B.C. housing market showing signs of marginal improvement

B.C.’s housing market saw a slight improvement in March as home sales nudged higher following a 5.9-per-cent decline in February. Sales increased 0.7 per cent to reach 5,866 unit sales. Home prices rose 1.8 per cent. This said, housing momentum has waned in the last few months as buyer sentiment shifted amid interest rate uncertainty.

MLS home sales increased in most of the province’s real estate board areas. The Greater Vancouver area saw home sales increase by 1.4 per cent following a decline in the previous month. In Chilliwack, home sales increased only slightly—by just 0.5 per cent—while the Kootenays reported a 17.2-per-cent increase. Home sales also rose 9.4 per cent on Vancouver Island, and were unchanged in the Fraser Valley. However, the Okanagan-Mainline and South Okanagan areas recorded sales declines of 8.9 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively.

Lethbridge industrial market strengthens as options limited

Western Canada’s industrial markets are at an inflection point as demand normalizes and the pause that hit new construction last year begins to make itself felt.

Conservative market sentiment is now creating the conditions for stronger performance in 2024, Avison Young reports, with cities like Lethbridge poised to see a landlord’s market for industrial space.

Lethbridge reported a 4.1 per cent vacancy rate in the first quarter, up from 4 per cent at the end of 2023. But space under construction is down more than half from last year to 50,000 square feet, creating potential supply constraints.

High-tech sensors in workplaces, postal-code analysis among tools for real estate strategies.

Driven by persistent return-to-in-person challenges, local companies are leveraging office space data to optimize the physical spaces they occupy.

Employee commute times and office space utilization data are informing companies’ strategies for encouraging in-person work and optimizing office layouts to meet long-term goals, according to those who spoke toBIV.

“As companies are revisiting or choosing to revisit their office space, they’re looking at a year to two years of real good data of who’s coming in, how often, what are they doing and what’s the purpose of the office for those people,” said Alain Rivère, vice-president of the high technologies group at CBRE.

Detached home starts decline as condo, townhome starts boom in 2023

The West Coast housing market saw a significant boost in construction activity last year, according to a new report by the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC).

The annualBC Check-Up: Investreport found that construction began on 35,553 housing units in southwest B.C. during the year, a 20.9 per cent jump compared with 2022. This marks the highest number of housing starts ever recorded in the region.

“Our members living in the Lower Mainland have consistently reported that housing prices are the biggest challenge facing B.C. businesses,” said Lori Mathison, president and CEO of CPABC, said in an April 18 statement.

Foreign landlord fails to pay taxes, CRA goes after tenant

It was a Tax Court of Canada case last year that went mostly under the radar by all except for the legal community who were taken aback by its implications for renters.

A Montreal tenant was audited and ordered to pay the tax he had failed to withhold on the monthly rent to his non-resident landlord, as required by law. As a result, he was ordered to pay six years’ worth of tax as well as the compounded interest and penalties. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) could not collect against his overseas landlord, so the Canadian tenant was on the hook.

Royal LePage expands footprint with Lower Mainland acquisitions

The importance of technology to residential property sales – and in turn the investors participating in the market – is once again in the spotlight with Royal LePage’s latest brokerage acquisition in Metro Vancouver.

Royal LePage Elite West, based in Port Coquitlam with offices in Maple Ridge and Abbotsford, announced April 2 that it had shed the Keller Williams banner, becoming the largest-ever Keller Williams conversion Royal LePage has seen as brokerages reassess their affiliation in the wake of turmoil in the U.S.

“They’re happy to be joining a Canadian company,” Phil Soper, president and CEO of Royal LePage, explained toWestern Investorlast week as he returned from events in Vancouver marking the transfer, which adds 175 agents for an initial 10-year term under the Royal LePage banner.

B.C. may need 700K more housing units by 2030, says economist

The province will have to build somewhere in the range of 500,000 to 700,000 housing units by 2030 to restore 2003 and 2004 levels of affordability, according to Braden Batch, lead economist for B.C. at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

Speaking at a panel discussion Wednesday at the Union of BC Municipalities housing summit in Vancouver, he said that this range already accounts for housing that the province is on track to build. Batch said it is also based on low, medium and high population projections, meaning that numbers may differ based on which projection becomes reality.

851 Broughton – 2 new Towers are proposed

The Christ Church Cathedral precinct on the edge of downtown Victoria could be significantly transformed if Concert Properties gets rezoning approval for a two-tower housing project that would bring 370 new homes to what once was a YMCA-YWCA facility.

The Vancouver developer has made an application to rezone 851 Broughton St. to allow for a mixed-use project that will include 26- and 11-storey towers housing 220 condominiums and 150 rental units, respectively.

NAR Settles Commissions Lawsuits and what it means for Realtors

The real estate industry has officially changed. This is going to separate pros vs amateurs and those prepared vs those that are hobbyists.

Listen up for my thoughts but I will have a whole lot more to come. 

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