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Archive for March, 2008
Insurance Not Necessary In BC, We Have Torrens Registry System
Thursday, March 6th, 2008Insurance Not Necessary In BC, We Have Torrens Registry System
Thursday, March 6th, 2008Other
Home debt greater than equity for first time since ’45
Thursday, March 6th, 2008USA Today
As home prices fall, more sellers are putting out “price reduced” signs like this one in a subdivision in Happy Valley, Ore. By Don Ryan, AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Three reports out Thursday demonstrated the depth of the housing industry’s weakness and pointed to more trouble ahead.
In a troubling report, the Federal Reserve said Americans’ equity in their homes has fallen below 50% for the first time since 1945.
Home equity is the percentage of a home’s market value minus mortgage-related debt.
The Fed’s flow of funds report shows home equity slipped to a revised 49.6% in the second quarter 2007 and fell further, to 47.9%, in the fourth quarter. It marks the first time homeowners’ debt on their houses exceeds their equity since the Fed started tracking the data in 1945.
The total value of equity also fell for a third straight quarter to $9.65 trillion from a downwardly revised $9.93 trillion in the third quarter.
Home equity has steadily declined even as home prices jumped earlier this decade due to a surge in cash-out refinances, home equity loans, lines of credit and an increase in 100% or more home financing.
Economists expect equity to drop even further as declining home prices eat into the value of most Americans’ largest asset.
Moody’s Economy.com estimates that 8.8 million homeowners, or about 10.3% of homes, will have zero or negative equity by the end of the month. Even more disturbing, about 13.8 million households, or 15.9%, will be “upside down” if prices fall 20% from their peak. That is, they will owe more than the home’s current market value.
The latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index showed U.S. home prices plunging 8.9% in the final quarter of 2007 compared with a year ago, steepest decline in the 20-year history of the index.
Pending home sales flat
Also Thursday, industry data showed that January pending home sales were below analysts expectations and remained at the second-lowest reading on record.
The National Association of Realtors said its seasonally adjusted index of pending sales for existing homes held at 85.9, the same reading as December and just short of a revised record low of 85.8 in August, at the start of the worldwide credit squeeze. The reading was 19.6% below year-ago levels.
Economists had predicted the index would inch up to 86.2.
Typically there is a month or two lag between when a buyer signs a home sales contract and the closing of the deal. Sales completed last month and into this month should be reflected in the January reading.
Regionally, pending home sales were down in both the Northeast and the South. They were up slightly in the Midwest and the West.
“Our members are telling us there’s been a pickup in shopping activity.” said Lawrence Yun, the trade group’s chief economist. “Our hope is that the increased traffic of buyers looking at homes will translate soon into more contract offers.”
The Realtors group, which is more optimistic about the housing market than most economists, projects home sales will start to rise in the second half.
“Forgive us, if you will, but may we suggest that an outsized 13% climb in prospective sales in the West will not hold up upon further review,” said Joseph Brusuelas, U.S. chief economist at IDEAglobal in New York.
“Some may be tempted to make a call of a bottom or stabilization in the housing sector, but we think that this is extremely premature. Prospective buyers may be probing the market for deals, but we strongly expect any surge in purchasing activity to a number of months, if not years away,” he said.
Foreclosures hit record
Home foreclosures soared to an all-time high in the final quarter last year, underscoring the suffering of distressed homeowners and the growing danger the housing meltdown poses for the economy.
The Mortgage Bankers Association, in a quarterly snapshot of the mortgage market, said the proportion of all mortgages nationwide that fell into foreclosure shot up to a record high 0.83% in the October-to-December quarter. That passed the previous high of 0.78% in the prior quarter.
“Clearly, it’s the worst it’s been,” chief association economist Doug Duncan said.
More homeowners, meanwhile, fell behind on monthly payments.
The delinquency rate for all mortgages climbed to a seasonally adjusted 5.82%, up from 5.59% and highest since 1985. Payments are considered delinquent if they are 30 or more days past due.
The foreclosure report showed that homeowners with tarnished credit who have subprime adjustable-rate loans were hardest hit. Foreclosures and late payments for these borrowers swelled to all-time highs in the fourth quarter.
