Etoile to shine on Burnaby?s skyline

Mary Frances Hill
The Province

It’s no wonder residential corner units are so coveted among homebuyers, considering all their possibilities. When only one wall is shared with a neighbour, two walls carry the potential for large windows, more natural light and great views.

An entire building of corner units sounds ideal — and that ideal becomes real at Etoile, Millennium Development Group’s highrise project in Burnaby’s Brentwood neighbourhood.

Adele Rankin offers some decor advice to those who purchase at Etoile: sit back in a low-profile chair and embrace the view in your corner unit.

“Ensure you keep your furniture low profiled and simple. Keeping the backs of chairs and sofas on the more modern and lower height, or scale, ensures that the first thing you are drawn to is the outside,” says Rankin, a principal of CHIL Design, who worked with Millennium on the project’s interiors.

“The furniture should really complement this scenario, not fight it, so keeping lines clean, embellishments minimal and [using] a more neutral palette allows the large corner patios to be the star.”
With Whole Foods on one side of Lougheed and a spacious shopping mall in the works on the Brentwood Town Centre site, the community is transforming into a transportation and shopping destination — a magnet for those who like urban conveniences nearby. With all their consumer and transit needs fully met, homeowners can look to their interiors for details and finishes that entice them to stay in and relax, away from the bustle.

CHIL Design used clean, sophisticated finishes to draw the eye to the bold, striated marble look in a bathroom’s shower area, and to the horizontal patterns of the grey backsplash in the kitchens. “In residential designs of this magnitude, you always look for where you can make the biggest impact and how that can be a fresh yet timeless look,” Rankin says.

“For us, the obvious choices are the kitchens and bathrooms, where you can provide a unique look through the largest surfaces, which tend to be the walls.”

CHIL’s award-winning design portfolio includes projects in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, North and South America, to hotel brands such as Shangri-La, Hilton, Fairmont, Marriott, and Four Seasons. That exposure to the tastes and lifestyles in such diverse populations informs CHIL Design’s insights in every project, including Etoile, Rankin says.

“We have been very fortunate that our work and design has allowed us to travel and experience other countries and cultures. We absorb these influences, take the time to learn what is important to each region in which we work. We are able to understand different demographics quickly and what may be more important to some areas and not so much to others.”

Project: Etoile

Where: 5345 Goring St, Burnaby

What:  398 homes in a tower with four homes per floor; all corner units in a distinct clover-shaped construction

Residence sizes: Between one and three bedrooms, from 569 to 1,818 square feet; prices available on request

Developer and builder: Millennium Development Group

Sales centre: Unit B, 4247 Lougheed Highway, Burnaby

Hours: noon — 5 p.m., Sat — Thurs

Telephone: 604-828-1373

Website: http://etoileliving.com/

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.

With three more sites currently for sale, Chevron continues to sell off locations, profiting off their redevelopment potential

Western Investor

Two more Vancouver Chevron stations have shut down in favour of potential residential development.

One of the stations, located at the corner of West 16^th Avenue and Cambie Street, has already closed in advance of the sale’s completion. The property’s assessed value is $7.96 million – however, sale prices for both of the stations have not been disclosed.

The second station at West 41st Avenue and Oak Street will close Aug. 18 and has an assessed value of $14.61 million.

Earlier this year, Chevron locations on West Georgia and Dunbar Street sold for $72 million and $19.4 million, respectively. The West Georgia site was purchased by Anthem Properties and will be redeveloped into high-end residential towers in conjunction with the adjacent White Spot property. Both locations sold for well above assessed value.

Three other Chevron locations are currently up for sale at Broadway and Alma Street, West 4th Avenue and Macdonald Street and West 59th Avenue and Cambie Street. The stations remain open.

Copyright © 2017 Western Investor

Canadian Real Estate Wealth

Gen-Y is a massive cohort that is overwhelming interested in breaking into the real estate market – but will affordably challenges and impactful mortgage rules allow them to?

“Facing challenges their baby-boomer parents never encountered, peak millennials are confronted with significant obstacles that vary depending on where they live,” Phil Soper, president and CEO, Royal LePage, said. “While finding employment in our largest urban markets, Toronto and Vancouver, is relatively easy compared to other areas of Canada, buyers face limited inventory and high home values in these regions. Where prices are more affordable, job markets can be more uncertain.

“The pent up demand for housing from millennials is enormous, with only a third of this large demographic currently owning a property and an overwhelming majority desiring to be homeowners.”

According to a new report from Royal LePage, the number of Canadians aged 25-30 is projected to increase 17% in 2021 compared to 2016. And that cohort will have massive purchasing power.

