Matt Robinson & Glen Schaefer
The Province

Housing starts in B.C. are way up in the first six months of this year while the bulk of the country is flat or falling.

That trend appears in the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s most recent preliminary housing start data released this month. This news comes on the heels of recent data by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver that indicates real estate sales in Metro Vancouver might be slowing.

Housing starts jumped 40 per cent in B.C. in the first half of this year over last, according to CMHC. That spike has pushed the starts trend in the region to its highest level since 1990.

For Andrey Pavlov, a professor of finance at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, the combination of slowing sales, increased listings and this big jump in housing starts makes the real estate market somewhat uncertain.

“I don’t know if a crash is coming and I only really see imminent signs, but we’re in an extremely risky position,” Pavlov said Monday.

It is easy to enter a situation where “demand is softening but the supply continues to come in at a very high rate. And indeed that’s what we might be seeing right now,” he added.

However, Pavlov prefaced his comments by stating he’s been predicting a market correction for four years. “And I’ve been wrong.”

Housing starts in the first six months of the year are up in each of four B.C. markets detailed in the CMHC report. Vancouver was up 49 per cent, Victoria 61 per cent, Kelowna 80 per cent and Abbotsford a whopping 146 per cent. 

Tsur Somerville, an associate professor at the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business, noted “there’s a lot of anxiety and anxiousness out there right now and concern about where the market’s headed.”

But he said starts are not as strong an indicator as something like low sales, particularly in cities with a lot of multi-unit developments that are mostly pre-sold.

“Starts numbers in Vancouver particularly tend to lag behind sales numbers because they’re reflecting pre-sales and development decisions that have occurred over the past year rather than conditions right now,” Somerville said.

Tom Davidoff, also an associate professor at Sauder, cautioned that some of those pre-sales may have been snapped up by speculative investors.

He also put the lofty start figures in context, noting that it would take many years of construction at the pace reflected in the CMHC data to catch up to growth in the region. So while there’s a short-term concern of oversupply, over the long-term, “we’re still just not even in the ballpark of building what we need to build.”

Davidoff said a June slowdown in sales is to be expected in a cyclical market and he noted that summer is typically slow for real estate transactions.

“This is not a dead market,” he said. “Let’s see more months and let’s see a considerably lower sales-to-listings ratio than we’re looking at now before we start to talk about: ‘Oh my God, the end is nigh.’”

Meanwhile, all those starts represent a boon to the construction industry.

“There is a scramble going on, for sure. There is a shortage of workers, especially in the Lower Mainland,” said Phil Hochstein, president of the Independent Contractors and Business Association, which represents more than 1,200 B.C. contractors.

Hochstein cited provincial government figures that put the number of registered construction apprentices at 37,000, with another 2,500 workers in pre-apprentice programs, more than double the number in 2004.

“But if you’re short of workers, you’re not really short of trainees or apprentices,” he said. “You’re not looking for a less-skilled guy — no one ever calls me and says ‘I’m short of an apprentice.’ You want the journeyman.”

As of this past June, there were a total of 211,000 construction jobs in B.C., up some 16,500 over the same time last year.

“All the numbers are pointed up,” Hochstein said. “You see a lot of cranes.”

But he said outside of the Lower Mainland, Greater Victoria and the Okanagan, construction isn’t doing as well, particularly in northern resource communities dependent on industrial and commercial projects for construction work.

The health of the Canadian housing market has been a key focus for economists. The Bank of Canada has identified the sector as an area of risk and warned the pace of home price increases in Vancouver and Toronto is unlikely to be sustained.

BMO Capital Markets senior economist Robert Kavcic noted the national pace of housing starts looked to be settling in around 200,000, up from the rate in recent years.

“This level of construction activity is somewhat stronger than needed to support demographic demand, but if there is ’overbuilding’ starting to take shape, it is largely centred in one area — British Columbia,” he wrote in a report.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc

Cassidy Olivier
The Province

The City of Vancouver is one step closer to introducing a vacancy tax that will target homes and condos that sit empty for the majority of the year after the provincial government on Monday committed to introducing the needed legislation in a rare summer sitting of the legislature. 

Finance Minister Mike de Jong said Monday that the House will convene on July 25 to pass new legislation that will effectively amend the Vancouver Charter and provide the city with statutory authority to introduce and administer Mayor Gregor Robertson’s proposed vacancy tax.

As well, de Jong said the government will use the summer session to introduce legislation that will end the self-regulation of B.C.’s real estate industry, a move promised by the government earlier this month following release of a scathing report of the sector by an independent advisory group.

De Jong’s announcement responds to a request late last month by Robertson for the province’s support to impose a vacancy tax as a way of encouraging some of the owners of an estimated 10,800 vacant residences to rent, thereby increasing the city’s rental stock.

At the time, Robertson warned that the city was prepared to push ahead with the tax with or without the province’s help. On Monday, De Jong agreed that the proposal is a way to increase rental supply while waiting for some of the city’s pending housing projects to come online.