The percentage of subprime adjustable-rate mortgages that entered foreclosure soared to 5.29% from 4.72% in the prior quarter, the previous high. Late payments rocketed to a record 20.02%, up from 18.81% — the previous high.
The association’s survey covers almost 46 million home loans nationwide.
The worsening foreclosure and late payment figures come as fears grow that the country is teetering on the edge of a recession or is in one already.
The wave of foreclosures threatens to dump more homes on the already severely depressed housing market. That forces more cutbacks by home builders. Harder-to-get credit, meanwhile, has thwarted some would-be home buyers.
“Declining home prices are clearly the driving factor behind foreclosures, but the reasons and magnitude of the declines differ from state to state,” Duncan said.
Even with relief efforts underway by industry and the government, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, earlier this week, warned that foreclosures and late payments on home mortgages are likely to rise “for a while longer.”
The MBA’s Duncan agreed. “We expect some increases in the next couple of quarters,” he said. The economic slowdown, harder-to-get credit and lofty energy prices are adding to the strains, he said.
Against this backdrop, Bernanke called for additional relief and urged lenders to help distressed owners by lowering the principal amount of their loans. “This situation calls for a vigorous response,” Bernanke said in a speech Tuesday.
Bernanke’s recommendation for lenders to reduce the amount owed on troubled home loans goes beyond the position staked out by the Bush administration. The Fed chief, however, didn’t go as far as to endorse some proposals embraced by Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Among the initiatives promoted by the administration is allowing some homeowners with certain subprime home loans to freeze their interest rate for five years.
California and Florida continued to represent a disproportionate share of the country’s foreclosures. The two states accounted for 30% of mortgages starting the foreclosure process, the association said.
“In states like California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, overbuilding of new homes created a surplus that will take some time to work through,” Duncan said. That glut has pushed down house prices, he said.
Celtic food isn’t just meat and potatoes
Thursday, March 6th, 2008Fifth annual Celtic festival takes place on St. Patrick’s Day weekend in close proximity to pints of Guinness and everything Irish
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Kali Thurber pours an Irish whisky to go with wheaten bread and a dish of calconnon (a potato dish) at The Shebeen Whiskey Bar at the Irish Heather in Gastown. Photograph by : Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun
Owners Steve and Lil McVittie in their Celtic Treasure Chest store on Dunbar Street. Photograph by : Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun
It’s not exactly historically, ancestrally, culturally, politically, or even culinarily correct, but when we think Celtic celebration, we think Irish pubs, a free flow of Guinness thickened with Irish stew.
What’s wrong with that, you say? Nothing, really, except that it’s not quite the whole shebang. (That last phrase, by the way, has an Irish origin, from the word shebeen, or dwelling.)
Celtic nations that have retained their Celtic languages and culture are Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and Brittany, as well as Ireland. But historically, Celtic ancestry stretches to northern Portugal and Spain.
So while potato dishes, Irish stew and Guinness are certainly part of Celtic foods, so are haggis, Scotch eggs and kippers, deep-fried Mars Bar (a subtle Scottish creation), cider, galettes, prune clafoutis, Welsh cakes, Welsh rarebit and salt cod.
Meanwhile, the fifth annual Edgewater Casino CelticFest (March 12 to 16) takes place on St. Patrick’s Day weekend in the downtown area in close proximity to Guinness and plentiful Irish food at Ceilli’s Irish Pub, Morrissey’s Irish House, Doolin’s Irish Pub and Johnnie Fox’s Irish Snug.
Sean Heather, who owns Gastown’s Irish Heather and Shebeen Whiskey Bar (that’s whiskey with an “e,” unlike Scottish whisky) opines that the Irish Celts dominate because they are the largest Celtic group and a people who fought to foster their heritage, he feels.
“We [the Irish] worked our way free of British imperialism and fought to resurrect the culture and language. There are still towns in Ireland where Gaelic is the first language.”
Steve McVittie, who operates The Celtic Treasure Chest Bakery And Deli in Vancouver and White Rock, points out that Celts all have their own special days of celebration. “Whether it’s Robbie Burns Day, St. Patrick’s Day or St. David’s Day, each country has a patron saint and each celebrates their day with food and festivities,” he says.
