In this video blog I’m going to discuss the effect Airbnb has had on the rental rates in downtown Vancouver. I have noticed in the last few months that Strata’s and their management companies are starting to change the strata bylaws to forbid short term furnished rentals on sites like Airbnb.

The capitalization rate is the return you would receive on an investment property if you paid cash for it. It’s meant as a way to compare an investment in real estate vs some other type of investment, like a stock. It’s calculated by dividing the net operating income (rent you receive minus expenses such as taxes, maintenance fees and repairs) by the purchase price of the unit. The cap rates for Vancouver properties tend to be lower than many other N. American cities. However, a city like Vancouver makes up for it with superior price appreciation (Capital Gains) over time.

The Provincial Government finally gave us a break on the dreaded property transfer tax. Now, if you buy a new home and you’re going to make it your principal residence by living in it for at least 1 year, you don’t have to pay property transfer tax if the home is under $750,000. That’s a savings of up to $13,000.00. However, they raised the PTT on homes priced over 2 million. Buyers of those homes will now pay 3% PTT instead of the previous 2%.

We are now just entering our busy Spring selling season. I’m starting to get a lot more calls from prospective sellers on listing their homes for sale. When I go out and look at a home I’m always going to suggest ways that we can increase both the marketability of the home as well as the final selling price. Most of these suggestions don’t cost much money. Maybe $2,500 to $5,000 on average and a little bit of time & sweat. What makes these suggestions so appealing is the fact I’m quite confident I can get the money you spent back for you by 3 or 4 times in the final selling price.

Here is part 2 on the 2016 BC tax assessments. We are all well aware that the assessed value on lower mainland homes has gone way up for 2016. Depending on the type of home and neighbourhood  it’s up between 15% and 35%. People should realize that the market value (what that home would sell for on the open market is much higher). I will also explain why if your assessed value went up 25%  your property taxes will not be going up by the same amount.

Time for another one of my investing 101 blogs. Whether you’re buying shares in an S&P 500 company or a condo in Yaletown, you should always do it with conviction. If you’re an investor, you do your homework and always buy with a long term holding period in mind. In this video I’m going to explain why I continue to buy stock when the current market is down and in the doldrums. And why I continue to buy Vancouver Real Estate when the market is at all time record highs. As a bonus here is a link to a profile the Globe & Mail newspaper did on my investing philosophy. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/real-estate-investor-diversifies-with-dividend-stocks/article20707603/

Here we go! My much anticipated market predictions for 2016. Every year in Jan or Feb I give you my opinion on where I see the market heading for the year. The price of Vancouver homes continues to rise each month. We are well into record setting prices for pretty much everything from detached to condos. I would say just in the last 6 to 8 weeks the price of a detached home in Vancouver has gone up over $100,000. The question I get from people is, will this hot market ever end?  The answer is yes, but we will need some sort of catalyst to trigger a correction. I see 3 possible ones out there: 1. An increase in interest rates 2. A major increase in inventory ( # of home available for sale) 3. Some new restrictive tax introduced by the ...

There are currently 2 distinct pricing strategies playing out in the ultra hot seller’s market in Vancouver and Richmond. Some sellers are using the “Price it low & watch it grow” strategy. This is where they price a home well below market value in order to stimulate a ton of offers on the home. The result is the house will end up selling 100’s of thousands over asking. The other strategy is the more traditional way where you price a home fairly close to what you think is market value. In this blog I will explain the pros and cons to both strategies and some of the dangers in using a price it low strategy.  

I continue to see older Strata units with excessively high monthly maintenance (Strata Fees). Some are in the $700 a month range to boost their Contingency Reserve fund (CRF). I can understand these Strata Corps wanting to get more money into their Contingency reserve funds to help cover the costs of major repairs and upgrades moving forward but boosting your monthly maintenance that high is not the way to go. If a buyer is using a high ratio mortgage to purchase (less than 20% downpayment), which most buyers in this price range will be doing, it can become very difficult to get a mortgage approved for a property where the monthly maintenance is as much as the monthly mortgage payment. This can result in a lot of downward pressure on ...

The Vancouver Real estate market is always changing and new trends start to emerge all the time. Here are 3 that are starting to form in the downtown Vancouver market. Condo units that don’t have a dedicated parking space with the unit. 
Many millennials are bypassing the car, taking the $500 to $700 a month they would spend on the car and rolling it into the purchase or the rental of a downtown unit.Unit’s are getting smaller. 
This is the last bullet that developers have to get the cost of home ownership down for 1st time buyers. Interest rates have only one way to go from here and that’s up!If you are working in the downtown core every day and commuting 1 1/2 to 2 hours roundtrip then I’m seeing more people choosing to live c ...