“Whether they choose to buy or rent, peak millennials will inevitably shape the housing market due to their sheer volume,” Soper said. “We expect demand from this demographic to put additional pressure on entry-level housing and investment properties being used to supplement the limited inventory of purpose-built rental buildings.”

The desire to own a home is strong among these Canadians, with Royal LePage’s cross-Canada survey finding 87% of Canadians aged 25-30 believe home ownerships is a good investment.

However, slightly fewer –69% — hope to own a home in the next five years and only 57% of those surveyed believe they will be able to afford one.
Despite the challenges facing millennials who plan to enter the housing market, Soper suggests there are some developmental strategies that could help meet demand.

“While peak millennials are becoming increasingly inventive in their quest for homeownership, careful attention to urban planning could help to alleviate some of their constraints,” said Soper. “By focusing on vertical living, and developing larger, affordable condominiums in urban markets, supply limitations would ease, providing long-term, appealing solutions to young buyers in search of affordable property.”

Copyright © 2017 Key Media Pty Ltd

Joannah Connolly
REW

If ever there was a good reason to try to get into home ownership, the latest rental price data from PadMapper is surely it.

Vancouver’s rents have soared in the past year, from high to astronomical, with one-bedroom units now going for an average rent of $1,990, according to the rental website’s monthly price survey for August.

That’s 13.7% higher than one year ago, and the highest in the nation – see PadMapper’s chart below.

However, Vancouver’s current average one-bedroom rent is not as high as it was in July, dropping from $2,090 to $1,990, reports the rental website.

Average rent for two-bedroom units in Vancouver, which were already extremely expensive due to their scarcity, rose 3.2% year over year to $3,200 a month, a 0.9% decline from July.

As PadMapper’s price data is based on current rental listings on its website, monthly declines in advertised rates could be due to changes in seasonal demand, rather than necessarily a downward trend.

Rents Across Canada

Toronto was the next most expensive city for renting in Canada, with one-bedroom rents rising 8.8% in the past year, now averaging $1,850. Two-bedroom units average $2,450, up 14% year over year.

For the first time, PadMapper’s monthly survey of rental rates found that the average price for a one-bedroom apartment in Canada’s 10 most expensive cities exceeded $1,000 a month.

The only cities in the top 10 priciest chart to see rents fall year-over-year were Calgary and Oshawa.

Check out the full national list below, and read PadMapper’s August survey report.

© 2017 REW.ca

Joe Rosengarten
Canadian Real Estate Wealth

Don’t be concerned if you haven’t heard about real estate bonds yet, not many investors have. But as Canadian investors look for alternative ways to generate income, growth and maximize their tax savings on their investments, secured real estate bonds are destined to take off.

Real estate bonds are different from traditional real estate investments, like residential income properties, REITs, limited partnerships, syndicated mortgages and MICs, in some fundamental and crucial ways. They represent a new opportunity for investors who see the long-term benefits of real estate investing but want a more well-rounded and efficient vehicle with which to invest in the market.

“Despite this wide range of choices, the available options may not meet every investor’s specific requirements,” says George Lawton, CEO, North American Home Finance Inc. “Because investors have differing priorities – such as security, income, return on investment, and tax treatment – each investor’s needs are specific. In response to those needs, real estate bonds are evolving to provide more options with unique elements that expand the potential of real estate investment.”

Traditional real estate investments are a familiar tool amongst the investor community and although real estate bonds are not aiming to replace these options, they do represent a much-needed evolution in real estate investment options. “SKYIRE has launched three separate next-generation real estate bonds that provide growth participation as well as mortgage security,” Lawton says. “In addition to the rate of return on the bond, SKYIRE bondholders also benefit from the profits generated by the underlying real estate assets securing the bond.”

Making real estate assets behave like a bond has not been done before in Canada. But with a rapidly changing real estate market and uncertainty spreading through other investment markets, never has a bond-like real estate tool been more necessary. Real estate bonds may be new and unfamiliar to many, but they won’t stay that way for long.

Tomorrow on CREW Online, we delve a little deeper into SKYIRE’s HomeBuild bonds.

If security and growth are important to your real estate portfolio, now is the time to act. SKYIRE will send you a complete Real Estate Bond package including a free copy of the book Residential Investing featuring HomePlan and HomeBuild Bonds As a bonus, SKYIRE will also include the discussion paper “Evolution in Real Estate Bonds,” as well as a certified registered investment certificate in the amount of $250 to be used towards any SKYIRE Real Estate Bond investment.

Copyright © 2017 Key Media Pty Ltd

Office space demand in city may become dire

Sam Cooper
The Province

Unprecedented demand for office space in Vancouver is expected to drive commercial real estate vacancies to the lowest rates ever, a new report says.

