Sebastian Albrecht's (salbrecht) Blog

After months of moving from strength to strength, the Vancouver real estate market finally took a bit of a breather last week. The previous week had been the strongest we’d seen in years and it showed no sign of slowing, but slow it did. New Listings - Vancouver New Listings swelled during this w...

Another Record Month In January 2009 we had the worst month Vancouver had ever seen. Just seven short months later and July 2009 was the best July on record. The turnaround we've seen in the last few months is nothing short of miraculous. Sales are no longer improving on a month-to-month basis, b...

The provincial government announced on July 31st, 2009 that it was ending the loan program of the Homeowner Protection Office. You'll recall that I first drew attention to the matter at the beginning of the month when the Homeowner Protection Office first indicated that there were funding problem...

I recently provided an update on the BC government's proposal to implement a Harmonized Sales Tax and it's impact on the Vancouver real estate market. The HST was a surprise to us all. It's unfortunate that the provincial government chose not to consult those of us directly impacted before announ...

The following is commentary from the BCREA (BC Real Estate Association) on the impact of the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) on the BC real estate. It is reproduced here with permission of the BCREA.________________________ Harmonized Sales Tax On July 23, 2009, Premier Gordon Campbell and Finance Min...