Vancouver home prices over a century

Call me shallow, but whenever I look at historic copies of The Vancouver Sun I always check out the old ads to see how much houses were selling for.

It never ceases to amaze me how cheap they were back in the old days, even with inflation factored in.

The Sun was filled with full-page real estate ads during the 1912 boom, but following the First World War bust real estate listings moved to the classified section.

The paper often had four to six pages of real estate listings on the weekend, and for many years had a “Livable Homes” section filled with stories about how to fix and build stuff.

In 1912, a lot at Seventh and Blenheim in Kitsilano was for sale for $4,000, lots in Coquitlam and Port Mann could be had for $250, and a lot in West Vancouver was $550.

The Sun’s owner, John P. McConnell, used his influence to take out a big ad to sell off his 82-acre farm in Chilliwack for $425 an acre (about $35,000).

In 1917, there were virtually no real estate listings. But in 1922, the paper was once again brimming with listings like a 14-room house on Hornby ($4,750), a Point Grey bungalow ($3,950) and a new home in Shaughnessy near the King Edward car line ($7,900).

Today houses on Drummond and Belmont Drive in Point Grey are sold for millions of dollars, but in 1927 you could purchase a lot on either for $1,600 or $1,650. You could also snap up a small house in Kits for $2,500 and one in Kerrisdale for $5,500.

Vancouver real estate at risk if Canadian lending not constrained: TD

OTTAWA - Canadian housing is 10 to 15 percent over-valued, Canada’s second largest bank warned, as it called for more action to constrain lending growth.

Toronto-Dominion Bank chief economist Craig Alexander said last week in an analysis that if the overvaluation were unwound rapidly, the market correction would be three times the magnitude of the housing market correction of the early 1990s.

Alexander said it is more likely that there will be a gradual decline in sales and prices over the next several years unless there is a sharp rise in joblessness or interest rates. He warned against complacency, however.

“We need to acknowledge that a significant imbalance has developed and it poses a clear and present danger to Canada’s medium-term economic outlook,” he wrote. “It also suggests that further actions to constrain lending growth may be prudent.”

At greatest risk is Vancouver, a magnet for foreign buyers, along with the Toronto condo market, and the broad housing markets in Quebec City and Montreal, he said.

Vancouver's Real Estate Bubble Trouble

The Olympics are over, and the Village is for sale. The complex in Vancouver, British Columbia, that housed the athletes during the 2010 Winter Olympics has been converted into 1,100 luxury condos. About 450 have been pre-sold, and the sales of the remainder may well render a verdict on a mystery that looms over this city like Grouse Mountain: Did Canada prudently steer its way clear of the worst of the financial crisis only to be rewarded with a massive housing bubble of its own?

On a bright, warm Saturday in late June, couples and families wandered through the empty village, which has been renamed Millenium Water. It opened for public tours last month and draws about 100 people a day. Millenium Water is a city of the future, built with enviro-touches like green roofs and automatic shades that moderate the temperature inside the apartments. An 815-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment is on sale for C$879,000, which works out to C$1,078 per square foot, or $12 higher than the average price in Manhattan, according to The Corcoran Report. (A Canadian dollar is currently worth about U.S. 96 cents.)

FACE TO FACE/O'NEILL: Scrap the ALR and get real about B.C.'s land needs

FACE TO FACE: Is the Agricultural Land Reserve to blame for our house prices?

Rising house prices is a classic “good-news, bad-news” story. But it’s also a tale of unintended consequences.

A few weeks ago, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported that the Vancouver area led the country in the rebound of its residential real estate market, with a 22% increase compared with the same month a year before.

It’s good news for owners and sellers alike but also bad news for buyers, especially first-timers. The picture’s even more daunting considering that the Vancouver area already has the priciest residential real estate in the country.

B.C. real estate market carried higher by wave of sales

ANCOUVER — A strong wave of property sales through British Columbia's southern and coastal property markets in December helped lift the province to a strong finish in 2009, the B.C. Real Estate Association reported Tuesday.

And the sales boost should give markets enough momentum to push sales growth into the first part of 2010, or until rising prices again start pushing more buyers out of the market, according to association chief economist Cameron Muir.

The province saw 5,703 homes sold through the Multiple Listing Service in December, a 132-per-cent increase from the same month in 2008, the second highest number ever.

For the year, B.C. recorded 85,028 sales through MLS, a 23-per-cent increase from all of 2008 and the annualized average price of a home hit $465,725 in 2009, a two-per-cent increase from 2008.

Seller's market' for real estate: report

Victoria is a seller's market where home prices will stay strong -- particularly in the first two quarters of the year -- thanks to low interest rates, tight inventories and rising consumer confidence, says one of Canada's leading real estate companies.