“It strikes us that if the city wants to do this, it is a reasonable request on their part,” he said. “We want to ensure the City of Vancouver has clear statutory authority to do this. But, it is ultimately their decision to proceed. We want to ensure that they have all of the information that is available to the province, that could reasonably be expected and be needed to effect enforcement of a measure like this when it is up and running.”

Robertson welcomed the province’s support at a press conference held later on Monday, saying it was a positive step in the right direction. He did note, however, that a lot of work around the details — including the rate of the tax, how it will be administered and what data the provincial government will supply to the city — still need to be ironed out. 

“We want to make sure it is fair, we want to be sure it’s focused on homes that are empty 12 months a year and that we are using all the data that has already been collected, whether that’s provincial data or city data we are using, that to make sure we administer this fairly and efficiently,” he said. 

“We are working on the next steps with the province on exactly how we collect the data [and] administer the empty home tax. So we haven’t gotten to the point where we’ve made decisions on how this is going to be administered.”

De Jong said the day-to-day administration of the tax will be the city’s responsibility. 

Robertson is hopeful other communities, particularly ones around Metro Vancouver, will push forward with their own empty-home tax as a way of increasing rental stock — a move that will require legislative changes to the Community Charter — noting that Vancouver is not alone in dealing with a vacancy crisis.

“The whole region is dealing with a vacancy crisis,” he said. “Rental housing is in short supply.”

De Jong said Vancouver is the only jurisdiction to date that has put forward a formal request for a vacancy tax.

NDP housing critic David Eby slammed the government on Monday for not acting fast enough on the affordability crisis, saying the only reason the government has decided to support Vancouver’s vacancy tax is because the B.C. Liberals are polling badly in Metro Vancouver.

The announcement also does nothing to address the issue of housing affordability in other communities, he said.

“If the mayor of Vancouver is happy with this, then I’m glad,” said Eby. “But the reality is that the province has responsibility for Metro Vancouver, and for the other areas that have identified this as an issue and this is a zero response for those residents that are grappling with unaffordability across the region.”

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Steve Randall
Canadian Real Estate Wealth

Fund manager David LePoidevin says the Vancouver real estate market may already be crashing.

The boss of the LePoidevin Group believes that his fund’s strategy of shorting some banks and non-bank mortgage lenders but not investing in the sector will prove to be a canny move with home sales in Vancouver slowing, even on the west side where supply is growing.

Although figures from the provincial government adds doubt to the impact of foreign buyers in the Vancouver market, LePoidevin told the HuffPost Canada: “I think the evidence now is that, we underestimated the amount of foreign capital that would come directly out of China … to Vancouver.”

LePoidevin says that a crackdown on Chinese citizens moving their money out of the country is the reason behind easing sales but notes that there are other signs of concern including regulators tightening lending controls and some lenders pulling back from the hottest markets.

Copyright © 2016 Key Media Pty Ltd

?THEY THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO BACK DOWN and LEAVE?

John Colebourn
The Province

A recovering drug addict is standing up to his multi-millionaire landlord in small-claims court.

The case of Jack Gates versus Triville Enterprises Ltd. provides a glimpse into the real estate operations of the Sahota siblings, who have owned rundown rooming houses on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for decades.

Gates never thought he would have the fight of his life to get heat and hot water in his tiny room at the Regent Hotel.

He complained publicly about the lack of heat last November, when Vancouver was hit with a bitter cold snap that left him feeling like he was living inside a meat cooler.

He hoped his landlord at the East Hastings Street hotel would quickly address his complaints when his frosty tale became a local media event.

But it soon became apparent heat and hot water were a low priority — even though his disability cheque covering the monthly rent of $450 is paid on time to Triville Enterprises, a company whose sole director identified in public corporate records is Parkash Sahota.

Pal, 77, his brother Gudy, 79, sister Parkash, 86, and other Sahotas are listed individually or in different combinations in property records that show real estate holdings worth more than $130 million, according to B.C. Assessment property records.

In addition to running the dilapidated Regent, the Sahotas have for decades owned other Downtown Eastside single room occupancy (SRO) hotels, including the Balmoral, the Astoria, the Cobalt and The Regal.

Gates said when he moved into the Regent in 2014, his second-floor room was filthy. “I had to clean the room out. There were two mattresses in there and they were full of bed bugs,” he said.

A recovering drug addict, Gates, 54, has been clean and sober for almost three years but suffers from arthritis.

The cold conditions in his room this winter compounded his condition, he

On Jan. 18, 2016, Gates submitted a nine-page document to the province’s Residential Tenancy Branch outlining in detail his issues at the In his submissions, Gates said when he complained about the lack of heat, he was given a space heater — but it didn’t work as it tripped the power circuit to his room.

In his evidence package to the RTB, Gates said: “In September 2014, tenant moved into the Regent Hotel. He complained immediately to the front desk management staff that he had no heat and hot water … Tenant complained verbally a few times afterwards, but did not get any results … He was nervous about complaining too much out of fear of eviction and knowing there are no other rooms to rent in the area.”

Submissions were made by both sides. Arbitrator P.L. Senay said: “The agent for the landlord stated that the reason the circuit breaker is tripping in the rental unit is because the Tenant is using a refrigerator and a hot plate, which are not authorized.”

