Vancouver Real Estate

"Nice House Baby" by Neil Brooks of C21 Arizona Foothills (1:59 min)

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:44:55 -0500

I am "re-blogging" this post. This is something new here on Active Rain and I hope I am doing it correctly.

This video is hilarious and may even help sell this house. What do you think?

Via ActiveRain Video:

Fraser - Mountain View Area Home for Sale, Vancouver, BC

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:09:31 -0500

• 2,250 sq. ft., 3 bath, 7 bdrm 3 story "3 bedrooms up" - $849,000 CAD - Room to Grow!

Fraser Street, Vancouver - Lovingly renovated this Fraser – Mountain View area home offers everything your family is looking for inside AND out. Enter through the front garden gate, stop and enjoy the landscaping, have a seat on the garden bench. Entering the house the LIVING ROOM is warm and inviting with its oak floors with walnut inlay. The KITCHEN is bright and spacious and features a large farm-style sink, heated tile floors, lots of cupboard space, and a beautifully tiled backsplash. The main floor bath (4 pieces) features an antique English dresser turned vanity. Also on the main floor are two bedrooms.

UPSTAIRS, you will find 3 bedrooms including a spacious MASTER with built-in closets and your own sitting area. There is a cheater ensuite and the other two bedrooms are perfect for the kids. In the basement there is a separate 2 bedroom suite with a large great room and lots of natural light.

In the BACKYARD you will find an oasis offering an outdoor living room, a children’s play house that matches your new home, and just enough of a lawn to keep everyone happy. The single GARAGE is spacious enough for a vehicle and storage, and there is a single carport too.

The Mountain View neighourhood is warm and welcoming and has great community spirit. Vancouver's first "country lane" is just around the corner and there are many traffic calming features. Grays Park offers tennis, basketball and lawn bowling as well as a playground and wading pool. Visit the shops on Fraser St. or walk over to Main St. or the new King Edward Village (featuring a library and Save-on Foods). Schools are nearby and there are regular neighbourhood events. There is a community bbq in the country lane this August. We hope you can make it.

Property information

Great Vancouver Neighbourhoods - Mountain View

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:56:24 -0500

Great Vancouver Neighbourhoods - Mountain View

Mountain View

Vancouver is a city of neighbourhoods they say. I am not sure who "they" are, but "they" are right. One of the nicest and most under appreciated is the Mountain View neighbourhood. Mountain View is a loosely defined area either side of Fraser St from about King Edward Ave. up to E. 41st. The name Mountain View is most closely associated with the City of Vancouver's cemetary (I see you can now search for where someone is buried using the Mountain View cemetary application on VanMap) and the area does boast some amazing mountain views.

Community Spirit

The community spirit in this area is quite remarkable and the neighbourhood assoication has their own blog and Facebook group. Recent events have included Mountain View's Keep Vancouver Spectacular block party, the McBride Annex Elementary School Spring Fair, and the Earth Hour Hot Chocolate Party.

Country Lane

Mountain View is also home to the first of the Country Lane's to built in Vancouver. You can learn more about the city's country lanes on their website and about Mountain View's country lane on the the blog.Grays Park

Coming up in August they will having a community bbq in the country lane.

Parks

Grays Park is the neighbourhood park and it is a wonderful place with tennis courts, basketball courts, a playground, picnic shelter, wading pool (they are campaigning for an upgrade to spray park) and it is also home to the Vancouver South Lawn Bowling Club.

Mountain View Banners Bayview Food Market Picnic shelter at Grays Park Grays Park lawn bowling Slow down kids at play Traffic calmed streets Slow down more kids at play

False Creek Real Estate Statistics - June 2008

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:50:37 -0500

So what happened with False Creek real estate (this is for False Creek South) in June. I must apologize for taking so long to get this out this month. Despite the doom and gloom in the local papers though it was a pretty good month for False Creek real estate. Inventory dropped compared to May and a couple more homes were sold than in May. False Creek does look great in the sun and that can't have hurt. The stats were skewed a bit this month by the listing of the some of the units at the new Lumen development on the MLS®.