The report from professional services firm JLL says a tight Vancouver commercial real estate market will be driven by new demand from technology companies. Vacancy rates could dive from about seven per cent currently to three per cent in 2019, the JLL report says, which would be “the lowest vacancy rate on record.”

The report says that the second quarter of 2017 saw Vancouver’s downtown office-space vacancy rate drop to 6.8 per cent, down from 8.3 per cent in late 2016.

In an interview Monday, JLL vice-president Mark Chambers said that in 25 years of watching Vancouver’s office market he has never seen greater demand from companies to gobble up office space.

“A lot of the companies are from the U.S.,” Chambers said. “The low Canadian dollar is attractive, and also we are a market where it is easier to bring in (high-technology) workers from overseas.”

While this sounds like a positive economic forecast for Vancouver — a city increasingly banking on drawing high-tech companies — current demand could overwhelm the supply of offices built in downtown Vancouver since 2015, Chambers said. If that’s the case, surrounding suburbs with higher vacancy rates and lower rents could benefit.

“A vacancy rate of three per cent would have a profound impact on Vancouver’s desire to build itself as a tech hub and financial centre,” the JLL report says. “Companies will find it increasingly difficult to expand in a market with little supply, in addition to increased rental rates, as competition increases for quality space. This will likely cause … a flight to the suburban markets.”

In a statement, Kent Munro, Vancouver’s assistant director of planning, said the JLL report apparently focuses mostly on demand for premier downtown office space, but Vancouver has been rezoning in other locations to provide commercial space that is attractive to innovation-economy companies.

“The City of Vancouver has been addressing this need from multiple perspectives beyond just facilitating new office development in the downtown,” Munro said in a statement. “For example, recent changes in Railtown, the False Creek Flats and in Mount Pleasant have all created expanded opportunities for new employment space.”

JLL’s report follows a recent report by Cushman and Wakefield, which said by 2019 Vancouver is predicted to have the second-lowest office-vacancy rate in the Western hemisphere. Cushman and Wakefield’s prediction for a Vancouver office-vacancy rate of 6.3 per cent in two years, would put the city behind only Toronto, at 3.9 per cent, their report said.

In Vancouver, developers built about 2.3 million square feet of new office space in the downtown market between 2015 and 2017, according to Stuart Barron, the firm’s national director of research.

In a previous story, Barron told Postmedia News that for Vancouver “the strength in the technology sector has been so strong that demand in (some types of) buildings has been more-or-less explosive.”

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.

BCREA

Download Document

Mortgage rate outlook

REP

Two of RateSupermarket.ca’s three expert panellists believe fixed mortgage rates will increase in the next 30-45 days.

“Mortgage interest rates have increased, but not by as much as bond yields, so there is some room for fixed rate mortgage costs to increase, by as much as a quarter point from current levels,” Will Dunning, chief economist for Mortgage Professionals Canada, said on the panel. “Furthermore, economic indicators in Canada have certainly improved, with employment increasingly strongly. Consumer spending has also accelerated recently, which is a solid indication that confidence in the economy has improved. 

“So once again, some increase in interest rates is justifiable.”

The panel’s resident mortgage expert, Dan Eisner of Truth North Mortgage, agrees with Dunning’s assessment.

“Bond yields have been trading at their highest point since late 2014.  And although we have seen five-year fixed rates move up lately, more rate increases may be coming,” he said. “This is leading to more worrying in the long-term regulatory environment. Some new regulations are coming into force this winter which could make is more difficult to qualify for the mortgage you want.”

The one dissenting voice was Dr. Ian Lee, a program director at Carleton University.

“Changes to mortgage financing rules have not only reduced the amount of marginal borrowers, but also the borrowers that would not be considered marginal in ordinary times,” he said. “The remaining eligible borrowers are much more credit worthy, and as such, they have increased negotiating power in a mortgage market with a plentiful supply of funds. This will temper forces to push rates up eventually.”

One thing all three panellists agreed on is that the Bank of Canada will stand pat on its overnight rate in the next 30-45 days, meaning variable rates are also expected to remain unchanged.

Copyright © 2017 Key Media Pty Ltd

The Yates on Yates by Chard Development will feature 116 units of varying sizes

Kathleen Freimond
The Vancouver Sun

Project: The Yates on Yates

Project address: 848 Yates Street

Project City: Victoria

Developer: Chard Development

Architect: Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership

Interior designer: Proscenium Architecture + Interiors Inc.

