Vancouver in the Wall Street Journal

My friend KJ kindly keeps me informed on what the WSJ is saying about Vancouver. Last week it was a piece about Arthur Erickson's own house and the loss of Vancouver's already limited significant or historic patrimony due to our high land values. Today it was about lane housing. The reporter had visited us on one of those rare rainy days and wrote about lane housing as our answer to soft densification and affordability. He thought that some US cities might consider doing the same. One other idea that has been copied around the world with huge success is our use of warehouse and industrial land in prime waterfront areas which were transformed into viable self contained communities that we now take for granted  - False Creek and Coal Harbour come to mind.

stats

Interesting statistics today on BNN. The population of BC has grown by 17% in recent years. However cosumer spending has gone up by 50%!

West Van real estate

For the first time in my 26 year real estate experience the number of detached homes for sale in West Van has reached 600! Usually the lowest number of listings happens in January at around 250. In May they
reach about 500. At that number usually the market freezes. Not this time. On Tuesday I listed 4238 Rockridge Cres for $2180,000, a 45 year old home in original condition on a 17,000 sq ft lot with city and ocean views.
By 10 pm that day I had the first offer on my email, by midnight the second. At 7:30 am on Wednesday my phone was already ringing. All the calls that morning were about this property. More offers came in. By 2 p.m the house was sold firm for $2,210,000. This was even more interesting because the owners had been trying to sell it privately for the past couple of months at a  lower price. The power of exposure!

Are real estate prices high?

According to Wealth-X, the number of high net worth individuals is growing at a fast pace. However, the number of desirable cities to live is static. The highest real prices (per sq ft), not based on some formula that  includes average incomes - are in Monaco (the highest reaching $9000/sq ft), followed by Geneva, London, Hong Kong and Paris. Paris is sliding. With a 75% tax on the wealthy , the wealthy go elsewhere. Mainly close by like London and Monaco...

Cyprus and Flaherty

Controlled capitalism is for China.
Cyprus has attracted people from all over the World , mainly Russia and the UK because of is very friendly tax structure. However, without taxes, how does the country pay it's bills? Basically bankrupt, the idea of taxing the huge deposits sitting in the local banks seemed a like a perfect solution:)  Except that we all want preservation of our capital. It should be safe in the bank...Imagine that happening in Canada!!
Well, not nearly as bad but interference anyway. Finance Minster Flaherty asked Manulife to put their mortage rates back up and they did. BMO was also asked but didnt.

web site

My vintage deep blue and gold web site was one the first personal web sites to be designed way back years ago. I loved it. It was updated many times to allow for bigger photos of my listings and tons of valuable infomation was added by my web master, without any input from me. Now with the widespread use of mobile devices to access information on the web I had to get a re design. We kept most of the content but it is faster and easier to access. I hope...

The smart money

I heard that some bank managers are advising people not to buy real estate now. I heard this in the 1990's, in 2000, so many times. The smart money shops when the banks tell you not to. One of my clients just got approved at 2.7% on a 5 year closed!  Most sellers are motivated...