LISTED IN FALSE CREEK IN JUNE (last month's numbers in brackets)

Freehold Strata Units Listed: 14 (22)
Pre-paid Leasehold Strata Units Listed: 7 (9)
Non Pre-paid Leasehold Strata Units Listed: 2 (actually 1, but there was one listed as a "non-prepaid non strata" and I am pretty sure it is a strata so we'll say 2) (2)
Total Units Listed: 23 (33)

Total Listings Available as of June 30th: 56 (61)

SOLD IN FALSE CREEK IN JUNE (last two month's numbers in brackets)

Freehold Strata Units Sold: 5 (6,7)
Pre-paid Leasehold Strata Units Sold: 6 (3,4)
Non Pre-paid Leasehold Strata Units Sold: 0, (0,1)
Total Units Sold: 11 (9,12)

Average Days on Market: 37 (24,21)
Median Days on Market: 26 (17,14)

Average Sold Price: $490,781
Median Sold Price: $490,000

Absorption Rate: 5.09 months (6.7)
What is the absorption rate. It is the number of months that it would take to absorb, or sell, the present inventory of homes for sale.

If you have any questions about False Creek real estate or a topic you'd like to see covered on the Comet please let me know. If you are interested in seeing what is for sale in False Creek you can always search for False Creek real estate here.

This post originally appeared on my False Creek neighbourhood blog, the False Creek Comet.

False Creek Things To Do - New Works: All over the Map Dance Festival

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:36:42 -0500

New Works is a Vancouver based dance company that "really likes dance. A lot." That is according to the New Works website. Their mission statement is:

To produce and present performance events for the public, and to build audiences for diverse dance forms locally, nationally and internationally. To also provide support to emerging, mid-career and senior dance artists and managers of all cultural traditions in the development of their careers.

New Works is bringing their fun attitude towards dance to Granville Island the next 4 Sundays (at 2pm), and twice in August, with the All Over The Map dance series. All performances take place at Ron Basford Park (beside Performance Works), on the east side of Granville Island.

Here is the schedule:

July 6 World Dance and Music: Silk Road Music and Friends
July 13 African Dance and Music: Miyanda and Kunaka
July 20 Polynesian Dance and Music: Langley Ukulele Ensemble & Kauhane Polynesian Dancers
July 27 Hip Hop: SOULdiers’ Dance
August 17 Flamenco: Mozaico Flamenco Dance Theatre
August 24 First Nations Dance and Music: Dancers of Damelahamid

ENJOY!

This post originally appeared on my False Creek blog, the False Creek Comet.

False Creek is Full of Poo, err Fecal Coliform

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:57:57 -0500

You probably heard about this already, but just in case you haven't I thought I'd better mention it. There is a lot of poo, err fecal coliform (learn more about fecal coliforms on wikipedia) in False Creek, especially at the east end of the creek.

The Vancouver Sun was all over this yesterday with the story on the front page of the West Coast News section entitled False Creek coliform count soars. Bottom line don't put your body in False Creek and especially not your eyes, ears or nose. It seems the "green" development in South East False Creek had done something to cause raw sewage to be flowing into the creek.

This post originally appeared on my False Creek neighbourhood blog, The False Creek Comet.

Vancouve REALTORS Beware of Weirdos

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:53:20 -0500

Okay maybe there is a better name for them, but please read the following anecdote from one of my colleagues about the scary expeience she had last weekend. Ladies don't be going out in the forest alone!

My daughter was with me, and we were just opening a listing on West Broadway, when a fellow came in with us. Appears he had been waiting... We went about opening, and turning on lights, however as soon as I was ready to give him my full attention, he fired off aggressive questions, such as "And so what issues does the Building Engineers Report highlight in this building"? etc., very confrontational throughout our short conversation...I asked him why he was so upset, and he said he had recently had an Offer and Inspection on a property in New Westminster that had turned out to be a leaky condo...He continued for a few minutes and upon learning that I did not know how large the roof was on this building, he stormed out... I watched him from the window, leave the building, and noticed that he was not carrying our data sheet we had given him...In the past, I have had experience where someone would write something nasty, and post it in the Lobby or whatever, so I asked my daughter to go down and check his route, to make sure he had not left any rude or crude messages....She went out to the hall where we had left our shoes to find he had spit in them...

