wise not to put too much personal information on luggage ID tags, says Anne McAlpin, author of Pack It Up, a book-DVD set that offers advice about packing smart.

“Only put contact information that will be helpful to your airline” if your bags are lost, McAlpin says. “Writing down your home number if you’re not there to answer the phone doesn’t do any good.”

Instead, print only pertinent contact information: your name, your cell phone number (if you’re taking it with you), your e-mail address (if you’re bringing along your laptop or plan to check e-mail) or the number of someone back home who has your itinerary, including the hotels where you’ll be staying. If you’re staying in only one hotel during your trip, include its address and phone number.

More advice from McAlpin: Put two ID tags on the outside of your suitcase in case one is torn off; put contact information inside your luggage for the same reason; use tags that cover your information so it can’t be read by someone standing near you. And never put your home address on your tags for the reason you mentioned.

Q: I’m looking for a city in Europe that I can use as a base for a couple of weeks to visit other cities. Can you recommend one?

A: If you’re thinking of one city that puts you within reach of others by rail, consider Vienna, Austria; Brussels, Belgium; or any of several in Switzerland — Bern, Lucerne or Zurich.

From Vienna, you’re close enough to central and eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Brussels puts you within reach of Antwerp, Belgium; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and Paris. From the Swiss cities, you can visit Basel, Geneva and many of the country’s scenic mountain and lake areas. And if you’re interested in overnight trips, Munich, Germany; Milan, Italy; and Lyon, France, are possibilities.

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Perfect weather and no strip malls need apply

Sunday, September 10th, 2006

TOM UHLENBROCK
Province

Nestled on the beach with the Santa Ynez Mountains as a backdrop, Santa Barbara has perfect weather and gorgeous buildings reflecting its Spanish heritage. — SANTA BARBARA CVB

The Douglas Preserve is a recreation area high on the bluffs above Santa Barbara, Calif. — SANTA BARBARA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU

Boating enthusiasts get last-minute instructions before heading out into the bay at Santa Barbara. — SANTA BARBARA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU

The Santa Barbara Mission is an eye-catching symbol of the Spanish colonial period.

