False Creek Neighbourhood The next up and coming waterfront community of Vancouver. The False Creek Neighbourhood, commonly referred to as Olympic Village (an area that housed the Olympic athletes during the 2010 winter games). False Creek has transformed immensely since the Olympics from what was previously a run down industrial area separating the East and West side of Vancouver to an electric waterfront community. Mostly consists of new condo developments, False Creek continues to develop more and more homes and businesses. If you’re investing in the future False Creek should be heavily considered with plenty of potential as much of the area is still being developed. Walk along the seawall or just over the Cambie Street bridge into Downtown Vancouver. Schools: Much like the rest of Vancouver, False Creek is close to almost everything, including schools. Such as False Creek elementary, Henry Hudson and Tennyson are close enough to commute to. Kitsilano Secondary is the closes secondary school. Private school options include, Madrona, St. John’s International, and St. Augustine school. Shopping & Restaurants: False Creek consists of unique shops specific to Vancouver as well as major chain stores such as Canadian Tire, Save on Foods and Home Depot. False Creek

Fairview Neighbourhood Located adjacent to Kitsilano and the famous Granville Island, the Fairview neighbourhood offers similar convenience to Downtown Vancouver without the noise. Much like Kitsilano it offers some stunning views of the Downtown Vancouver skyline. You won’t find any single family homes but has plenty of older condos and townhouses offering larger than usual square footage. Schools: With it’s close proximity to surrounding area, Fairview offers easy commutes to many schools. It offers a bilingual elementary school and easy access to Tennyson and False Creek elementary. Price of Whales and Kitsilano Secondary are within walking distance of Fairview. Blessed Sacrament, St. John’s international, and Madrona offer private school alternatives. Post secondary Emily Carr Institute is located nearby on Granville Island for all the art lovers out there. Restaurants and shopping: Lots of shopping located from 16th avenue to Granville Street bridge consisting of small boutique shops, antiques, coffee shops and restaurants. All the major chain shopping is located on West Broadway in the heart of Fairview. You’ll find businesses like Indigo/Chapters, Future Shop, London Drugs. If you want to experience something new you will have to venture over to Granville Island. It has some awesome restaurants, and a local

Kitsilano Neighbourhood Kitsilano is one of the fine gems in Vancouver and one of the most recognized neighbourhoods in all of Canada. Located just outside of Downtown Vancouver it offers a quieter neighbourhood but still just a short commute to everything Downtown has to offer. Don’t sell Kitsilano short, it boasts a plethora of locally owned and unique shops and restaurants and is what makes Kits so unique. It has arguably the best beaches in all of Vancouver and offers some stunning views. Makes for perfect walks along the beach or seawall or enjoy the views while relaxing in the large outdoor community pool. It consists of a diverse mix of people, from students to families and everything in between. Many students will rent in Kitsilano and commute to UBC. Families also prefer Kits because it offers a diverse mix of housing. My personal favourite outside of Downtown. Schools: Kitsilano has a whole bunch of elementary and secondary schools, public and private. For elementary students there is Gordon elementary, Bayview elementary, Tennyson elementary, and Henry Hudson elementary. The main high school is Kitsilano Secondary School. Commutable alternatives are Prince of Whales and Lord Byng Secondary. Private school options include St.

First Time Home Buyers Save Little So many of my clients are first time home buyers. I love working with them because I love helping people and they are usually the ones who need it most. So how much is the first time home buyer rebate? So how it currently works is the BC government offers a full rebate of the property transfer tax to qualifying home buyers up to a price of $475,000. Here’s the major flaw. There is only a full rebate up to a purchase of $475,000. It goes on a sliding scale for anything over that but only up to $500,000. So basically if you buy something for $475,000 you pay no tax. Buy something for 480 you pay $1500, buy something for 490,000 you pay $4680 in tax. Buy something over $500,000 you get zero rebate and you pay the full property transfer tax which is $8020. In a market that is so hot, where we’ve seen average prices for the condo market in Downtown Vancouver increase by 16% over 1 year, this benchmark number of $475,000 is ridiculous. The average price of a 1 bedroom condo in Downtown Vancouver over the last 60 days