He was a scary, but well dressed clean cut guy....but that rude act was aggressive.

He was very clean cut, 5 ft 9 or 10 " ,late twenties to early thirties, very fit...looked like he worked out regularly, well dressed, short fair hair, striped good quality shirt and beige pants...carried a digital camera.

I reported this to the Board on Monday morning and they said I should let my office know also...

Ok be careful out there everyone.

Vancouver Real Estate Prices Rise While Supply Also Rises

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:02:50 -0600

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) released their February 2008 statistics yesterday with the headline "Housing options broaden for buyers in February". Sales across all categories (detached, attached and condominiums) were down 6.2% compared to February 2007 while listings were up 26.2% compared to February 2007. New listings were actually 21.2% higher than February 20006 so I see no cause for panic.

As the headline says this the recipe for a more balanced market, but may or may not be the start of any kind of significant change in the market. Real estate is local, very, very local. Vancouver East saw a year over year increase in listings last month, but Vancouver West actually saw numbers about the same as last year. Multiple offers are still common in Vancouver, as are sales prices well above the list price

Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver president Brian Napthali had this to say:

"We continue to see the market rebalance, particularly with detached properties, where listings climb and sales either hold or decline slightly," says REBGV president Brian Naphtali. "This shift increases buyer options and allows people more time to make decisions when purchasing a home."

The report also mentioned these:

Bright spots in Greater Vancouver in January 2008 compared to January 2007:
Detached:
West Vancouver/Howe Sound..... up 16.7 per cent (56 units sold up from 48)
Whistler/Pemberton........................ up 100 per cent (10 units sold up from 5)
Port Moody/Belcarra................... up 22.7 per cent (27 units sold up from 22)
Attached:
New Westminster......................... up 216.7 per cent (19 units sold up from 6)
Port Coquitlam............................ up 68.4 per cent (32 units sold up from 19)
Apartments:
Burnaby..................................... up 9.5 per cent (150 units sold up from 137)
Whistler/Pemberton....................... up 62.5 per cent (13 units sold up from 8)
Port Moody/Belcarra................... up 27.6 per cent (37 units sold up from 29)

This post originally appeared on my Vancouver real estate blog, the 604homesblog.

Another Vancouver Condo Project Cancelled: The Sophia

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 11:52:11 -0600

CBC reported the other day that Bill Eden's Eden Developments had stopped construction of its only active development, the Sophia. In a situation eerily similar to the Riverbend development that cancelled the contracts of pre-sale buyers earlier this year The Sophia, located in Mount Pleasant, was nearing completion and now it looks like pre-sale buyers who bought 2-3 years ago may be forced to buy back in at today's prices if they wish to keep their units, and if they can afford too.

I have a thank a few people for the heads-up on this one. Firstly a commenter, the mysterious mr. x, from my post about the cancelling of Eden Developments other projects, the Elyse and Montgomery Estates, mentioned this on the 21st, and yesterday I first found news of the CBC story (which I can't find on their site) about this on Yatter Matters. Thanks guys, and good luck to you Sophia pre-sale and especially assignment buyers.

This story originally appeared on my Vancouver real estate blog, the 604homesblog.

How Effective Is Your Homepage at Converting Visitors to Leads?

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:54:49 -0600

Last night I attended a Vancouver marketing un-conference called Case Camp. The event was very interesting and I chatted to some of the same people I had met at Tuesday night's Third Tuesday event. There were some interesting presentations and I won't bore you with a run down of them all. They weren't boring at all, but I am sure that me writing about them would be. Case Camp presents marketing case studies, but each one is only 8 minutes and then there are two minutes.

TWO OF THEM MENTIONED IT

The most interesting and real estate tech related thing I learned was mentioned by two of the presentations. They both mentioned the same tool and I thought that it could be very useful to realtors looking at the design of their website home, or landing, page. The first presentation I wasn't too organized for and wasn't taking notes so I can't tell you who was giving the presentation and where she worked. I'll try to find out who she was.