He sells British Celtic foods including various meat pies (Melton Mowbray, Cornish, Scottish bridies, pork pies, pasty’s), bacons, haggis, sausages (Loren, Cumberland, Dubliner, pork and apple, lamb and mint), jams, preserves, candies, shortbreads, cookies, candies and marmalades. His breads span the Celtic nations — hovis, Irish potato, soda, spelt, kamut, Aberdeen rowies, butteries, parkins and Scottish oatcakes.
And many of the items on his shelves have historical and cultural attachments. The canned baked beans, for example, were illegal to import into Canada until after the Second World War. “It was because of the ratio of beans to tomato sauce. The British like beans on toast and for the sauce to absorb into the toast, so there’s more liquid.”
Teas are totally different from North American teas.
“British teas are fuller-bodied. Irish Breakfast is very, very rich and strong. British tea drinkers can tell the difference and come out and buy 10 boxes at a time.”
The British Butcher Shoppe in North Vancouver and John Bull British Bakery and Deli in Coquitlam are other shopping meccas for local Celts. There are some 30 different sausages covering Irish, Scottish and Welsh traditions at British Butcher. The shop sells “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds” of haggis, culminating in 2,400 pounds sold around Robbie Burns Day. “I might celebrate [on Robbie Burns Day] but I won’t eat it,” says owner Gerry Davenport.
The Welsh, meanwhile, celebrated their Celtic roots on March 1, St. David’s Day. Leeks play a prominent role in Welsh food, as do Welsh griddle cakes.
“When we were children going to school, we’d wear a leek pinned to our sweaters and nibble at it during the day,” says Jane Byrne, president of the Vancouver Welsh Society. “I remember it very well. Leek is truly the national emblem.”
Lamb is also an important food but it would be roasted, not stewed like in Ireland. “Then we make a soup [cawl] out of the bones and leftovers and leeks. It’s similar to a stew,” she says. Other prominent Welsh foods are cockles; bara brith (speckled bread with raisins or currants); bara lawr (a seaweed) eaten with bacon for breakfast; and cheeses, particularly Caerphilly, which is like a white cheddar.
“The cocklewomen of Gower were very famous,” Byrne says. “It’s west of Swansea and they picked on the beaches.” And Welsh rarebit is an actual Welsh dish, although they don’t call it that. It’s cheese, flour and beer on toast, basically. River salmon (sewyn) and river trout are very, very important, she says.
And sweets are like chewable nostalgia to many British Celts. The Curly Worly’s (a chocolate caramel), Dolly Mix, pontefract cakes (black licorice medallions), mint humbugs and fruit pastels are the best sellers, Davenport says. Sugar and Co. in West Vancouver and Clayburn Village Store and Tea Shop in Abbotsford are well-known for appeasing British hunger for sweet-laced memories.
At Milséan Shoppe, in Aldergrove, owners Rob and Maureen Robinson make a version of an Irish buttercrunch chocolate from an old family recipe. Milséan means “sweet things” in Gaelic, Rob says, and the company logo is an Irish Claddagh ring with two hands clasping a heart. The secret to their success, he says, is demerara sugar and Fraser Valley butter, which is creamy and comparable to Irish butter.
But as Heather describes traditional British Celtic cuisine, it’s food of an impoverished, oppressed people. “It’s stews and poorer cuts of meat, slowly stewed or braised.” And of course, even after the potato blight and subsequent famine and political struggles over food, potatoes are an Irish staple.
“It has a very close place, genetically and in our hearts. They love and hate the potato,” he says. “The Irish are criticized for having relied on that one crop but the truth is, potatoes could yield way more from a tiny plot of land than any other vegetable. When combined with dairy and greens, it grew big, strong, healthy people. It’s a proven fact. Through the generations, land plots had been divided up and had became smaller and smaller, and also people came in and took the land off the native Irish, who then became serfs. It’s all they ate because they couldn’t afford anything else.”
At his restaurant, Irish Heather, Heather offers Irish food of the 1960s and 1970s. “Pot pie is not Irish but we do beef and Guinness pot pie; fish and chips are English but it’s always been in Ireland. Colcannon [mashed potatoes mixed with kale or cabbage and butter] is definitely traditionally Irish.”
