Vancouver Condo Info

Looks like our largest trading partner is now ‘officially’ in a recession as declared by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

WASHINGTON - A panel of the National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the U.S. economy fell into a recession last year.

The NBER says its group of academic economists who determine business cycles met and decided that the U.S. recession began in December 2007.

Many economists believe the current downturn will last until the middle of 2009 and will be the most severe slump since the 1981-82 recession.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada is in a recession and heading for a deficit. And who’s to blame? Ontario and BC.

Across Canada EI claims actually dropped month over month, except for in Ontario and BC where they surged 14% over the year in Ontario and 11.5% in BC. Ontario has the auto manufacturing sector to blame for the downturn, while here at home we’re seeing an alarming decline in forestry revenues not to mention the sharp downturn in the housing market where prospects are looking more grim with each passing month, particularly when it comes to downtown Vancouver condos.

Meanwhile in the financial sector Canadian banks have started asking Ottawa for a major cash injection to help stem a rising tide of bad loans.  BMO figures show bad loans have already exceeded the peak reached in 2001 after the dot com crash, and are well on their way to levels seen in the last recession almost 20 years ago.

The bright side? If you’re looking for temporary office space to sublease in Vancouver, it looks like you have lots of options right now.

From the Globe and Mail:

The commercial market for apartment buildings in British Columbia has “come to a near standstill,” according to a report issued Monday by real estate firm Avison Young (Canada) Inc.

“There is now a standoff between purchasers, who in the wake of the global credit meltdown have changed their pricing expectations, and vendors, who are looking for yesterday’s pricing in a much more challenging market,” Avison Young principal Rob Greer said in releasing the report.

The number of real estate transactions in British Columbia’s “multi-family market” has dropped to 76 so far this year, down from 153 in the corresponding period of 2007, according to a survey by Avison Young.

“The total value of multi-family investment transactions year-to-date … amounts to $270-million – approximately 52 per cent of the $519-million recorded in all of 2007,” Avison Young said.

Local private investors accounted for the majority of buyers and sellers in 2008.

Prices for apartment buildings are likely to fall even more next year, Mr. Greer said.

“Should financing troubles continue through 2009, we may see values move as much as 20 per cent as investors re-evaluate their required returns on investment,” Mr. Greer said.

Avison Young said in its report that the “once prevalent multiple-offer situations have shifted to ones of price reductions and lingering listings.

“Of the current 130 listings on the market, approximately one-quarter have received at least one price reduction in recent months. This does not include any recent sales that involved a price reduction to induce the sale,” according to the report.

I very seldom report on rumors, but this one from Jesse seems like the right balance of unbelievable and believable:

Here’s a sneak peak at a story you might be seeing in the next few weeks: a friend of mine who rents in Spectrum 4 told me one person rented close to 30 suites in the building and sublet them. He pocketed 2 months of sublet rent, not paying rent himself of course, before skipping town.

If the story is true, let’s hope the MSM picks it up. Sounds like a great leader. Remember: you heard it at VCI first.

It looks like Vancouver’s housing slump is starting to get attention from outside Canada. Several people pointed out this Bloomberg article about our declining real estate market.

West Vancouver builder Sean Hanley thought Canada’s real estate market would be immune to the housing recession that sent values tumbling in the U.S. Then the economy slowed and oil prices fell.

The price of a detached house in this upscale community fell 22 percent in October from a year earlier, helping to drag the average residential price in Canada down by 9.9 percent, the biggest decline in 26 years, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver and the Canadian Real Estate Association. For Hanley, that’s meant nary a buyer for his five-bedroom home.

“It’s been a little bit surprising the consequences of the subprime crisis have been so far-reaching,” said Hanley, 48, who has cut his asking price to C$3.99 million ($3.26 million) and is now offering a C$100,000 bonus, on top of regular fees, to the agent who delivers a buyer.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen offers of a bonus to the buyers agent instead of a price reduction, but I’m a bit suprised that it’s acceptable to openly pay the buyers agent to represent the sellers interest.  Is this even an effective technique?

No-lympics pointed out this article in todays Province.  Apparently two BC condo strata councils have lost substantial amounts from their reserve funds by putting that money in higher risk /higher return investments than the legally allowed bonds, GICs or bank accounts.

“It’s been going on for years,” says Gioventu. “The first time I had to deal with it was nine years ago. People get greedy and look for shady deals. But nine years [ago], we had a pretty big drop in mutual funds and we had stratas investing in mutual funds. That was probably the first time it popped up on the radar screen.”

Legislation limits the type of investments in which condo reserve funds can invest.

The Strata Property Act Regulations, Section 6.11, says permissible investments include government bonds, GICs or simply holding the money in a bank account.

In most cases, investing in equities is not permitted.

The strata council in the Okanagan, however, alleges it was misled by an investment adviser.

“Our strata council has done something rather stupid,” wrote one strata member to Gioventu’s Condo Smarts column, published every Sunday in The Province.

“In 2005, our treasurer invited a broker from an investment firm to talk to our council about managing reserve funds. We took advantage of the advice and decided to place our contingency funds with the investment broker to gain the highest yield possible. Unbeknown to us, the funds were extremely risky.”

While the strata earned more than 10 per cent in 2006, the portfolio is now worth half its value, said the strata member.

Remember that rumour that the construction of the Olympic Village is running into credit difficulties and the various assurances that taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook?