The second presentation was by Chris Goward of a company called Wind Tunnel. Their slogan is "Squeezing more value from your website" and that is what realtors® are always trying to do. Getting the visitors there is hard enough, but whats the point if they look around and then leave. We are here it make a living, not as a community resource. Thats what we pay taxes to the city for. So Chris and Wind Tunnel were looking at redesigning a companies homepage in order to get more visitors to register for their trial software.

WHAT WAS IT?

What both of these presentations mentioned that the tool that they used to test these sites was the FREE Google Website Optimizer. First you will have to decide what it is you want to your site visitors to do. You want them to leave their information, but what are you going to offer in return. Most likely this will be to register for your IDX or VOW for access to MLS® listing info. You will then have to create two test pages to see which one Google says is the most effective at converting visitors into leads.

Good Luck!

BC Real Estate Convention: A One Stop Real Estate Shop

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:08:05 -0600

This is the 4th year for the BC Real Estate Convention and it has gotten bigger every year. It must be the cost of admission. It is free!

There will be exhibitors from many different real estate related fields, including developers both local and international), lenders, renovators, insurers, and of course some REALTORs will be there as well. My office, Royal LePage Westside will be there and you can find me there from 4-6pm on Tuesday, February 26th. There are a series of free seminars throughout the day each day as well, but I can't find the schedule online.

The Vancouver Sun wrote a piece on the convention that was quite enthusiastic. The convention's own website is quite good, but annoyingly keeps asking me to install Korean characters on my PC and I have no use for them. Just click cancel if it happens to you and move on.

Say hi if you are there. I'd love to meet you.

This post originally appeared on my Vancouver real estate blog: the 604homesblog.

False Creek Festivals: Winterruption

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:54:14 -0600

The Winterruption festival starts tomorrow on Granville Island. There are great sounding activities, performances, art and music happening all around the island from Thursday through Sunday the 24th.

Some of the highlights that struck me were:

Family Winter Carnival False Creek Community Centre
Sunday 10:30AM-12:00PM - $5 per family member, children under 1 are free

Children's Activities Kids Zone
Workshops: Saturday & Sunday 10:30AM - 4:30 PM FREE

Market Arts Granville Island Public Market
Saturday & Sunday 11AM, 1PM & 3PM - FREE

Video Winterruption Workshop
Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design Theatre 301
Saturday 10AM-4PM, Sunday 10AM-2:30PM, Screening & Celebration 2PM - FREE

Vancouver Writes
Performance Works
Thursday 7:30PM - $20 adults, $18 Seniors & Students

Panel Painting
Net Loft, 1663 Duranleau Street
Saturday & Sunday 11AM-5:30PM - FREE

Aerial Dance: Cold Hands, Warm Heart
Under the Bridge
Saturday & Sunday - 10 min sets between 5:45 - 7PM - FREE

Cirkids' Perfect World Festival Garage
Saturday & Sunday 12PM & 1:30PM - FREE

You can find more information on the Winterruption festival on their website. There are pages for Activities, Art, Music and Performances. There is even a guide on how to get there by car, bus, bike and even boat. If you are having trouble dressing yourself they even have suggestions on what to wear.

This post origianlly appeared on my all False Creek neighbourhood blog, the False Creek Comet. Go there for pics and links to the Winterruption festival events.

Valentines Day in False Creek

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:21:32 -0600

Living in False Creek certainly makes getting something for your Valentine really easy. Just head on down to Granville Island.

Do you need flowers? Of course you do! There are two great florists in the Public Market at Granville Island. The easiest to find is the Granville Island Florist at the south east entrance to the market. They are also the only one with a website so the get the link love. The other is the V & J Plant Shop (604-689-4439) at the other end of the market closer to Bridges Restaurant. Both have beautiful flowers on display everyday and can do something custom for you if you like. My wife and I had our wedding flowers done at V & J some years ago now and they were lovely, but I really don't think you can go wrong.

Now you've got the flowers you need a gift as well. There are lots of great places on the Island of course, Crash, beside the Dragon shop, on the way down to The Sandbar, always has an interesting array of gift ideas. They also do not have a website. :- ( . Got a few more bucks to splash around then just head across the street from the market to Circle Craft in the Net Loft. There you will find an amazing assortment of handcrafted items from craftspeople from across B.C.