Courtyard shows the Spanish colonial influence on the architecture

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.
   For my money, Santa Barbara is the quintessential town for California dreaming. Nestled on the beach with the Santa Ynez Mountains forming a protective barrier around it, Santa Barbara has perfect weather, gorgeous adobe-andtile buildings reflecting its Spanish heritage and a legacy of zoning laws so strict that strip malls, multistorey condos and view-hogging trophy mansions need not apply.
   The result is a town that has not gone sprawl happy during the past three decades, has reasonable traffic even down the trendy shopping area along State Street and has property values so high that the least desirable dwellings still start at seven figures.
   I had four days for a visit and was glad to be travelling solo. This is one place where you’ll surely leave with surly relatives asking, “Why can’t we live here?”
   I had spent many summers visiting Santa Barbara when friends lived in the college community of Isla Vista as on-again, off-again students. The area has two schools, City College and the University of California-Santa Barbara, which provide a steady supply of young people to keep Santa Barbara from having a retirement-community feel.
   Returning to a favourite spot after too many years of absence often is a sorrowful experience because inevitable growth has stolen much of the charm. Not so with Santa Barbara. The small airport still looked like a hacienda. Walkers, joggers, in-line skaters and cyclists still flowed happily on the recreational path that lined the wide expanse of beach. The wharf had added some new attractions, but who can complain about a wine bar with a deck looking out over the harbour?
   The five-storey Hotel Andalucia in the historic downtown was new, but built to look like it was old as the hills. Spanish tile, wrought-iron accents, blooming flowers and a rooftop pool and hot tub that offered views of the ocean, islands and mountains made it fit right in on the self-proclaimed American Riviera.
   On a clear day, you can see misty mountains 30 km out in the Santa Barbara Channel. Those are the five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park. The largest is Santa Cruz Island, now uninhabited but once the home of thousands of Chumash Indians. Legend says the Chumash hiked over a rainbow to the mainland, where Spanish Franciscans showed up in 1786 to convert them.
   That story is told in art, artifacts and architecture at Mission Santa Barbara, where 4,000 Chumash are buried in the cemetery, and the adjacent Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, which has the largest collection of the beautiful baskets for which the tribe was known.
   The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is just up Mission Canyon Road and has a nice walk along a creek, through a grove of giant redwoods. Take the scenic loop drive around Santa Barbara, through the posh residential area of Montecito and the landscaping of the gated mansions is a botanic garden of its own.
   The Ty Warner Sea Center is a new attraction on Stearns Wharf and has tanks full of sea creatures such as a two-spot octopus, eccentric sand dollars, sunflower stars and sea cucumbers, which you can pick up to examine.
   I went to Santa Barbara Harbor and found the Maritime Museum, which told the history of seafaring in the area. My favourite display was a hands-on virtual-fishing demonstration, in which I hooked a marlin and tried to land it.
   “Better luck next time,” said the video.
   Upstairs from the museum was the Endless Summer bar and restaurant, which had surfboards hanging from the ceiling, surfing movies on the television and a view of the action in the harbour from the deck.
   State Street was blocked off for a farmers market, where vendors peddled fruits, flowers and vegetables. The street is sort of a mix between Rodeo Drive and Haight Ashbury, with women in designer clothes searching the boutiques and college students searching through the Hawaiian shirts in the vintage clothing shops. Skateboarding through were sun-kissed kids with the perfectly unkept look of an Abercrombie poster.
   Joe’s Café, with its wonderful neon sign, is still the place to go. And there’s a multiple choice of other bars and restaurants. Café Nirvana, which serves fusion Indian food, was next to Galanga, a Thai restaurant, which was next to Taiko, a sushi bar, which was next to the James Joyce, an Irish pub. The seared tuna at Restaurant Nu was fabulous.
   One other thing hasn’t changed in SB. The town has more than its share of homeless people, who sun on the benches of State Street or stroll with their shopping carts down the beachside recreational trail. But then, if you had to spend the winter on the streets, where would you rather be — Detroit, Chicago, Fargo, or Santa Barbara?
   I heard the butterflies before I saw them. Actually, I heard a field trip of kindergartners screaming, “Butterflies, butterflies!” as the kids beat me to the prime viewing spot at the Coronado Butterfly Preserve.
   The preserve is amid suburbia in Goleta, to the west of downtown Santa Barbara. You park on the street and follow the dirt path into a ravine filled with tall eucalyptus trees, with a boardwalk over a boggy area at the bottom. Eucalyptus trees bloom in the winter, and monarch butterflies gather here to feed.
   A rope barrier keeps visitors out of the main Ellwood Butterfly Grove, which is marked with small signs that identify it as “one of the largest monarch sites in the U.S. Monarchs arrive in the fall and stay until spring. They need the shelter of these trees to survive the winter.”
   I joined the kids, who had calmed down and were eating their snacks. One curly-haired boy had his nose to the crotch of a tree where a single butterfly rested. A tiny white tag on its wing said: “Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles.”
   Butterflies flitted through the canopy above, or gathered together on the drooping branches, making them look like orange icicles. Occasionally, the wind or some other disturbance would cause an orange explosion.
   Mary Carroll, a botanist, told the children what they were seeing: “When they cluster together, it’s just like us huddling together for warmth. Before Europeans came and changed the landscape, there used to be more eucalyptus groves. There’s some debate whether this is a recent phenomena in California.”
   The kids took off, leaving me alone with hundreds of thousands of butterflies.
   In the silence, the surreal setting was magical, like a Disney movie.
   If you go
   Solvang Gardens Lodge: At 293 Alisal Road in Solvang, the boutique-style lodge has 24 rooms, most with stone fireplaces, marble bathrooms and antique furnishings. A beautiful garden and new spa cottage are out back. Visit www.solvanggardens.com
   Hotel Andalucia: At 31 West Carrillo St. in the downtown historic district of Santa Barbara. A luxury hotel with a fine restaurant. Visit www.andaluciasb.com
   Santa Barbara Adventure Co.: Kayak trips are $85 to $105 US per person. A mountain bike and kayaking combo is $150. Surfing lessons are $105 and guided rock climbing is $115. Wine country tours are available by van and bicycle. www.sbadventureco.com
   Condor Express Whale Watching: Trips run year-round and are guaranteed or you get a “whale cheque.” A half-day cruise to Santa Cruz Island is $75 for adults and $40 for children. A 2.5-hour cruise is $35 and $18. www.condorcruises.com
   Cloud Climbers Wine and Mountain Jeep Tours: The winetasting tour is $99, the mountain tour is $69. Visit www.ccjeeps. com. Guide Lee Tomkow has a history of Santa Barbara winemaking at www.sbwinemakers.com
   Sideways: Visit the Sideways Wine Club at www.sidewayswine club.com; Vintners’Association at www.sbcountywines.com. A map is available showing the Sideways movie route through the county.
   Hitching Post II: The “world’s best BBQ steaks” is not false advertising and the grilled artichoke, seasoned with “Magic Dust,” is a wonderful appetizer. The address is 406 East Highway 246 in Buellton, www.hitchingpost2.com
   Coronado Butterfly Preserve: Visit www.sblandtrust.org/ coronado.html
   Channel Islands National Park: Visitors may swim, snorkel, hike, camp and kayak on and around the islands. The islands are home to more than 2,000 species of animals and plants, 145 of which are found nowhere else. Visit www.nps.gov/chis. There is a visitors centre in Santa Barbara.
   For more information: For wine packages, accommodations and visitor information, call the Santa Barbara Conference & Visitors Bureau at 1-800-676-1266 or visit www.santabarbaraca.com
   Inside the Santa Ynez Valley magazine is available at www. insidesyv.com. A free map is available for a “red-tile tour” of the historic buildings in Santa Barbara.
   Reading: Santa Barbara,by Barnaby Conrad and Mark Meunch (Thomas Guides); and
Santa Barbara and the Central Coast: California’s Riviera, by Kathleen Thomson Hill and Gertald Hill (Glove Pequot).