Well funny thing.. It turns out the city has authorized a (until now) secret $100 million rescue for the financial troubled Olympic Village.  Article in the Globe and Mail:

The new financial obligations are on top of a $190-million loan guarantee the city had to give Fortress Investment Group, which has provided a $683-million loan to Millennium to build the 1,100-unit village.

The village is destined to become a residential complex after the Olympics but most of the condominiums have yet to be sold. Meantime, the value of real estate in Vancouver has plunged in the past several months and is expected to continue to decline over the next couple of years.

This has raised questions about the future of the project and whether Millennium, which agreed to pay the city $193-million for the land on which the village is being built, can still make the venture financially viable.

The latest revelations come despite assurances over the last several weeks by civic officials that financing around the project was not a concern. Other civic officials stated publicly there had not been any changes in the agreement the city had with Millennium - even after council had secretly agreed to forward the company and/or its lender up to $100-million to keep the project afloat.

Now you’re all real estate speculators.  This deal is of course, not without a bit of controversy:

Details of the city’s involvement in bailing out the project’s cash-strapped developer have until now been kept secret. Councillors are under a publication ban and have been told they face serious repercussions if they discuss publicly the decisions taken at the in camera meeting.

Growing controversy around the project also appears to be behind the yet-to-be announced resignation of the city’s chief financial officer, Estelle Lo. Ms. Lo tendered her resignation recently after months of apparently expressing concerns the city might be assuming too much financial risk in an effort to meet its obligation to get the Olympic housing built on time, according to a source.

Now that we’re all investors in this project, I find myself getting excited about the future of Vancouver real estate. I’m sure eventually this deal will pay off big - In Montreal it only took 30 years to pay off their Olympic sized debt, and just look at some of the great post-Olympic buying opportunities in Sidney!

2008 - Vancouver House Prices Down almost 10% from the peak.

According to statistics released by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the benchmark price for a single family home in Metro Vancouver is down 9.8% from the May 2008 price peak and down 4.7% from the October 2007 price so far.  From an article in the Vancouver Sun.

Greater Vancouver saw MLS sales of 1,364 units in October compared with 3,028 in the same month a year ago.

Single-family home sales across the region dropped to 493 units in October from 1,368 in October, 2007. Condominium sales were also down substantially to 493 units from 1,133 in the same month a year ago.

Dave Watt, the Greater Vancouver board’s president, said sales are not keeping pace with B.C.’s current economic conditions with low unemployment and stable interest rates.

“That’s a direct result of a loss of consumer confidence in the overall market,” Watt said.

In the Fraser Valley, the detached house price hit $513,892 in October, down 6.5 per cent from May and 0.6 per cent below the average price of October, 2007.

MLS sales of 768 in the valley were 48 per cent below sales levels of the same month a year ago.

Gordon Campbell has pledged to freeze BC property tax assessments at their 2007 level to ‘help people cope with turbulence in property values’.  I’m trying to figure out the motivation for this move, perhaps to people that don’t understand property tax it seems like a relief?  Our property tax system is not set up like California, where property tax is dependent on the assessed value.  The crashing California real estate market has meant less money flowing into government coffers, leaving cities scrambling to make their budgets work.

In Vancouver your property tax assessment only matters in its relation to your neighbors.  Every house price in Vancouver could drop across the board by 50% and the property tax paid by each owner would remain the same.  This protects city tax income, but can be tougher on tax payers.

Tax assessments in Vancouver are done in July, which coincidentally was very close to our market peak.  Freezing assessments at their 2007 value may help to make it appear house prices haven’t fallen as far as they have if the 2008 assessments are never made public.  I don’t believe this is a motivating factor though, since the REBGV benchmark price and average sales price data still paints a more complete picture.

According to an article in today’s Sun the BC Real Estate Association is projecting a sales drop of 28% across the province this year, with a slight rebound in 2009 as consumers ‘recover confidence’.

Muir said home prices have been declining since their peak in the first quarter of 2008, but on balanced over the year, he expects the $453,000 average price to remain three per cent above the overall average home price of 2007.

Muir expects the average home price to decline nine per cent to $413,000 in 2009, but downward pressure on prices to ease by the second quarter of next year as homes become more affordable and inventories decline.

The BCREA’s prediction is the latest housing forecast to be released and is more optimistic about recovery than the forecast released last week by Central 1 Credit Union, which forecast prices to fall more steeply and sales recovering in 2010.

Meanwhile at an industry meeting in Ontario realtors got a pep talk about the current downturn as an oppourtunity to “raise the bar”.

Serious agents who stick out the downturn will have the opportunity to shine, they added, although their optimism appeared lost on some participants.

“They’re basically saying that next year is a writeoff,” one audience member said to colleagues at her table.

The downturn may have a silver lining, causing the industry to “raise the bar” on customer service, said panelist Michael Polzler, regional director at Re/Max.

“There are far too many agents out there who don’t specialize, who do just two or three deals a year. Would you use a part-time lawyer or a part-time dentist? We need to raise the bar,” Mr. Polzler said.

On a side note: I’ve started up an experimental Vancouver Condo Wiki If any of you feel the need to obsesively catalog predictions, track sub markets or share tips and links.  If this works out I’ll eventually add a link from the main page of this site. For now you can find it at http://vancouvercondo.info/wiki