There was also a great chocolatiere at a day-table in the market yesterday when I was there, but I don't have their name handy. Look for them at the food court end of the market near the V & J Plant Shop. Oh, I found them (thank you google). They are called ChocolaTas and produce some incredible all natural chocolates. Take a look at the website, they are beautiful chocolates.

While you are down there see if you can get a reservation for dinner as well. My favourite on the island is the aforementioned Sandbar. Nice ambience, very nice food, but won't brake the bank, and if you are lucky (and if you've left it this long you probably won't be) and get a good table a view of the Creek.

Okay don't let your Valentine down and I'll see you there tomorrow because I am not done my shopping yet either.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

What to Blog About: There isn't enough time for all the ideas

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:16:46 -0600

Living in a big city never have any shortage of ideas for things to blog about. There are new stats and reports from the MLS® (yes, Canadian REALTORs® own the trademark on the term MLS® in Canada), the banks and various local and national organizations almost every week and sometimes 2-3 a week.

Then there are events around town. There are festivals and big industry shows (boat show, car show, golf show, outdoors show, motorcycle show) happening constantly. I just can't keep up. I kept forgetting to blog about the boat show last week and I just never got to it and now its over. No if you don't live in a bog city then you may not have some of these options.

But you do have lots of other options and the added benefit that people around town might even get to recognize you. There are something like 13,000 REALTORs® in Metro Vancouver so I am unlikely to be noticed about town. I have created a new hyper-local blog about my neighbourhood, False Creek. Today I was down at the local community centre and took a look at the notice board and there was all sorts of blog post ideas right there in front of me. Notices for neighbourhood association meeting, exercise classes, clubs, parent groups. So I pulled out by handy camera phone and snapped pucs of the all the notices that I thought were useful and now I have a nice, if slightly blurry (1.3 megapixel), list of things to blog about and pics to add to the posts too.

I am sure there must be a similar place in your city, town, or neighbourhood (or neighbOrhood). Check it out and then get down to writing. This is the kind of topuc that will help broaden you readership and build those relationships in the community. And once you've written your post be sure to email the company, club, etc that you've blogged about to let them know you've given them the shout out.

Another idea that I had yesterday as the family and I headed out to pool was to feature ideas for family outings with description and photo record of your outing. So I grabbed the camera as I headed out the door (last because I was working on a blog post) and took some pics getting the kids in the van, some shots of this beautiful new pool that we were going to, ~~some shots in the change rooms~~ (hahaha, just kidding, I put then camera away in the lobby) and lastly a nice shot (i hope) of the sun setting as we packed them back into the van for the ride home.

Isn't this a cool building?

Happy Blogging!

REALTOR® Killed

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:48:24 -0600

It doesn't seem to have been posted here yet so I thought I better let the Active Rain community know that a REALTOR® in Victoria, BC, Canada was killed showing a home this past Saturday afternoon.

It appears she had two called about showing this house. The first from a women and the second from a man and she felt strange about the whole thing. No details have been released by police yet, but the house was a newly constructed, unoccupied home. News report here and more up to date here.

We should all be VERYcareful! There is a Personal Safety Guide that the Canadian Real Estate Association (NAR for Canadians) make available to us, but is actually a NAR product. Anyway, I have uploaded it to my website so you don't have to go looking for it. You can find it right here. Lots of other safety iinformation can me found on REALTOR.org, just search for "safety".

The report starts to with 3 of the most important tips:

Identify the person you are working with before you join him/her alone, in a car or a house. Copy his/her driver's license!
Always carry your cell phone, program 911 into speed dial, and don't hesitate to call for help.
Trust your instincts. Please, please trust your instincts. No commission is worth putting yourself at risk.

Its when you first start working with a new client that we can do the most to protect ourselves and the report lays out what to do:

WHEN YOU HAVE NEW CLIENTS:
Meet them in the office
Verify his/her identity
Get their car make and license number
Photocopy their driver's license
Complete the Client I.D. Form

ASK PROSPECT TO STOP BY YOUR OFFICE
and complete the personal identification form before going to a property. This should be openly obtained, preferably in the presence of an associate.

