Slower growth expected for Metro Vancouver

In the housing market, starts for 2009 are expected to come in at 16,460 units for the region, down 30 per cent from 2007 when there were 23,416 starts.

Home sales are forecast to drop 33 per cent for 2008 but will climb back modestly by five per cent in 2009 and 11 per cent in 2010, according to the credit union analysis. Prices are down as well, declining by an estimated 16 per cent from a peak in February 2008 to the bottom of the trough in late 2009. Several years of level prices are expected to follow.

Hobden said a crucial economic indicator, the region's trade deficit, is going to improve. It's currently at $15.5 billion, fuelled by several years of strong consumer spending on products that are imported into the region. An expected weakening of the Canadian dollar will increase exports, while less spending by consumers will hurt imports, driving the deficit down to $14 billion by 2010.

With home prices falling, it's time to rethink real estate

For a lucky few, of course, Vancouver real estate has been a gold mine. Those who purchased a home after the last major downturn in 1990 and hung on through the frequent bumps and dips until today -- or rather until February this year -- hit the motherlode.

Depending on who's doing the math, the value of their investment has more than tripled. And house flippers who snapped up a teardown last year and cashed out near the peak have also made a killing.

The rest of us, lemmings who bought during the frenzy and bid up the price of dumpy asbestos-filled bungalows that are worth less than they were six months ago, rue the day we placed a call to a real estate agent.

A dwindling number of realtors cling to the fiction that we are in a "balanced" real estate market where, since no one has an advantage, everybody presumably gets a fair deal. 

Vancouver real estate prices slipping

It's getting cheaper to buy a home in the Greater Vancouver area, according to new figures from the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board.

Sales dropped 53.7 per cent to 1,568 in August 2008, compared with 3,384 in August 2007, the figures show.

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties declined 1.7 per cent to 4,331 in August 2008 compared with August 2007, when 4,408 new units were listed.

While the benchmark price for detached properties has risen 1.6 per cent since August 2007, prices declined 4.3 per cent from record highs set in May 2008.

RCMP and Vancouver police arrest two men in $30-million real estate fraud case

VANCOUVER — The RCMP and the Vancouver Police Department have arrested two men in connection with a $30-million real estate fraud investigation.

Tarsem Singh Gill and former lawyer Martin Keith Wirick are charged with theft and fraud in connection with offences that are alleged to have occurred between 2000 and 2002.

Sgt. Susan Green of the RCMP's E division says the pair face several charges that also include using forged documents and possession of stolen property.

The men have been released on bail and are scheduled to make their first court appearance on Sept. 15.