Real estate transactions filed with the Clark County

Bay Bank, to Parks, Jason, 12210 & 12212 N.E. 39th St., Vancouver, 98682, Duplex, $366,600, 5/12/2008.

Bond, Kenneth, to Naleway, Roch, 1907-1909 Broadway, Vancouver, 98660, Duplex, $314,200, 5/23/2008.

Seekins, Sharon, to Miller, Nancy, 611-613 S.E. 131st Court, Vancouver, 98683, Duplex, $235,000, 5/1/2008.

Dillard, Jeff, to Mason, Edward, 10605 & 10607 N.E. Seventh St, Vancouver, 98664, Duplex, $220,000, 5/6/2008.

Gordon, Ian, to Kasziewicz, Anthony, 1212 W. 36th St., Vancouver, 98660, Duplex, $208,700, 5/23/2008.

Two-time real estate loser leaves investors high and dry

Hauff bought the property out of foreclosure for $9 million and started all over again. This time, he got Gibraltar Mortgage Corp. of Calgary to lend him millions of dollars at up to 24 per cent per annum to buy the property and fund development. Like Multimetro, Gibraltar raised the money from many small investors, promising them high returns on a supposedly fully secured basis.

Alas, under Hauff's stewardship, the project once again stalled. In February 2007, Gibraltar called its loans and David Bowra was appointed receiver.

Just who's buying Vancouver's zillion-dollar condos?

The hottest ticket in Vancouver this week was not for a concert or a play, but a lunch hosted by the Urban Development Institute. And they call this place No Fun City.

The guest speaker was local condo merchant Bob Rennie, whose take on the city's unrelenting real-estate market is considered by many to be as reliable as government bonds. The event was sold out weeks ago.

To call Mr. Rennie a condo seller doesn't quite do him justice. In the past 10 years or so his company - Rennie Marketing Systems - has sold more than 10,000 units. Last year, sales totalled $1.5-billion. Not bad for a kid who grew up without much on the city's east side - long before homes there became million-dollar lottery tickets.

International buyers eye Canadian real estate

Canada's dollar has had its strongest performance in years. From a record low of 62 cents on the U.S. dollar in January 2002, the currency now matches the U.S. greenback in value. And the second-home housing market at the high end, in places like Victoria on Vancouver Island and Chester, Nova Scotia, is flourishing.

Who's buying? Along with affluent Americans unaffected by the recession, Europeans looking for more remote luxury destinations are also finding second homes in Canada. U.K.-based real estate firm Knight Frank is even in the midst of developing a property in Whistler, British Columbia, to attract skiers from across the pond.