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Vita – New downtown landmark looks sweet

Sunday, September 10th, 2006

Jeani Read
Province

JON MURRAY — THE PROVINCE

Vita, the first tower of two planned to become a gateway to the downtown core comes with fabulouse city views from the living area, right and below left; the well-appointed bathroom, below centre, has state-of-the-art Kohler shower tiles that spray water without visible fixtures; there’s a nicesize office space, far right; and more spectacular views from the master bedroom, below. PHOTOS BY JON MURRAY — THE PROVINCE

Who knew? With all the talk of Vancouver’s centre moving east, the actual centre of the city is also due for a little Renaissance.

But when you think about it, it’s obvious: between Yaletown and the downtown core sits that big old middle area we keep ignoring, yet that is currently undergoing lots of renewal. Developments like Robson & Richards, L’Hermitage, eventually the old Capitol 6 building and now, Vita, where the selling point is yes, the sweet life. Just like the website says. No surprise that after this first tower is sold, the second tower will be called Dolce.

Symphony Place, the name of the completed project, will be “at the heart of all that rejuvenation,” says Chris Norton, vice-president of Maverick Real Estate, Symphony Place marketing. “It will connect everything up.”

What Solterra, the developer, wanted to do is create a landmark in the way that the library is, says Norton. “Nobody has to tell you the address of the library, you just know where it is.”

Even more dramatic, says Norton, is that Symphony Place is planned to become a gateway to downtown. Located on the land best known for being two parking lots — right across Seymour from The Orpheum — it will feature a 120-ft. coloured Cadenza art-glass wall that will reflect traffic lights in a spectacular way.