According to Royal LePage's market survey forecast, released yesterday, Vancouver's average price for an existing home is predicted to rise 7.2 per cent this year over last year. Victoria was not included in the forecast of major metropolitan centres, but price increases aren't expected to be as high here as in Vancouver, said Carol Geurts, president of Royal LePage Coast Capital Realty.

Vancouver real estate rebounds in 2009

The Vancouver housing market showed a sharp rebound in 2009 after starting the year with near record low sales.

More than 35,600 homes were sold – a 44.8-per-cent jump from 2008, but a 6.3 per cent dip from 2007, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said in a news release Tuesday.

Low interest rates and a recovering economy helped push home sales near or past monthly records in the last part of 2009, board president Scott Russell said.

"December's home sales rank as the third highest selling December in the 90-year history of our organization," said Russell.

Residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 2,515 in December 2009, an increase of 172.2 per cent from the 924 sales recorded in December 2008.. A shrinking inventory helped boost residential prices.

Supply, demand, and a real estate rebound

Alittle over a year ago Greater Vancouver's real estate market threatened to grind to a halt, gripped by panic and confusion. After a seven-year boom, many believed the global economic and credit crises were enough to kill our market and that recovery from them was years away. Even after interest rates dropped dramatically, many chose to sidestep the market and wait to ''see what happens.''

Many did not contemplate the rate at which our population grows, and the resulting pressure on real estate. They may not have realized it, but people who wait out the market typically find themselves competing against almost 1,000 more people every week in need of a home in Greater Vancouver.

In early 2009 I advised prospective buyers to beware the peril of waiting for news of the market bottom before buying a home because such statistical feedback tends to materialize too late to be useful.

Real estate claws itself out of a hole

VANCOUVER - When condo marketer Cameron McNeill stood to make a speech at his company’s Christmas party, he presided over an upbeat crowd of developers, realtors and industry insiders.

Dressed casually in a Hawaiian shirt, wearing a lei for the Polynesian-themed soiree at Chill Winston in Gastown, McNeill remarked that the brisk sales and project launches that have marked the end of this year are a long way from the dark days of last December.

A year ago, developers were putting projects on ice, and sales in Metro Vancouver’s resale housing market dropped to 924 transactions in December, half of what they were in December 2007.

Vancouver Real Estate enecdote echive

Prediction For The Coming Decade: A Real Estate Bear Market Will Be Vancouver’s Defining Social And Economic Event.

A remarkable decade comes to a close. The dotcom bust, 9/11, the US sub-prime housing mess, extreme loonie volatility, failing forestry, commodity roller-coaster rides, the stock market crash of 2008, global recession. Each of these events affected Vancouver’s economy in an exceedingly limited fashion. The strength of the Real Estate market saw us through, and RE was without doubt the social and economic story of the decade. Now, factors threatening market health have steadily accumulated, and in our opinion they are approximating a critical mass. A virtuous cycle is about to turn vicious. All evidence suggests that Vancouver Real Estate is heading for a very significant bear market. Unfortunately, conditions have become so distorted that a simple return to normal will have profound and prolonged consequences for our city. The coming housing bust will effect all Vancouverites, and the fallout will not be good. For our city, this RE crash will quite likely be the defining social and economic event of the next decade. The factors in the drama are distilled below.

Vancouver real estate, buying into the million dollar hype.

Buying into the Real Estate Hype could put you down and out.

Vancouver, is touted as one of the best cities to live in the world. Many in society are wondering, is it?

One mantra that has inflamed many is; "British Columbia, the best place on earth".

Who spreads these mantras?

The politician no doubt, looking to either spread their mantra to the world as a source of pride or perhaps to get British Columbian's to buy into it?

The federal government of Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is looking to clamp down on home mortgage regulations, what many think as a safeguard for Canadians in debt.

Perhaps this mortgage regulation is geared to prevent a possible mirroring of a U.S. housing meltdown, Canadian style. The Bank of Canada have stated many Canadians are stretched to the limit financially.

Vancouver property set aside to stage security

Organizers of next year's Vancouver Olympics announced a deal on Tuesday to gain access to much-needed land next to key Games venues in the city center that will serve as staging areas for the event's heavy security.

Without the access to the 4.8 hectares of private land, which will also be used for traffic management and other back-up functions, athletes and spectators could have faced long delays in getting to and from sports events in the built-up city bowl.

"The ability to be operationally ready just took a big bump up," said John Furlong, the Vancouver Organizing Committee's (VANOC) chief executive.

"If we didn't have enough space ... people would have to come earlier and it would take longer because we have to follow very specific security protocols around the Games," he told reporters.