VERIFY THEIR IDENTITY
This may entail calling references, his/her place of employment and verifying his/her current address. Iinformation should be retained at your office; knowing that a name and address are known may discourage
an assailant.

GET THEIR CAR MAKE AND LICENSE NUMBER
It's easy to do, and it will assist police in catching a criminal or finding you if you are abducted. If the car is stolen, your prospect will be reluctant to give you a license number.

INTRODUCE THE PROSPECT TO SOMEONE IN YOUR OFFICE
A would-be assailant does not like to be noticed or receive exposure
knowing a person could pick him out of a police lineup.

PHOTOCOPY OR SCAN THEIR DRIVER'S LICENSE
Legitimate clients do not mind you copying their driver's license. We freely show our license to the clerk at the grocery store when we write a check and we show our i.d. to rent a movie. We can expect identification from our client before we show a home worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This is a terrible terrible event and has quite shaken the BC real estate community. Be safe out lthere adies and gentleman.

Scam Alert: Vacouver Real Estate Agents Alerted to Scam

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:04:41 -0600

This one is nothing new but the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver felt it important enough to send out a warning to a all its members about it. Here is what they said:

EMAIL SCAM ALERT!

A few of our members have alerted us to a potential email scam. They have received emails from a woman named Joan Ibori, who claims to be the wife of the ex-Governor of Delta State in Nigeria, James Ibori. In the email, she says that she wants to purchase a house for "$500,000 to $1 million with 3 to 4 bedrooms," and asks for a procedure for payment and a picture of a house, noting that she must relocate her family immediately.

Our research shows that James Ibori is currently in a Nigerian prison facing 103 counts for crimes committed while he was governor, including theft of public funds, abuse of office and money laundering. He is also facing corruption charges in London over his now-frozen $35 million in assets there. His wife, who is not named Joan, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in connection with the charges, questioned, and released.

This is cause for concern. We are asking any of our members who receive any emails of this nature to exercise extreme caution - never give away personal information or send money to strange or suspicious persons.

It never hurts to be too aware of this stuff.

False Creek Neighbourhood of Vancouver Gets Its Own Blog

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:14:13 -0600

I have started a new blog about my neighbourhood, False Creek South, the False Creek Comet. This blog will be all about life in False Creek. Events, kids activities, restaurants, real estate .... what happens to come along. There are only a few posts so far but more are coming. There are some great events coming up on Granville Island and I hoping to interview some neighbourhood business people. I hope you'll check it out and leave a comment.

My Vancouver Real Estate Blog Reached 200 Posts!

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:37:20 -0600

My Vancouver real estate blog, the 604homesbog reached 200 posts the other day. It has taken almost a year. I am pretty excited about this and the visitors are starting to come now. I hope you'll take a look and leave a comment.

The Worst House I Ever Sold

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:58:51 -0600

A recent blog post by Margaret Woda from Crofton Maryland, entitled Yes, there is a Buyer For Every House reminded me of a house I sold a couple of years back. Now it was obviously only worth lot value and I didn't try to sell it as anything more, but this house was in rough shape and the sellers were not willing to do much more to clean it up if they could help it. This had been their father's house and he had passed away a year earlier, but they actually didn't get along very well.

So the house was a rancher with a basement on a sloping lot and the house was FULL of stuff. The man, I guess, had been a hoarder, and what had once been, I am guessing, orderly piles of stuff, were now piles in the middle on many of the rooms as the family had tried to sort through all this stuff in case there was anything of value there. I seem to remember that they had found some valuables amongst all this stuff.

Oh the stuff. I mean every room was a DISASTER! THere was a room in the basement I didn't find until I had had the listing for few weeks because I hadn't climbed over some stuff to get there. Also, sice the house has been empty the rats had moved in so the whole place stank of rat droppings etc. Take a look at the pics

Driveway Driveway/Front Yard (they got rid of the van)

The backyard was 4-6 feet high with brambles. The Garage (lots of propance tanks, spray paint bottles etc)

The roof had leaked here and caused the gyproc to collapse.

The Kitchen

A Bedroom The main bath. Note the shovel.