The RTB came to a decision April 1. Senay agreed that the basic necessities of heat and hot water should be provided with the monthly rent payment. Gates was awarded $1,425 for lack of heat and another $250 for the hot water problem, for a total of $1,675 in a ruling against landlord Pal Sahota and Triville.

“The landlord has never offered to relocate him as a result of inadequate heat … and the landlord has never offered to reduce his rent as a result of inadequate heat,” Senay said in the RTB decision.

Senay determined that Gates and others had complained for months to the front desk about the heat and hot water problems, and also found those who complained felt intimidated by the hotel manager.

“As a result (they) were discouraged from insisting that repairs be made … I therefore find it reasonable that the tenant stopped reporting problems to the front desk and eventually reported deficiencies directly to the city,” Senay said.

Despite the RTB win, Sahota — whose owner address with BC Assessment is a Shaughnessy house assessed at $3.7 million — has yet to pay. A warrant was issued because Sahota failed to show up to a mandatory payment hearing. He subsequently did appear and the arrest warrant was cancelled. Gates and Sahota are to appear again in small claims court on Aug. 16.

“They thought I was going to back down and leave but I wasn’t going to do that,” Gates said after court. “They treat tenants like they are not people. And that is not right.

“There may be more backlash with my case,” he responded when asked about his future at the Regent Hotel.

A week after his appearance in court, Gates was sent a notice that he was being evicted from the Regent. According to the notice, he has 30 days to leave.

Pal Sahota has been dealing with serious structural problems at the Balmoral Hotel, a cornerstone of his family’s vast real estate empire.

Located at 159 East Hastings, the Balmoral is home to 168 tenants, most of whom are on income assistance and the government-subsidized rent of around $450 a month is generally paid directly to the owners.

Lately, the ramshackle hotel built in 1908 has been showing its age. In early June, a large, rotten structural beam running across the entire basement ceiling snapped.

The mould-encrusted beam had had water steadily dripping on it for decades. When it broke, it caused the tiled bar-room dance floor above it to develop a two-foot dip. The serving station at the bar came off its moorings and the ceiling partially collapsed as the structure shifted.

It was feared at the time that the floor would collapse into the basement. On June 8, the City of Vancouver shut down the pub and a “Not Safe to Occupy” sign was posted on the front door, citing a compromised floor structure.

Balmoral tenant and retiree David Laing said everyone in the eightfloor building had concerns when word spread that the beam in the basement had broken.

“It has been the talk of the corridors,” he said. “The bar collapsing is a concern.”

Shortly after the city shut down the bar, a work crew went into the basement one night and noise could be heard right through until the morning, Laing said.

Laing, a former tradesman, said tenants feel the beam problem needs professional attention, not a crew working throughout the night.

“If I’m in there having my 53rd beer, I definitely don’t want the floor collapsing when I get up to leave,” he said.

On a piece of cardboard tacked to a wall of the basement, some rudimentary instructions had been scribbled in black marker on how to make the repairs. As soon as the city learned about the work going on in the basement, the site was shut down.

The Sahotas’ ad-hoc repairs are not limited to the Balmoral. In the spring, the facade on the weather-beaten Regent Hotel began to crumble and fall onto the sidewalk below. The owners assembled a work crew to start repairs but the city shut down that work project.

The Regent is now covered in blue sheeting and repair work on the facade has yet to commence.

“We have seen this happen before. When the city gets involved, they (the Sahotas) get motivated,” says engineer Mark Emanuel, whose company, Spratt Emanuel Engineering, is involved in restoration work on buildings owned by the Sahotas.

Reached by telephone, Gudy Sahota said he did not want to discuss the structural damage at the Balmoral.

“The city is in charge, not you. They know what is happening,” he said.

Andreea Toma, chief licensing inspector of the bylaw and licensing department at Vancouver City Hall, said in an interview last week that she has run out of patience with the Sahota family and it is time for action.

“Right now, there are 48 violations across all five building,” Toma said of the family’s SRO hotels. “We have issues at the Regent and issues continue to come up there.”

She said the city moved quickly when the beam collapsed at the Balmoral, as the bar was still open for business despite the floor buckling and being on the verge of collapse.

She said the city was concerned the entire building could fall down.

“They kept the bar open thinking they could do the repairs,” she said. “There was a life safety issue there.”

Toma said city inspectors are well aware that unskilled labour is often used on repairs at Sahota-owned SROs.

“They have a reputation of trying to find a way to give tenants a chance to do the maintenance,” she said. “The Sahotas are notorious for hiring staff that aren’t professionals.”

She maintains the city is now taking a no-nonsense approach with the Sahotas.

“We bring the Sahotas into my office on a monthly basis,” she said of the ongoing issues.

Each of the SRO rooms the family owns is checked on a yearly basis, said Toma. Due to a lack of action on repairs by the landlords, Toma said the city is now ready to go to court.

“They have left us no choice and it is going to be up to a judge,” she said. “We have spent a lot of time and energy with them.”

Under the city’s Standards of Maintenance Bylaw, Toma said they can seek fines of up to $10,000 for infractions.

