It's that time of year again when media outlets are looking for Vancouver Real Estate professionals predictions on what the market will do in 2015. Just like last year I tell them I don't know what the market will do in the short term. No one can accurately predict what a market will do in the short term. There are just too many variables. Buying a home should always be viewed with a long term horizon. At least 10 years or more. What I will predict is what home prices will do in the long term. The answer is continue to go up! You should never base your decision to buy a Vancouver home on what someone thinks prices will do over the next 12 months. Always look at a real estate purchase with a long term prospective and you'll be amazed at ...

When you’re buying a downtown Vancouver condo the 2 most important considerations should be the location of both the building and your unit within the building. You may need to pay a slight premium for this but in my experience it’s worth every penny in increased appreciation and access to a much larger number of buyers when it comes time to sell down the road. I suggest buyers should always have the words of the great Warren Buffet in their heads when they're looking at homes. “It’s far better to buy a wonderful home at a fair price than buy a fair home at a wonderful price”.

Homes can be considered stigmatized for a number of reasons. The most common one is death. However what constitutes a stigmatized property and a deal breaker for one buyer might not be a deal breaker for another buyer. If you're not dealing with a seller at arms length and you suspect the seller might be deceased, it pays to ask questions so that you can decide for yourself.

I'm going to share a story that some new clients told me a few weeks ago. It’s another example of the advantages of buying tangible real estate as opposed to buying a Pre-sale off a brochure that's not going to be built for 2 or 3 years. This couple decided to rent for a year in a downtown condo that they had considered buying a few years earlier as a pre-sale. After about 2 months in this building they realized that this particular building and neighbourhood was simply not for them.

If you absolutely, positively want to buy a pre-construction condo in Vancouver these days, then you may as well do it the right way by hiring an experienced Vancouver realtor who knows the Downtown market inside and out. Choose a Realtor who represents you (Fiduciary duty) to negotiate the best possible price on your unit, as well as walk you thru the 100's of pages of contracts and disclosure statements and make you aware of all your legal rights and obligations at all times. Many buyers don't realize that there are many items you can negotiate on the sale of a pre-construction condo besides the price, and the advantages of having a Realtor represent your best interests and not the developers, is critical if you want to get the bes ...

Here's another real life example of how to do it right when it comes to buying and holding Real Estate and the type of wealth that you can create over time from humble beginnings. I'm going to share the journey of how one of my clients started with a small, 1 bedroom condo in Richmond 25 years ago and now just bought a 1.7 million dollar Triplex in Kitsilano this past Summer. His rise up the Vancouver property ladder didn't happen overnight. It was a slow methodical process... one that took discipline and hard work.

The BC Government has just lowered the voting barrier that might otherwise delay important repairs related to depreciation reports. Normally a 3/4 vote was necessary to approve an expenditure from the CRF. It's now been lowered to 51% where the most recent depreciation report recommends the repair.They have also created a new special levy remedy to override the defeat of a special levy for repairs. Now if it fails and you have at least 50% in favor you can apply to the Supreme Court of BC to approve the levy. The work must be necessary for safety or to prevent significant loss or damage. The Strata Corp must apply to the court within 90 days of the failed vote.

Here’s another case study on an investment property that was all wrong, right from the beginning. Never sure who’s to blame with these types of situations but in the end it has to fall on the buyer for simply not doing their due diligence and getting the proper advice on this deal. Or, if they did, they didn't listen and went ahead anyway. If you’re going to buy an investment property make sure you at least understand the basics of real estate investing, then hire a Realtor who specializes in these types of properties to steer you in the right direction.

When you’re selling a home you want to make sure you point out all the features that help make that home worth what you’re trying to sell it for. However, sometimes things can get exaggerated, stretched a bit or just plain wrong. Here are the 4 most common what I call “creative marketing statements” that I see these days on the MLS for Vancouver.

The tax assessed values have always been low compared to market value for most lower mainland homes, but they are becoming really out of whack these days. Part of the reason is that they are stale. BC Assessment numbers are done as of July 1st every year and are released in January of the following year so they are not right up to date. However I have to wonder if BC Assessment really looks at each individual home and its position on the street like it says it does. Or how much data it really crunches in coming up with the values these days?