And on the topic of Irish whiskey (his whiskey house, Shebeen, sells 22 varieties), he says before Prohibition and Irish independence, they were the whiskies of choice in the world. “There were 3,400 distilleries in Ireland,” he says. “After independence, part of the punishment was Ireland couldn’t trade with Commonwealth countries. It lost the world market and only had a domestic market and by the time Prohibition was over, it killed the industry.”
Naturally, he prefers Irish whiskey. “It’s triple-distilled, which takes the roughness and impurities out,” he says. But fans of Scottish whisky say scotch has more complex flavours.
While he might feel competitive about whiskey, Heather is a kindred spirit with other Celts. “Absolutely,” he says. “We’re Celtic cousins. There’s always been a kinship. We were always fighting for our lives. And they’re always invited to Celtic festivals in Ireland.”
CELTIC FOOD SOURCES
Should you wish to imbibe or ingest a wee bit of Celtic flavour, these are some places where you’ll find foods of the British Celts.
British Butcher Shoppe
703 Queensbury Ave., North Vancouver, 604-985-2444
British Home Store
3986 Moncton St., Richmond, 604-274-2261
Celtic Treasure Chest
5639 Dunbar St., Vancouver, 604-261-3688
1534 Foster St., White Rock, 604-538-2277
Clayburn Village Store and Tea Shop
34810 Clayburn Rd., Abbotsford, 604-853-4020
Dentry’s Irish Pub
4450 West 10th Ave., 604-224-3434
Doolin’s Irish Pub
654 Nelson Street, 604-605-4343
The Irish Heather
217 Carrall St., 604-688-9779
(Moving to 210 Carrall St. in June.)
John Bull British Bakery and Deli
1046 D Austin Ave., Coquitlam, 604-939-4797
Johnnie Fox’s Irish Snug
1033 Granville St., 604-685-4946
Milséan Shoppe
2900 272nd St., Aldergrove, 604-856-3024
Morrissey’s Irish House
1227 Granville St., 604-682-0909
Shebeen Whiskey Bar
9 Gaoler’s Mews, 604-915-7338
(Moving to 210 Carrall St. in June.)
Sugar and Company
1348 Marine Dr., West Vancouver, 604-925-0801
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
Awash in sukiyaki sauce
Thursday, March 6th, 2008New eatery offers flavourful and affordable Japanese dining experience
Mark Laba
Province
Dorothy, a server at Posh restaurant on West Broadway, prepares sukiyaki at the table. Photograph by : Jon Murray, The Province
The word posh and the term all-you-can-eat seem at odds with each other philosophically. And on that note, could you envision Posh Spice wolfing down food at an all-you-can-eat crab buffet? Well, maybe. But that Posh Spice has nothing on Mariah Carey as I soon learned at this new eatery. But perhaps I should begin at the beginning and explain how two new experiences, Mariah Carey and sukiyaki, were introduced to me. For me it was the perfect marriage of pop culture and dining although I would’ve liked to hear her do a version of the “Sukiyaki Song” that hit the top of the charts in 1963. Oddly, the song has nothing to do with the dish — just another victim of the lost-in-translation syndrome but this time on American turf.
Dropped into this new venture with Peaches, along with Small Fry Eli, who we thought would enjoy the cook-at-your-own-table spectacle. No sooner were we three steps in than the poor lad began gagging. He didn’t like the smell of the veggies. Now this has nothing to do with this fine establishment — it’s just the whimsical nature of a four-year-old’s tastebuds and olfactory senses.
So my wife and son deserted me and left me to dine alone. Table for one is a bit odd looking here. Especially with the mounds of food heaped in front of me.
I decided to sit gazing out the window at the passing parade on Broadway but everyone at the bus stop was staring right back at me. This was a little unnerving. I soon realized it was due to the Mariah Carey concert being shown on the high-def screen behind me with Mimi, as her fans call her, sporting nothing more than gold lamé hot pants and a bra: One of many breathtaking costume changes, I soon found out. I changed seats at my table for four and took in the show.