Sue Collard has trouble containing her emotions when she talks about the Sahota family as landlords.

From 2008 to 2010 she lived in and managed the Sahota-owned Kwantlen Park Manor in Surrey’s Whalley neighbourhood.

“It would be difficult to call them anything except slumlords,” she said of the Sahota family.

She recalls how the 50-unit building, which Waterford Developments has owned since 1989, became extremely run down due to a lack of maintenance, with the roof in need of major repairs. Parkash Sahota is listed in public company records as the sole director of Waterford.

“There was a major rainstorm and, immediately after, leaks were discovered in four suites,” Collard said. “You had to put buckets down.”

After she complained about the living conditions in the building, she was given an eviction notice.

“Why is it the provincial government lets people like this get away with these things?” she asks.

Collard and other tenants sought relief from the RTB and in March 2012 it fined landlord Gudy Sahota $115,000 for ignoring several orders to remove mould and repair extensive water damage in the building.

But in a controversial agreement with the RTB dated Aug. 22, 2012, it was decided the fine would be waived if the Sahotas met a number of conditions, including finishing the work on the property and a resettlement package for tenants who had to find other accommodations.

Collard, who now lives in Langley, said seeing the Sahotas dodge the fine was heartbreaking.

“It was disappointing,” said Tabetha Naismith, Newton chair of housing advocacy group ACORN.

“They get such a heavy fine lifted. If they are going to fine them, then they need to hold that landlord accountable.”

Today, the building is a recovery house for drug addicts and is home to only about a dozen people. According to property records, the 2016 value of the property was $3.38 million.

Kwantlen Park Manor isn’t the only Sahota-owned building that low-income tenants were forced to leave due to critical structural problems.

In 2007, the roof of the Sahotas’ SRO at 2131 Pandora St. in Vancouver collapsed, leaving 81 people without shelter. No one was seriously injured, but the incident highlighted the deplorable living conditions of the tenants.

“I’m fighting for the people they take advantage of,” Jack Gates said.

When informed about the City of Vancouver’s plans to crack down on the Sahotas, Gates replied: “I think it is encouraging the city is getting tough on them. That is really good.

“We need all the help we can get.”

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc

Multi-level Lake Club adds to appeal of Okanagan development

Michael Bernard
The Vancouver Sun

Project: Lakestone

Project location: 9295 Okanagan Centre Road West, Lake Country

Project size: Fully serviced lots on 550 acres providing for single-family homes ranging from 2,500 to 6,000 sq. ft. Also available for sale are 12 duplex homes and 10 single-family homes slated for construction

Prices: Lots from under $190,000 to $495,000; duplex homes from $599,000, single-family homes from $865,000

Lakestone developer: Macdonald Development Corp.

Sales Phone: 1-877-766-1213 (toll-free) Office – 250-766-1213

Presentation Centre: 9295 Okanagan Road West, Lake Country

Hours: 11 a.m. — 4 p.m., Sat — Thurs

Website: www.lakestoneliving.com

Occupancy: Lots available for immediate construction starts

Shawn Thomas of Vancouver has his route to retirement well mapped out. It leads to a new home lot with a majestic view overlooking Lake Okanagan.

“I have gone back and forth from the Okanagan as a kid, and since we got married and had a family we went there for summer vacations,” he said. “We had a strong idea of what we wanted, but I hadn’t heard of Lakestone. We spent some time looking looked at a few areas, but very quickly nailed it down to Lakestone.”

 The development has a planned build-out of 1,365 homes perched on the hills on the east side of Okanagan Lake between Kelowna and Vernon. To the south are the city lights of Kelowna and the William R. Bennett Bridge spanning the lake.

 “It’s going to be a second home, not a recreational property,” said Thomas, who works as a management consultant in the energy field. “Once it is built, it will be second home 20 or 30 per cent of the time, and then within about five years it will be our primary home and we will maintain an apartment in Vancouver.

 “It is our ‘slow retirement’ option,” said Thomas, noting that Vancouver’s robust real estate market and rising values of his home and rental properties have made it possible.

 Thomas is typical of the demographic who have been visiting and buying at Lakestone this year, says Howard Kruschke,
Lakestone’s director of sales and marketing.

 Over the last two years, about 40 per cent of sales have been to local residents “buying up”, he said, with the remainder coming from Alberta, Metro Vancouver, the Prairies, Ontario and the U.S. — in that order. But in recent weeks, there has been a shift, “with eight of the last 10 deals involving people from the Lower Mainland” while traffic from Edmonton and Calgary is slowing down.

 What buyers are looking for has also changed, Kruschke said, adding that they talk more about making Lakestone their principal home with resort amenities, rather treating it strictly as a recreational property.

 That also explains why Macdonald Development Corp. of Vancouver has shifted its focus to such amenities as the 25 kilometres of walking trails it has built throughout Lakestone’s 550 acres or a planned amphitheatre up the hill that will be used for public events.