In the basement Also in the basement

None of these pics were used in the marketing of the property, but I had to warn all potential buyers of the state of the home of course. Here is the MLS(R) listing of the house: RED Full Public w/ Realtor Now the market was, and is, good here but I was still amazed that we managed to sell the house AS IS, including all the stuff!

Fraser Valley Real Estates Prices Fall in Some Areas

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:36:35 -0600

The Vancouver Sun shouted at me on Friday morning "FRASER VALLEY HOUSE PRICES AT 8-MONTH LOW". Followed by a nice little graphic showing average prices dropping Surrey (-2.1%), White Rock(-16.3%!), Langley (-1.3%), Abbotsford (-0.1% ooooo!) and Mission (-6.1%). Now I must admit that I was a little surprised by this, but seeing as though I don't work in the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board area I guess its not that surprising. A further look at the November statistics release (available on my website) the numbers are not quite as newsworthy as the Sun would like them to be. Sure the average prices are down and shockingly so in White Rock, but averages can easily skewed by a small number of sales, especially in a small area like White Rock. This was echoed by a number "experts" quoted in the article. The small amount I have ever learned about statistics taught me that median prices are much more useful than averages. The year over year median price changes for those Fraser Valley areas were. Surrey (+5.2%), White Rock (+1.7%) Langley (+1.1%), Abbotsford (+8.5%) and Mission (+5.5%) and that doesn't sound too scary.

The quote from Fraser Valley Real Estate Board President Jim McCaughan in this months statistics release:

“The market typically slows a little at this time of year, which is evident in the decrease in November’s sales and new listings compared to October of this year,” says Jim McCaughan, president of the Board. McCaughan, a 30-year real estate veteran, explains why November 2007 outperformed the same month last year, “It’s thanks to a healthier supply. We’ve had strong demand in the Fraser Valley for essentially the last five years, however we haven’t always had as broad a selection of product. Our recent increase in inventory is what’s keeping sales solid.”

The nice little graph below looks like the Fraser Valley has had a pretty good year really

Matthew Collinge: www.604homes.com - Royal LePage Westside

Vancouver Real Estate Strong Again in November

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:28:03 -0600

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver has just released the statistics from November. November this year was significantly busier than last year with 2,883 units sold in 2007, an increase of 22.2 per cent compared to 2,358 sales in November 2006 . Of course last year was horrendous for the weather and I really think that had significant impact on the activity.

“The housing market continues to be strong,” says REBGV president Brian Naphtali. “November figures show strong growth compared to last year, are basically on par with figures from 2005, and are 16 per cent higher than the same period in 2004.

“Affordability is a key question,” Naphtali says. “Our data indicates that about 60 per cent of residential homes purchased in November were multi-family, which includes condos and townhomes. The benchmark price for a condo in Greater Vancouver is about $375,000. However, there are units available for considerably less than this price. For example, the benchmark for condos in Port Coquitlam in November was $243,624; in Maple Ridge, $254,703; and in Coquitlam, $283,830.”

Matthew Collinge: www.604homes.com - Royal LePage Westside

Canadian Interest Rates Drop

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:24:09 -0600

It looks like the Bank of Canada is not as bullish on the economy as the Royal Bank and they actually did cut the target overnight lending rate from 4.5% to 4.25%. I would imagine that ou can expect a similar drop in some of the mortgage rates.

I will the leave the econimc analysis to the experts so you can read the Bank of Canada press release regarding the rate cut here and Royal Bank Daily Economic Update here, but generally it seem the Bank of Canada is a bit concerned that global economic concerns will spill over into Canada. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Matthew Collinge: www.604homes.com - Royal LePage Westside

Royal Bank Predicts Canadian Interest Rates to Remain Stable and Building Permits to be Down

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:28:23 -0600

On Tuesday the Bank of Canada (BoC) will release their latest interest rate announcement and in my "Daily Economic Update" from the Royal Back (or are they just RBC now?) they had this to say:

"Recent indications of firm domestic demand, combined with the very firm tone in the labour market data lately, means we lean towards the Bank holding the policy rate at 4.5%. The combination of slower US growth, the elevated Canadian dollar, volatility in Canadian financial markets and moderating inflation rates will likely see the Bank cut the overnight rate in 25 basis point increments at both the January and March fixed action dates"

And Thursday October's building permit numbers will be released and RBC says:

" ... we expect that residential permits declined in October, mirroring the sharp 19.0% decline in housing starts. Non-residential permits likely rebounded after declining 8.6% in September, leading to an increase in overall permits."

