Vancouver Condo Info

There’s an article in the sun about insurance companies not wanting to insure buildings with rooftop gardens, also known as ‘green roofs’.

The plans of dozens of developers poised to put green roofs on their condo buildings — the Olympic village being the most prominent among them — are now in limbo after the province’s Homeowner Protection Office sent out a letter to all municipalities warning that local insurance companies are mostly unwilling to insure green roofs on multi-unit residential buildings that will be sold as condos.

So are there extra risks posed to building integrity from rooftop gardens? Probably not:

No one who works in the green-roof industry had heard of any other jurisdiction in North America or Europe where insurers were refusing to insure green roofs.

But in B.C., where problems with leaky building envelopes in condo buildings provoked a major crisis among consumers and the construction industry, anything involving water in proximity to residential building walls provokes nervousness.

What a shame to have the leaky condo crisis prevent us from creating rooftop greenspace. Hopefully this is something that developers and insurance companies can work out, particularly since it doesn’t seem to be a problem in any other city.

I’ve been thinking recently about how boom-times affect the ‘personality’ of a city. It seems to me that Vancouver is a very ‘eighties’ style city, likely due in part to the Expo 86 construction boom. All over this city you see eighties style glass roofs held up with powder coat trusses, lots of white and turquoise, and stylistic renovations that combine the architectural styles of multiple eras.

A couple of specific examples of this amalgam can be found at city square mall (12 & cambie) or Sinclair Center at Waterfront center. Both of these examples combine old stone architecture from the early twentieth century with the ‘modern’ style of the eighties.

I wonder about the long term mark that a boom puts on a city. I’m sure we all have our favorite type of architecture and can’t agree on whats ‘good’ or ‘bad’ aesthetically, but what about construction standards? There are a large number of condominiums built in the eighties that had water ingress issues leading to the ‘leaky condo crisis’ of the nineties. Have we got that problem solved? Are the huge number of condo towers currently under construction being built to a solid reliable standard, or are we cutting corners and setting ourselves up for another construction quality crisis?

And when it comes to aesthetics, which new buildings will we look back on in twenty years and be proud of, and which ones will be the equivalent of blue eyeshadow, parachute pants and super high wall-o-bangs?

Looking for a nice hill-top home? How about this one that stands alone in the middle of a 30 foot deep pit in Chongqing City China? The owner wants the equivalent of just under 3 million dollars CAD$ or he’ll ’stay until the end of the world’.

The developer is using the time-tested ‘dig a giant hole around your house’ bargaining technique to encourage the owner to accept a lower price.

Thats it! I’m cashing out all my stock and buying pre-sale condos in downtown Vancouver. US and Canadian markets had another stumble today on more bad news from the home-lending sector and fears of a wilting economy. Gold mining stocks lost their glitter today and sub-prime lender New Century Financial isn’t looking so shiny either. Just how the hell is a fella s’posed to get rich these days?

The Mortgage Bankers Association said delinquencies among all borrowers reached the highest since the second quarter of 2003. Government data also showed February retail sales rose less than economists forecast, spurring concern department stores and discount retailers will be hurt by the fallout from the home-lending market.

“I would be very surprised if it didn’t spread,” said Alex Motola, who manages the $2 billion Thornburg Core Growth Fund in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “The consumer is at risk again.”

Hey, you never know..

In order to protect our economy from an invasion of parasitic small family-owned businesses hitching a free ride on the Olympics ‘brand’, Industry minister Maxime Bernier has introduced bill C-47 which grants Vancouver Olympic organizers ownership over public use of exotic words like winter, gold, silver, bronze, sponsor, Vancouver, Whistler, 2010, tenth, medals, and games.

So if you had plans to run a seniors hockey tournament in 2010 and branding it ‘the Vancouver 2010 silver winter games‘, just don’t. ok?

Just to be safe, refrain from using any of the words listed above until 2011 and you should be ok. The last thing we want to do is infringe upon the fragile rights of the I.O.C.

Asun sent in this shot of a skytrain ad he found on flickr.

We live in a time of unbridled prosperity, a boom time filled with opportunity and lots of chances to get filthy stinking rich… Unless you happen to be one of those Canadians that aren’t already rich.

Marco sent in this story about a report released by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives. Apparently the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer, we now have the widest wage gap we’ve seen in 30 years. From the Globe and Mail version of the story:

The rewards of Canada’s booming economy are going disproportionately to a select few while the majority of Canadian families either falling behind or treading water, a new study suggests.

The report, released Thursday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says that the lion’s share of Canada’s economic growth is going to the richest 10 per cent of families, even as Canadian families put in more time at work.

“Canada’s gap is growing at a time when Canadian families are playing by all the rules – working harder, contributing to a growing economy – but most aren’t getting payback,” study author Armine Yalnizyan said in Thursday’s report.

So how’s that boom working out for you? Do you feel like you’re getting ahead or falling behind? Can this disparity be pushed further or does ’something have to give’?

Heres the original report.

Before I post this link I’d just like to give the following disclaimer: most realtors are honest professionals that will give you good advice on buying and selling and not take advantage of you, but I guess there’s always an exception to the rule.

Vancouver realtors Dian Dai-Qing Gao and her husband Norman Chan of Sutton-Killarney Realty have been ordered by the BC supreme court to hand over profits from a flipped condo to the original owners.

The couple had purchased a new home in West Vancouver and listed their condo for sale at $529,900 with Gao*(see note below). They had accepted an offer for $517,500 but the day the offer was to go through it collapsed, the court was told.

At this point Gao and Chan decided to purchase it themselves. The couple testified that they were assured by Gao that the apartment wouldn’t be flipped but would be kept by the realtors as an investment. Six days after Gao took possession of the condo it was listed for sale at over $100,000 more than she had paid for it.

Justice Janet Sinclair Prowse found that Gao had breached a fiduciary duty she had with the couple and ordered her to repay them the profit of about $70,000 she made in flipping the property.

So if a realtor offers to buy the property you’re selling, should you be suspicious?

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*Joel Korn of Sutton Group Killarney writes in to point out that the linked article is incorrect on this point. Gao was not the listing agent, the property was listed through Ralph F. Oakes according to the property info sheet.

According to this article at the Globe and Mail, the International travel budget deficit for Canada hit a record high in 2006. This is the difference between money spent by Canadians outside of Canada vs. money spent by others visiting Canada.

The deficit — the difference between spending by Canadians abroad and spending by foreigners in Canada — jumped $1.4-billion to an estimated $7.2-billion in 2006. The travel deficit has increased every year since 2002, more than quadrupling in the process.

The burgeoning deficit was the result of record spending abroad: Canadian residents spent an estimated $23.6-billion outside the country in 2006, up 6.2 per cent from the previous high in 2005. Foreigners in Canada spent about $16.4-billion in 2006, a slight decline from the previous year.

So although foreign tourism dollars have declined slightly, most of the difference is accounted for by increased spending by Canadians traveling.