 The developer has a list of preferred builders, including New West Custom Homes Kelowna, Bellamy Homes and Noba Vision, from which buyers can choose. They can also hire their own builder, subject to approval and stringent design specifications set down by Macdonald Development Corp. The theme for the new homes is modern flat-roof, timber and stone architectural design, he said.

For buyers who want to bypass arranging to build their own home, a third party is selling through a realtor 12 duplex villa homes and four single-family homes. The duplexes range from a 2,117-square-foot home with unfinished basement starting at $599,000 to $876,150 for a 2,760-square-foot duplex with a finished basement. Single-family homes are 2,760 square feet. each and are listed for $865,000. “We have had a lot of interest in these,” said Gino dal Ponte of The Property Source Group of Kelowna, adding construction is starting in the next two to three weeks in Lakestone’s Waterside neighbourhood.

As well, at least another six single-family homes about 2,600 square feet in size, are being constructed, and will be available for prices starting from about $1 million, dal Ponte said.

 Lakestone has no golf course, but Kruschke noted that serious golfers have access to excellent courses such as Predator Ridge, about 20 minutes away.

 The other amenities also hint at the change from the traditional golf-based communities that have dominated developments in the Okanagan for the last few decades. The Lake Club, a multi-level stone and timber structure built into the rocky hillside overlooking the Lake, has a fully equipped fitness centre, a large swimming pool and two hot tubs on an expansive deck, stainless steel locker storage at the lakeside for kayaks and paddleboards, and an outdoor kitchen with barbecues. Another facility, to be called the Summit Club, will feature a basketball, tennis and a pickle ball court.

The beach below the Lake Club has been left largely in its natural state with stones and gravel rather than sand, he said. The emphasis is on swimming, paddle boarding and kayaking away from power boats, which can use another community dock  about 150 metres away. The beach is also near a kokanee-spawning site, which Macdonald has contributed to by building pilings.

 Lakestone’s location has also been a major draw, with Kelowna’s airport just 10 minutes away. The airport has several flights daily to Vancouver and Calgary and direct flights to Toronto and U.S. cities. Thomas says that he can make it door to door between his Vancouver home and Lakestone by car in under four hours.

Also within easy reach are the ski resorts of Big White and Silver Star, which have excellent historical records for snow conditions.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Concord goes green in Brentwood 4756 Lougheed Highway, Burnaby

Michael Bernard
The Vancouver Sun

Project: Concord Brentwood

Project location:  4756 Lougheed Highway, Burnaby

Project size/scope: A total of 10 highrise towers, between 40 and 50 storeys. The first tower of 45 storeys in Phase 1 features 426 one-, two- and three-bedroom homes in a setting surrounded by 13 acres of park and green space; a five-minute walk to SkyTrain, Brentwood mall shopping

Prices: Available on request

Developer: Concord Pacific Developments Inc.

Architect: James K.M. Cheng

Interior Designer: LIV Interiors

Sales centre:  4750 Kingsway, Burnaby (Metropolis at Metrotown – next to Sears)

Hours: Burnaby Presentation Centre will be open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Visitors can  experience Concord’s neighbourhood with CONCORD 360 3D virtual reality.

Price: 1-bedroom (508 – 535 sq. ft.) priced from $400,000s; 2-bedroom (731 – 732 sq. ft. ) priced from $600,000s; 2-bedroom + den and 3-bed bedroom Sky Collection (977 — 1,239 sq. ft.) priced from $880,000

 Telephone: 604-435-1383

Website: ConcordBrentwood.com

Occupancy: 2020

Concord Pacific touts its new master-planned community Concord Brentwood as “Yaletown comes to Brentwood”, but there is one big difference: at Brentwood, buyers will be able to make use of considerably more green space.

That, says Grant Murray, Concord’s senior vice-president, sales, makes the new massive 10-tower development — to rise on 26 acres adjacent to the Brentwood shopping centre — a standout in Metro Vancouver.

“We chose the site because of its uniqueness—half of the 26 acres will be a 13-acre park, so this is rare,” said Murray. Even if we compare this to Yaletown, where we had a 200-acre site over the last 30 years, this one has double the amount of park space. We thought we could have an urban environment and a really green feel.

“We realized right away that this could be a family-oriented area, which is why we have a lot of suites in the two-bedroom range that will cater to young families.”

Buyers will not only enjoy more green space, but also capitalize on what Murray terms “other people’s money” that is spent in a master-planned community. He includes the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to expand the Brentwood shopping centre to 250 stores, the park spaces and a planned new school.

“The buyer of this condo doesn’t have to pay for all these additional services, such as anything that is increasing the livability of the area,” he said.

The community plan was developed by award-winning architect James Cheng in cooperation with the city of Burnaby. The first tower, to be completed by 2020, will be within five minutes’ walk of the SkyTrain station at Lougheed and Willingdon.

The show suites, a one-bedroom and three-bedroom model, opened to the public last month in a Metrotown mall, and feature a creative blend of interior and exterior space. The three-bedroom model, with 1,239 square feet of indoor space, for instance, has sliding corner glass doors that open to a wrap-around balcony that adds another 375 square feet of living space for a total of 1,614 square feet.