Two towers joined by porte-cochere to impart a sense of grandeur, plus a four-storey office podium, will create a real landmark, and the location makes pretty well the whole city walkable, says Norton. Restaurants and boutiques are planned along Smithe to make it fun and pedestrian-friendly. Where will people park to attend The Orpheum now? In a specially designed parkade inside the office podium. Voila!

Interiors at Vita have been planned with every square inch and every design detail in mind, so much so that you almost want to use Maverick’s marketing term “tower residences” instead of “condos” for the homes. From state-of-the-art Kohler shower tiles that spray water without visible fixtures, to Euro-sized and designed kitchen appliances that look like cabinets, to art-glass walls that slide to maximize space, Solterra has taken “all those little things in life, all those small details, and made them better,” says Norton.

Even the dishwasher rocks: it’s a Fischer-Paykell dish drawer that’s like a big pot drawer with regular wash capacity, which also looks like cabinetry. Kitchen? It may be the centre of the action but really, when you look around, design central, too.

Lots of amenties at Vita: indoor and outdoor play areas for kids, since more and more condo dwellers are staying downtown even after they start families; a club room with a big-screen TV; an outdoor hot tub and a large gym with a difference. Instead of regulation stationary bikes, there will be a virtual spinning area with a big programmable screen so you can make a boring ride into a visit to, for example, the hills of the Napa Valley or any number of other scenic spots that will give a good workout.

At Vita, every courtesy is being shown the already enthusiastic potential buyers. No lineups or bracelets here, says Norton. People can visit the presentation centre time and again to look over what will be a big investment. These previews continue through Thursday, but sales won’t start until Saturday. A civilized attitude?

Priceless.

QUICK FACTS

VITA AT SYMPHONY PLACE

What: 146 condominiums in downtown Vancouver

Where: 565 Smithe St. (site)

Developer: Solterra

Sizes: 503 sq. ft.-1,820 sq. ft.

Prices: $299,900 to $2.2 million

Open: Noon to 8 p.m. daily except Fridays at 897 Richards St. (presentation centre)

Info: 604-676-8828, www.thesweetlife.ca

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Telus to spend $600m to take on Shaw over digital television

Sunday, September 10th, 2006

BROADBAND: Internet speeds will also more than double under plan to 30 mps

Province

Telus Corp. plans to spend $600 million over the next three years to beef up its broadband network in a move that will allow the major telecommunications company to offer high-definition television.

The Vancouver company said Friday it plans to install advanced Internet equipment in more than 7,000 sites and run fibre-optic cable closer to its customers’ homes.

“Telus TV is really just one example. This paves the way for emerging multimedia applications and other services that we can deliver in the not-too-distant future,” said Joe Grech, executive vice-president of Telus network operations.

The company said the new infrastructure will more than double Internet access speeds to 15 to 30 megabits a second, from up to seven megabits under ideal circumstances.

The investment is in addition to the $190 million Telus plans to spend this year to begin the upgrades in 38 communities in B.C., Alberta and eastern Quebec that will be completed by 2009.

Telus and cable TV company Shaw Communications Inc. are in a fierce battle in Western Canada over supplying telecom services to customers.

Despite strength in its mobile phone business, Telus lost 44,000 network access lines in its latest quarter as customers dropped their traditional home phones for mobile phones and moved to competitors like Shaw and Vonage.

The cable company has boasted a gain of 50,294 new digital phone lines in its most recent quarter, to bring its total to 168,963 lines at the end of May.

Looking to return the favour, Telus responded by rolling out its TV service in Alberta, with plans to expand the service to Vancouver in coming months.

“There’s two things that are converging for us. One is the availability of technology, which enables these types of speeds,” Grech said. “The other is, compression technologies are also being advanced at a very rapid pace so the ability to send content and develop applications over the access infrastructure is increasing at a very exciting pace.”