Real estate company signs sponsor deal to give space to Olympic organizers

VANCOUVER, B.C. - Space is the new frontier for Olympic sponsorship - real estate space that is.

Vancouver Olympic officials have signed a deal with national real estate company Concord Pacific Developments Inc. to supply some badly-needed space for the 2010 Winter Games.

The deal is valued between $3-and $15 million and includes a cash payment, as well as the use of 4.8 hectares of land in downtown Vancouver during the Games, just behind two key venues.

In exchange, Concord Pacific gets to brand themselves as an Olympic supplier and gets access to tickets and other marketing perks.

Had they not signed the supplier deal, cash-strapped organizers would have had to pay for the land to be used as staging ground for broadcasters and security staff, among others.

But with just over two months to go until the Olympics, John Furlong, the head of the organizing committee, says the deal allows them to focus on getting ready, instead of funding issues.

Vancouver resale home market surges 252% in November over 2008

Vancouver led the Canadian housing market in November existing home sales with a 252-per-cent year-to-year surge.

Victoria (+116 per cent), Toronto (+105 per cent) and Calgary (+67 per cent) followed close behind as Canada as a whole saw a 73-per-cent increase in existing home sales, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Prices were also led last month by Vancouver's 22-per-cent year-over-year rise in existing home prices.

Nationally, the 73-per-cent jump in November from a year earlier came as the real estate market continued to recover from the economic downturn.

Higher home sales, smaller inventories posted in Vancouver

Lower Mainland home sales continued riding high in October, with prices continuing to rise, according to reports from the region’s major real estate boards Tuesday.

In Metro Vancouver, covered by the Real Estate Board of Vancouver, realtors recorded 3,704 sales through the Multiple Listing Service, up 172 per cent from the doldrums of October 2008 and 22 per cent above sales levels in October 2007.

The benchmark price, the average price for a typical home sold, hit $749,808 in October, which was almost eight-per-cent higher than the same month a year ago, though not quite up to the pre-correction peak.

Vancouver house prices make it top city for personal net worth

VANCOUVER — Metro Vancouver households were the wealthiest in Canada in 2007. But with falling house prices, the gap between Metro and other cities is getting smaller, according to a study released Tuesday by Pitney Bowes Business Insight.

Average household net worth of those living in the Vancouver census metropolitan area (CMA) was $592,851, followed by the Toronto CMA at $562,173.

The average household wealth of those living in Victoria, the only other B.C. city on the list, was $544,542, fourth highest after third-place Calgary.

If $592,851 sounds like more than what most of us are worth, that’s not surprising.

Tail-end of the B.C. housing tailspin looms

For years, the real estate market in B.C.'s Lower Mainland acted a lot like the mythical perpetual motion machine.

Buyers were jumping into the market because prices were rising and, hey, why miss out on the capital-gains fun? So sales jumped, and bidding wars ensued, sending prices a little further up into the stratosphere – and luring more buyers into the market. The mere fact that prices were rising far above historical rates, and well beyond any rational measure of affordability, was of no consequence.

Of no consequence, that is, until last summer, when prices started to edge downward, and the wheels of the great B.C. perpetual motion machine stopped spinning. A tiny drop in average prices – 2.3 per cent between May and August – coincided with an enormous drop in volume. The drop in the volume of sales accelerated through the winter.

Real estate transactions 3/20/09

•Erich Kasch has purchased 1.95 acres at King’s Landing Apartments, 1420 N.W. 20th St., in Corvallis, from Charles Stevens for $3.6 million. Chuck Brazer and Jordan Carter of GVA Kidder Mathews represented the buyer. Ira Virden of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller.

•Ganesh Sonpatki has purchased 15,000 square feet at the Harlow Hotel Building, 722-738 N.W. Glisan St., in Portland, from Old 82 LLC for $950,000. Charles Conrow and Todd VanDomelen of Norris & Stevens Inc. represented the buyer. Michael Kapnick of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller.

Sales up in the real estate market

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - There is some good news in the real estate market. Sales were up a bit last month. Numbers from the BC Real Estate Association show sales jumped 17 per cent from January to February.

The Association credits low prices and historic low interest rates for the increase. Sales are still off by half from a year ago, and the value of properties listed on MLS is also down 50-per cent from February of 2008.

Best places to buy real estate in B.C.

News1130 file photo

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - It just got a lot easier to decide where to put your real estate investment dollars in B.C. The Real Estate Investment Network (REIN) has released a new report on the best places to buy. After looking at the numbers and what's available, Surrey came out on top, followed by Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows, Abbotsford and Kamloops.

Don Campbell with the REIN says they come up with the list by looking for a number of different things. "Everything from economic potential...we're looking for average income growth... average population growth...we're looking for leadership in a city that's actually bringing businesses and jobs in."