Two-bedroom models, which have about 730 square feet of indoor space, have an additional exterior space of 268 square ft. and 333 square feet, depending on the model, for a combined interior and balcony total area of more than 1,065 square feet. A model with two bedrooms and a den has 977 square feet of interior space with another 392 square feet of outdoor space for a combined total of 1,369 square feet.

One-bedroom homes with 535 square feet have either 125 square feet or 188 square feet of outdoor balcony space, depending on the model.

The suites have quartz countertops with marble backsplashes, integrated Bosch appliances, and wood-grain laminate closet organizers. Bathrooms feature frameless glass shower enclosures with built-in niches for toiletries.

The first tower will share a central lobby concierge podium with a second tower. It includes a grand motor court entrance with central water fountains and attractive landscaping with two-storey glass walls overlooking the plaza.

Common amenities include a fitness centre with yoga studio, entertainment lounge and games room, a pet-grooming room, theatre rooms, study rooms and a music room.

Down below in the parking, the stalls feature recharging facilities for electric vehicles and plans call for nine electric vehicles for sharing.

Murray says pricing is attractive because Concord was able to buy the property at a lower relative price compared to Vancouver, which it has passed on to purchasers. “If you have to pay $500 a square foot for your property in downtown Vancouver, you are already starting there before you even add construction costs, so you know your end price is going to be quite high,” he said.

“So by capitalizing on that, we can still make available reasonably affordable properties at a great price, very close to the proximity of downtown Vancouver. You are only 12 minutes from downtown with SkyTrain access.”

Murray says a condominium remains an excellent value in the Metro Vancouver market relative to single-family homes, which have continued to soar in value.

Says Murray: “I think the opportunity for the value to go up in the next 10 years in strikingly high. 

“You have to live somewhere anyway, so even if the market cools off, you are still going to have to pay the same amount for rent as that mortgage. At the end of 25 years, you own the property. When you rent, you have got nothing at the end of 25 years.”

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc

Bethany Lindsay
The Vancouver Sun

The end of another month means one thing in real estate-mad Vancouver: word that housing prices have hit another jaw-dropping high. But behind the figures for June are some statistics that could suggest the market is finally slowing down.

While the benchmark price for typical single-family homes rose to $1.56 million, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the number of sales of those houses dropped by about 19 per cent. In east Vancouver, detached home sales declined by 26 per cent, and on the west side, by 36 per cent.

Those declines come even as the number of listings rose. In the first six months of 2015, there were 72 sales for every 100 listings in east Vancouver. A year later, that dropped to 59 sales for every 100 listings. Similar changes were experienced in Burnaby, Richmond, South Delta and New Westminster. 

Academics are reluctant to make predictions without a few more months of data, but a pair of UBC business professors say that the signs for a possible slowdown are evident.

“Declining sales matching with rising listings is exactly the type of first thing we start to see when markets start to change,” said Tsur Somerville. “We see sales changes, volume changes before we see price changes.”

His colleague Tom Davidoff agreed, but he pointed out the Bank of Canada’s prediction last month of a possible “correction” to the nation’s housing market could have spooked some buyers. 

Still, there were already suggestions this spring from the Canadian Real Estate Association that the market may have “topped off” after a dip in sales in April.

There’s no hint in the numbers of prices cooling off so far, but there is scattered anecdotal evidence of homeowners dropping their asking price after they fail to get the desired offers. Ian Tang of Oakwyn Realty noted that in one extreme example, the list price of an east Vancouver home was recently cut by about $400,000.

“There are other instances where properties have been up for $1.2 million or $1.3 million, which seems reasonable in comparison to what’s been happening, but then they drop it (by) $100,000,” he said.

Fewer buyers are viewing listings now than in the past eight months or so, Tang added. Although that’s typical for the summer months, it does mark a change from 2015.

“Last year, we didn’t see a lull at all,” he said. “I was kind of expecting it to happen this year as well, but I think prices got to the point … that most people are kind of fatigued with the whole buying process.”

A small handful of investors are ready to call Vancouver’s housing market a bubble that’s about to burst. American short-seller Marc Cohodes told the Province a year ago that he was already making targeted bets against some alternative mortgage lenders.

Here in Vancouver, investor David LePoidevin of the LePoidevin Group says he is “nibbling” at shorting the real estate market by focusing on a handful of lenders.

He blames spiralling prices on three factors: low interest rates, foreign investment from China, and consumer behaviour based on the assumption that rising prices are a permanent trend.

“When you combine all three of those, it’s your classic bubble,” he said. “Right now, the numbers are so outstretched … that once it begins to turn, it could get nasty.”

LePoidevin has been predicting a bubble for years, but he believes he previously underestimated the effect of foreign money on the market.

“We might be getting to see the beginning of the money fleeing China slowing to a trickle,” he said. “The Chinese government are tripling their efforts to stop the flow.”

If he had to gamble on it, LePoidevin said he’d bet that the market has passed its peak, and said his company has responded by avoiding investments in Canadian real estate and preferring to work in the U.S. dollar, anticipating a heavy toll on the Canadian dollar.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Pete McMartin
The Vancouver Sun

To the surprise of no one, certainly not to me, the provincial government’s unveiling of foreign ownership data in Metro Vancouver’s housing market was widely panned by critics as being useless, misleading, obfuscatory, laughably incomplete, a deliberate attempt to protect Bob Rennie’s interests. … Have I missed anything?