Project size: 20 storeys; 116 residential suites and ground floor retail

Bedrooms: Studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom

Unit size: 342 to 1,761 square feet

Price: Two-bedrooms start from $645,900

Sales centre: 102 — 608 Broughton Street, Victoria

Sales centre hours: noon to 5 p.m., Sat — Thurs

Phone: 250-590-9940

Construction: early 2018.

Website: http://www.yatesonyates.com

As part of its ongoing commitment to contribute to the revitalization of downtown Victoria, Chard Development is adding its ninth residential mixed-use project to the capital city with The Yates on Yates, a 20-storey tower.

“We have been very strong on [supporting] a more vibrant downtown Victoria. Residents in Chard developments have helped keep restaurants, shops and services more vital,” says the developer’s president and CEO, David Chard. “By bringing in these new residents, it’s really helped to make a more vibrant and sustainable city.”

The Yates, like many of Chard’s other developments in Victoria, will be built on the site of a parking lot. Chard says about 15 years ago he understood the City of Victoria wanted to see fewer surface parking lots and more residents living in the downtown. “That’s what we’ve done, purchased parking lots and developed a multitude of mid-rise, mixed-use projects,” he says.

The Yates has 116 residential units, including studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom options and street-level spaces for shops and services.

The building will include three levels of parking below grade, including 65 spaces for commercial parking.

“One of the things we’ve seen as we’ve developed on these parking lots is the need for additional commercial parking to keep the retailers and restaurants vital,” Chard says.

While there will be views from the upper floors, he notes the major benefit of the location is the proximity to downtown Victoria.

“Downtown Victoria is quite compact. If you work downtown, you’re going to walk to work whether you’re in the high-tech sector, service industry or working for the government,” he says.

The location also makes sense for people choosing to live an urban lifestyle.

“We hear from people who have bought in other buildings we’ve developed in the downtown that people love being able to go out for dinner without having to worry about driving,” Chard says.

The Yates is attractive to downsizers and young professionals, says Sandi Chih of Proscenium Architecture and Interiors, and the design appeals to both these groups.

 “It’s important for us that we’re actually designing to meet the needs [of potential buyers] and what the area is calling for. We find the buyers in the neighbourhood are very trendy and design-aware,” she says.

The result is a West Coast contemporary design with a Scandinavian influence, explains Chih.

“We went for a very clean and minimal design palette and brought in the complexity through the use of textures and subtle design details like the really nice edge on the countertops that elevates the kitchen that little bit further,” she says.

Buyers have the choice of two palettes, simply named Light and Dark. The Light scheme includes white oak high-performance laminate floors, light Caesarstone countertop with matching one-piece backsplash and flat-panel cabinetry with a modern horizontal wood grain with a matte finish.

The Dark option includes a grey teak laminate floor with charcoal grey wood-grain cabinetry and marble-inspired Caesarstone countertop and backsplash.

The integrated Fisher & Paykel refrigerator/freezer and pantry cupboard frame the kitchen in the sales centre at 102 — 608 Broughton Street in Victoria. The electric induction cooktop, built-in wall oven and the dishwasher, located in the eight-foot six-inch by three-foot three-inch island, are also by Fisher & Paykel. The island also accommodates the stainless steel sink and a Grohe faucet with pull-out sprayer and an under-counter wine cooler.

The bathrooms feature the same cabinetry as the kitchen and the vanity has a recessed kick to give it the appearance of floating, enhancing the clean look of the overall design. The bathroom also has a feature wall of large-format 24 by 24-inch marble-look tiles. Frameless glass swing shower doors have polished chrome hinges to match the Grohe bathroom faucets and rain shower heads. In cooler weather, buyers will appreciate the underfloor heating in the main baths or ensuites.

Chih says to support the modern esthetic, she avoided surface-mounted sconces in the bathroom and selected recessed Piccolo lights above the vanity.

There are also recessed pot lights in the kitchens and in the bedrooms and dining rooms in-ceiling electrical boxes will be ready to accept light fixtures.

Chih says one of the standout features of the units at The Yates are the laundry closets. One-bedroom units have a stacked washer and dryer and millwork, including adjustable shelves, that enable the space to also be used as the entry closet, while the two-bedroom/two-bathroom units have a side-by-side washer and dryer. Millwork in these laundry closets contributes to overall storage space in the unit, Chih says.

Chard notes that like the other buildings the company has developed, The Yates will also feature rooftop patios and terraces.

“The rooftop terrace will have barbecues, a sitting area, washroom and garden plots. That’s proven to be a signature for us and has been very popular,” he says. “Whenever I take people through our completed buildings, that seems to be what really captures everyone.”

Other amenities include a dog-wash station with hot and cold water, and an easily accessible bike storage and maintenance bench.

© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.