What will all this mean for the Metro Vancouver real estate market? I don't think we will really know until the new year as the market is pretty much into its Christmas hiatus right now.

By the way you can receive economic updates the Royal Bank as well if you are so inclined. They make for some very exciting reading (tongue now planted firmly in cheek).

Matthew Collinge: www.604homes.com - Royal LePage Westside

Vancouver Condominium Projects Cancelled: The Elyse and Montgomery Estates by Eden Group

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:42:33 -0600

I heard some talk of this yesterday, but no specific project mentioned. Well low and behold my morning Vancouver Sun had it right there in the business section (apparently this is not front page news anymore) and also on cbc.ca. It seems that the Eden Group has cancelled their planned development in Mount Pleasant, The Elyse, at East 7th Avenue and Scotia Street as well as a townhouse development, Montgomery Estates, at Oak Street and W. 43rd Ave. I was curious that they had not sold out the Elyse as this had been such a popular area, but Bill Eden is quoted in the article saying "that most of the pre-sale buyers in the Elyse development were investors in the project itself, who had the right to pre-purchase units. "They're not public third-party people," Montgomery Estates had not been pre-sold, in fact I don't even think that the site is cleared. It is an interesting development though, similar to one of the infamous Mark Chandler developments, Hamlin Mews, and a sign of the Eco-density initiatives from City Hall. The site is an assembly of single family home lots along Oak Street that was to be turned into much the denser townhouses. Expect to see more of these types of developments along Vancouver's busy arterial routes in the future

Generally it sounds like he did the right thing. Although it would have been better if he'd realized these problems before he started selling and marketing the The Elyse, it has been a matter of months rather than years and he got caught by the increasing construction costs and the city strike.

The article also mentioned important changes to the ways new construction units are sold:

"The B.C. Financial Institutions Commission recently ordered developers to provide increased disclosure to buyers of pre-sale condominiums which have yet to be built.
The disclosure rules, which took effect Nov. 1, force developers to explain any provisions for terminating, extending or assigning purchase agreements. Buyers are required to initial the cover page of disclosure statements to confirm the provisions were drawn to their attention.
Pertinent information must also appear in "conspicuous type" on the statement's cover page. The rules also provide for more disclosure of developers' backgrounds, including:
- Their experience in the development industry.
- Whether they have been bankrupt in the past five years or been disciplined in the past 10 years for matters relating to real estate, mortgages of land, securities, theft or fraud.
- Whether any conflict of interest exists that could affect a buyer's purchase decision.
Failure to comply with the disclosure requirements could result in the issuance of cease-marketing orders or "administrative penalties" of up to $50,000."

If you are buying a new development pre-sale condominium make sure the developer is following the rules. I would guess that there is a good chance that they are not. Keep your eyes out for my upcoming post on tips for new construction home-buyers.

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Mascots Unveiled Today

Matthew Collinge, REALTOR®, Vancouver Homes (Royal LePage Westside) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:44:49 -0600

The Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) unveiled not one, but three mascots for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralymic Games today and already many are voicing their disapproval. These are adults complaining about cartoon characters. Please, do they have nothing better to do! The news story on Canada.com already has dozens of comments, mostly negative it would seem. The CBC.ca story that specifically asked for opinions had 176 comments as of right now. My kids seem to like them and they seem okay to me. They are cute and a bit quirky, but aren't Olympic mascots always a bit odd.

The mascots are a sasquatch like creature named Quatchi with an inukshuk tattoo, a half Comode bear, half killer whale little thing named Miga and the guardian spirit, Sumi, who is part thunderbird, part bear and wears the hat of the orca whale. I'd include images of them here, but VANOC is copyright crazy so I'd better not. You can find them on the official 2010 website here.