You have to wonder why the province even bothered. The response was predictable, given how earlier government attempts at data-mining in the housing market have been greeted. That the number of vacant homes in Vancouver appeared to be negligible? Pish! That house-flipping numbers hadn’t even begun to approach historic highs? Tosh! Just exactly what data would please the housing and real estate critics seemed to be a moving and mutable target, dependent on whether or not it conformed to their beliefs. There was no convincing them that, for any data governments proffered, anything but the opposite was true, because they knew it to be true. Their own research confirmed it was true. Therefore, anything governments said about the housing market was a lie. 

Who knows? Maybe they’re right. But what this most recent offering by the government has done, and the critics’ and public reaction to it, is bring us closer to a truth of a different kind. Finally, we’re getting to the crux of the matter. It’s about the nature of the remedy to our housing “crisis” as the critics and many members of the public see it. It’s not a vacancy tax they want, or a tax on foreign ownership, neither of which would do much to cool the market, anyway. They want to rewrite the rules of immigration and tax law, and close the door. (Or as they put it: It’s Chinese money, not Chinese immigrants, that has created this market. Which makes me wonder exactly how they would go about separating the two.) 

Is that racist? 

Of course it’s racist. And if it didn’t begin as racist, as housing and real estate critics insist it did not, that it was purely an economic issue, that it’s not the colour of the homebuyers’ skin that mattered but the colour of their money, then the prolonged and lop-sided take on the matter in the media and in public opinion has made it racist.

It speaks for itself that we regard this huge infusion of capital into Metro Vancouver’s real estate market as a disaster rather than an unprecedented creation of wealth for British Columbians and the B.C. economy — which is now, not coincidentally, the best-performing in Canada. We have cultivated an Us Against Them dynamic — Them being the devious, dirty-monied, tax-avoiding, Maserati-driving, heritage-home-destroying, self-ghettoizing Chinese who steal into Canada through our immigration loopholes, outbid us for our housing, and abuse the social welfare state that we have created. We, of course, cast ourselves as innocent bystanders in all this rather than accomplices, despite the fact that not 20 or 30 years ago we were doing everything we could to attract Asian money to B.C. because of our hope to become world class and globally competitive, and to lift us out of the cycles of boom and bust that British Columbians had suffered. How soon we conveniently forget. What did we think Expo 86 was, if not a door swung wide open?

Now? It’s no longer a matter of housing. It’s a matter of culture and race in an increasing climate of mutual resentment — or perhaps you haven’t noticed the flood of spittle-flecked comments at the end of media stories about how we’ve been selling Canada off to the Chinese. And the remedy — one that is finally beginning to coalesce and make itself clear — is one not unlike the Chinese head tax of 1885. It’s the head tax stood on its head. In 1885, we wanted to keep the Chinese out because they were too poor and too numerous and would steal our jobs. Now, we want to keep them out because they are too rich and too numerous and would steal our homes.

We should admit to that. We should own up to that racially tinged resentment. I certainly will. I’ve felt resentment when I see an 18-year-old Chinese kid driving a Ferrari down the street with an “N” on its back bumper, and I’ve felt resentment at the thought of wealthy immigrants living in Point Grey mansions who declare incomes low enough to qualify for GAIN payments.

But then, I’ve also felt resentment at the many born-in-Canada professionals who, long before the wealthy Chinese got here, avoided paying taxes by incorporating themselves or by hiding their money offshore, while I ended up owing more taxes at the end of the year. And I’ve felt resentment, too, for an old-stock wealthy class which in the past didn’t give a damn whether or not I could afford to live in Vancouver until they saw their own neighbourhoods besieged by an even wealthier class.

Small of me? You bet. But I’m trying to be honest here.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

?Higher price spectrums? seeing ?unrelenting? demand: Sotheby?s

DERRICK PENNER
The Vancouver Sun

A cool $1 million might still buy you a posh place in Montreal, but when the benchmark price for a singlefamily home on Vancouver’s leafy west side is over $3.5 million and tops $1.2 million across the entire Metro Vancouver region, as of June, how do you define luxury in this city?

Sotheby’s International Realty puts it over $4 million for detached homes, over $1 million for condominiums in Metro and, for the first half of 2016, demand, particularly for single-family houses, was as hot as the debate over what is pushing prices in the overall market so high.

Sales in that over-$4-million category doubled to 439 over the first six months of 2016, compared with 219 for the same period of 2015, with all but a handful being detached homes.

Demand for high-priced condos was almost as high, with sales of over-$1-million properties rising 95 per cent to 618 for the same period, 32 of which pushed them over the $4-million threshold.