It’s a swanky looking space, kind of retro-modern chic with some futuristic glints, great wood-panelled walls, big silver funnels over the red dining booths to suck up the cooking fumes, black stone tables upon which the cooking apparatus sits, and white-leather seats. In effect, my Uncle Al with his hair-sprayed pompadour and burgundy leisure suit may not look out of place here.
Now this is how it works. The burner is fired under a large metal bowl in which sits a hill of Japanese cabbage surrounded by a pool of sukiyaki sauce. Then you’re given a checklist of the various veggies and two meat selections. Alberta Grade A beef and tender pork shoulder, sliced ultra-thin, are your meat choices and the waiter was kind enough to bring me a sampler platter of all the various tofu species, along with lotus root, chayote, various mushrooms, bamboo shoots, taro root, bok choy, pumpkin, onion, fat udon-style noodles and thin vermicelli, yam, chrysanthemum leaves, iceberg lettuce and more. Throw it all in, let stuff cook, spoon it out and eat. A raw egg was provided, which I was instructed to mix up in a bowl and dip the food from my fishing expedition into.
I slurped and dribbled my way through the meal and found the fresh organic produce and the mildly sweet sukiyaki sauce invigorating. The meats were very flavourful and tender although some veggies didn’t work as well as others and remained in a more or less raw state even after lengthy cooking times. But then you can just order another cocktail and take a breather and when you realize that it’s all-you-can-eat for just $13.88 per person, or $9.88 at lunch, that’s a high note that perhaps even Carey can’t reach.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Bringing posh to the peasantry.
RATINGS: Food: B+ Service: B Atmosphere: B+
REVIEW
Posh
Where: 101-1788 W. Broadway, Vancouver
Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-737-7674
Drinks: Fully licenced.
Hours: Mon.-Thurs., lunch 11:30 a.m.-
3 p.m.; dinner, 5:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m.; Fri. dinner until midnight. Sat. 11:30 a.m.-midnight. Sun. 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.
© The Vancouver Province 2008
Average house price in Greater Vancouver nearing $1-million mark
Thursday, March 6th, 2008Stuart Hunter
Province
Crest Realty agent Terry Flahiff has a 1941 home on West 10th Avenue listed for $889,000 and already has an offer after being on the market for only a week. Photograph by : Les Bazso — The Province
At an asking price of $889,000, the Second World War bungalow in the 3100-block West 10th Avenue in Vancouver seemed like a bargain to realtor Terry Flahiff yesterday.
With the average price of a detached home in Greater Vancouver nearing $921,000 last month, Flahiff’s listing could be considered a bargain.
“It’s very busy,” said Flahiff, who works for Re/Max Crest Realty (Westside) and has been a realtor since 1985.
“There are still more buyers than sellers in this market and I think that if a property is perceived to be overpriced, it sits. If it is sharply priced, we are certainly seeing people competing for these properties. I’m still in more multiple-offer situations than not.”
Helmut Pastrick, chief economist with Credit Union Central of B.C., said it won’t be long before the region’s average house price breaks the million-dollar mark.
“At some point, we are going to see that $921,000 break $1 million — it won’t be that far off.”
Andrew Ramlo of the Urban Futures Institute predicts the $1-million average price will continue to push people out of Vancouver and into multifamily developments.
“If you are in your mid-30s coming into the market at $900,000, you either have to win the lottery or have a lot of money behind you,” Ramlo said.
“It will push people to more areas where housing is more affordable and cause the land to be used more extensively.”
Nick Collier, 59, who is selling the house on West 10th that he bought in 1990, said he plans to rent and see what happens to the market.
“I was a bit hesitant to sell but it is time to move on,” said the former stockbroker. “Trying to judge the top of the market is a fool’s game.”
Cameron Muir, chief economist with the B.C. Real Estate Association, said that with prices rising by about 12 per cent annually since 2000, more people are looking to multifamily dwellings, which accounted for 60 per cent of total sales last year.
“It is a much larger share than it has ever been,” Muir said.
Muir predicts prices will rise by seven to nine per cent this year.
While the average sale price of a single-family house was $920,644 last month, Brian Naphtali of the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board noted that the benchmark price for a detached home — the price of a typical home — was $761,342, an increase of 14 per cent from February 2007.
“The benchmark is a more accurate reflection of what the market is really doing,” Naphtali said.