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Rates may be on the way down

Saturday, September 9th, 2006

Canada’s central bank holds overnight rate at 4.25 per cent, saying economy in line with projections

Fiona Anderson
Sun

The Bank of Canada kept its bank rate unchanged Wednesday for the second time in as many months, and some economists are predicting that its next move could be a rate cut, ending two years of small but steady increases.

Canada’s central bank held its overnight rate at 4.25 per cent, saying the Canadian economy was in line with the bank’s earlier projections in terms of output and inflation. The bank said it expected the economy to “operate at about its production potential, with total [consumer price index] inflation returning to the two per cent inflation target in the second half of 2007.”

The main risk facing the country’s economy is that U.S. household demand could slow more rapidly than expected, the bank said.

The bank has been slowly increasing its overnight rate since August 2004, when the rate stood at 2.25 per cent. Raising the rate is aimed at dampening an overheated economy and keeping inflation in check, while lowering the rate is used to stimulate the economy.

If the Bank of Canada cuts its overnight rate, as some economists are predicting, that could lead to lower mortgage rates, and keep British Columbia’s housing market hot.

Variable-mortgage rates are based on the prime lending rate, which is 1.75 percentage points above the Bank of Canada’s overnight rate. And while fixed-mortgage rates are determined by long-term bond rates, they also tend to move in the same direction as the Bank of Canada rate. On Wednesday, both Scotiabank and CIBC announced cuts in their fixed-mortgage rates, and several other banks made similar cuts in August.

“If we don’t see any more rate increases then our housing market will be that much more active,” said Helmut Pastrick, chief economist for Credit Union Central B.C. “If we do see rate cuts, that will improve buyer affordability and help boost unit sales and the housing market.”

Cameron Muir, senior market analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., said consumers shouldn’t “fool themselves to believe that the bank rate is going to approach the historic low levels that we had in 2004.”

Even if rates did drop, CMHC expects the housing market to become “more balanced” in 2007.

Low mortgage rates created very strong demand for housing in Greater Vancouver that led to rapidly rising prices, Muir said. But prices are starting to reach the point where, even with a lower mortgage rate, housing is unaffordable, he said.

If rates went down, the affordability ceiling may take longer to reach, but it would be a “short-lived” delay, Muir said.

CIBC World Markets’ chief strategist Jeff Rubin believes the Bank of Canada’s next move will be a rate cut. In a research note, Rubin said he expected the central bank to cut rates 25 basis points (or 0.25 percentage points) as many as three times over the next 10 months.

“A crumbling U.S. housing market and emerging weakness in the U.S. consumer [market] should bring about interest rate cuts on both sides of the border beginning early next year,” CIBC World Markets’ chief strategist Jeff Rubin wrote.

David Tulk, economist with TD Bank Financial Group agreed that the Bank of Canada’s next move would be a rate cut.

“So while the course of monetary policy is steady-as-she-goes for the remainder of this year, our view is that the next move the Bank will make is to cut rates in early 2007 to prevent the headwinds from the U.S. from unduly stalling Canada’s economic momentum,” Tulk wrote in a commentary. “Nevertheless, with economic growth expected to remain at or above two per cent, the reduction in rates will likely be modest, on the order of 50 basis points over the first half of 2007.”

Expecting the Bank of Canada to cut rates reflects a change in outlook, Pastrick said.

“The majority view seems to have shifted that at least in Canada there will be a rate cut sometime in the next three to six months,” Pastrick said.

Holding that view are those who believe the U.S. economy is in a substantial slowdown, which will pull down Canada’s economy as well, Pastrick said. But he believes the longer-term outlook is still too uncertain to call.

“I think the risk between a possible rate cut and a possible rate hike are roughly even,” Pastrick said. “As a result I’m forecasting that rates will remain relatively unchanged in the next year or two.”

“[If] I see a more definite shift in growth prospects either to the downside or the upside, I would change my rate forecast accordingly,” he added.

Posted in Real Estate Related | Comments Off on Rates may be on the way down

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