“Demand for luxury real estate in Toronto and Vancouver remains unrelenting, far exceeding supply in the higher price spectrums of the market,” Sotheby’s CEO Brad Henderson said in releasing the report. Single-family homes: 403 houses sold in the $4-million-and-over range (compared with 830 houses over $1 million but under $2 million), with homes spending 34 days on the market on average and 41 per cent of buyers spending over the initial asking price. Townhouses: 407 town homes sold for over $1 million, which represents a 79 per cent increase from the same period a year ago. The majority of sales (359) fell under the $2-million threshold. Only four were sold at prices above $4 million. Condos: 618 condos sold for over $1 million, with most sales (485) falling beneath the $2-million threshold. More condo sales breached the $4-million, top-tier threshold (32) than townhouses, but they were a harder sell, spending an average of 85 days on the market (as opposed to 16 days for townhouses in the same price range).

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Foreign nationals account for 5% of Metro Vancouver purchases

JOANNE LEE-YOUNG AND ROB SHAW
The Province

Critics slammed the B.C. government’s new data that foreign buyers account for five per cent of Metro Vancouver home sales, saying it misses the impact of offshore capital.

“The important question is not who is buying, but where the money is coming from,” said University of British Columbia associate professor Tom Davidoff. “If Vancouver is becoming a hard place to work and live, and if people who are permanent residents and citizens — with (overseas sources of ) cash from relatives, business associates or themselves — are buying homes, it still poses a challenge.”

On Thursday, the provincial government unveiled its first set of information based on sales from June 10 to 29, when it started to collect information about the citizenship of homebuyers who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

It said foreign nationals accounted for five per cent, of just over 5,000, Metro Vancouver home sales worth $5.4 billion, even though they bought more expensive homes than Canadian citizens and permanent residents. Buyers from China made up 90 per cent of those 259 foreign national buyers.

The average value of a home bought by these foreign nationals in Metro Vancouver was $1.35 million compared to the average of $1.04 million that a Canadian citizen or permanent resident spent.

Across B.C., out of just over 10,000 transactions worth a staggering $7.6 billion during these three weeks, about three per cent of the sales, worth $390 million, were by foreign nationals.

B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong, who announced the information Thursday, cautioned that the information is based on sales for just under three weeks and the sample loosely represents about 10 per cent of projected total home sales for 2016.

He acknowledged June 30 is a day when a significant number of home sales would have closed, but didn’t fully explain why the government chose not to wait and include it.

De Jong broke down the numbers in four communities: In Metro Vancouver, foreign nationals accounted for five per cent of transactions of which 234 transactions were by mainland Chinese buyers, followed by five by Korean, five by Taiwanese; City of Vancouver, foreign nationals accounted for four per cent; Richmond, foreign nationals accounted for 14 per cent; Surrey, three per cent; Burnaby, 11 per cent. (Source: B.C. Government)

In fact, June 30 was a record day of activity covering residential, commercial and industrial properties, going back to the last downturn in 2008, according to the Land Title and Survey Authority of B.C.

“What do people take from this (new data) with all the limitations and caveats I’ve attached?,” asked de Jong.

“We know with certainty there are foreign nationals from countries around the world purchasing residential properties in B.C. We know that as a fact now and are beginning to be able to quantify that. We know that at the head of that pack, the largest group certainly for the period we studied was from China,” he added.

“We have to be careful of the conclusions we draw about relative values. For the period we’ve studied, it appears that foreign nationals are purchasing at higher values than the average Canadian citizen.”

The move by the province to return to collecting data on foreign buyers followed public outcry that offshore money is contributing to skyrocketing real estate prices.

Opposition NDP Leader John Horgan brushed aside de Jong’s statistics, saying government should be looking at who is declaring income in the province and following the money rather than relying on self-reported citizenship data.

“I think they are lowball figures and I think there are other ways to arrive at this information, and that would be by using the Income Tax Act,” said Horgan.

Main findings include that there were 10,148 residential real estate transactions in B.C., totalling more than $7.6 billion. Of those, 337 transactions (3.3%) involved foreign nationals, worth $390 million (5.1%). In Metro Vancouver, there were 5,118 transactions worth nearly $5.4 billion, of which 260 involved foreign nationals (5.1%), worth $351 million (6.5%) In the City of Vancouver, there were 1,139 transactions, totalling more than $1.6 billion. 47 of these involved foreign nationals (4.1%), worth $64 million (3.9%). (Source: B.C. Government)

Horgan called it “troubling” that the five per cent of foreign purchases in Metro Vancouver account for more than $390 million in sales.

“After 19 days of data the Minister of Finance has discovered almost $400 million came from somewhere else for the express purpose of alienating British Columbians from the housing market,” he said. “That’s $400 million worth of activity that is not being participated in by the people who live here. And I think that’s a challenge.”

He reiterated the NDP’s position to tax foreign speculation through a program that would exempt those who declare income and pay taxes in B.C., accusing the Liberal government of fiddling around the edges of that issue.

“They spend more time talking to those who are investing in the B.C. Liberal Party than those who want to invest in putting down roots in the Lower Mainland,” he said.

The government’s single-digit percentages are in keeping with some past surveys, including one in June 2015 by the B.C. Real Estate Association for Metro Vancouver, which said foreign buyers account for no more than five per cent of sales.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.