Buyers can’t do renovations before moving in. Many buyers want to know if they can do renovations before moving in. They want to know if they can do the renovation before the property closes so the new home is all neat and tidy for move in day.  I want to take you through a scenario that I encountered a few weeks back. I was the listing agent for a tenant occupied condo in Vancouver. So because it was tenant occupied, naturally it wasn’t in the best shape, the walls were a little scuffed up and needed re painting. It’s impressive what a fresh coat of paint can do to a place. So anyways, we get an accepted offer on the condo unit based on the condition that the buyer would be allowed to paint the place before they moved in. Now obviously it would be a lot easier for the buyer to be able to paint the place before having their stuff all moved in. But there’s a huge problem with this. If a buyer was to re paint the place before closing on the property and something should happen, say, a paint can falls over and ruins the flooring.

The One Mistake That Can Cost You Thousands When Hiring a Realtor What’s the one biggest mistake you can’t afford to make when hiring a Realtor? Well, it’s your lucky day, i’m about to give you maybe the best advice I can offer when it comes to selling real estate. It’s a little piece of info that most Realtors won’t tell you. So here’s the story, a prospective seller calls a couple Realtors and asks them to come by and evaluate their home. The Realtor comes in does his walk through pulls out the compareables gives his price and walks out the door, never to be seen again. As i’m chatting with that Realtor a couple days later at the office, I ask, “How did that evaluation go? Did you get the listing?” No he replies. They went with someone else who had a higher price. This is without a doubt the biggest mistake a seller can make when hiring a Realtor. Never hire a Realtor because they had the highest list price! There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly you should hire a Realtor because you know them, like them, and trust them. When a Realtor comes

Why price per square foot is misleading. Stop obsessing over price per square foot. You’re getting it all wrong! I see it everyday, people asking me what’s the average price per square foot. It doesn’t matter. I know immediately i’ve just ticked off a few fellow Realtors. Before you get too upset let me explain. Price per square footage matters, yes it’s something to look at when buying or selling but only if used very specifically, like very specifically. What I mean is; every condo building in Vancouver is different. Some are tall, some are small, some have pools and gyms and some don’t. Factor in location, some near the water, while others are located on busy streets with no views. So when a prospective buyer or another Realtor comes to one of my listings and says “Your listing is over priced the price per square foot in downtown Vancouver is X. X times Y equals over priced.” Not everything is a numbers game. Pricing condos is not math, it’s not science, it’s an art. There are variables to consider and factor in such as view, what floor it’s on, area, location, amenities, building age and condition. You can’t generalize

Major Changes to old Vancouver buildings on the way.  Huge changes have been proposed for strata corporations. We could start seeing lots of older buildings around Vancouver getting torn down and re developed. A new law has been proposed making it easier for owners to terminate their strata corporation. Currently, there are many older buildings in Vancouver, especially in areas like Kitsilano and the West End. As these buildings continue to age, some 50-60 years old, costs can climb and start to become unreasonable. Many owners feel that instead of repairing the building it should be knocked down and sold to developers so they can re develop it. Many times it just makes more sense than continually pumping money into an old building where the improvement costs outweigh the return on investment. They are also better to maximize the land space with a redevelopment. Currently if owners want to sell their condo unit to developers they need everyone in strata to vote unanimously to terminate their strata corporation and then sell the entire building to a developer. However, the new proposed change will make it from a unanimous vote to only an 80% vote required. This could mean lots of

Vancouver Real Estate loneliness an epidemic.  It’s no secret the supply of land in Vancouver is extremely limited. Which is why developers are working to continue to densify downtown Vancouver with many new high-rise buildings planned. However, developers, city officials, and even fire fighters are facing some very serious issues. First there is something called The phenomenon of urban loneliness.This is becoming a more pressing issue recently where surveys have found that 43 per cent of those who live in high-rises do not know at least two of their neighbours’ names. Some developers are taking this very seriously and are proposing what they call “sky gardens” which are basically common areas, like a green space on each floor where neighbours can go out; enjoy some fresh air and socialize with other neighbours on their floor. However, to make this happen they are also suggesting to get rid of people’s private patio’s in their units. I live in a high-rise building here in Downtown Vancouver, and I can tell you not only from my building but other buildings alike not many people actually use the communal areas. People prefer their privacy. It’s evident by the fact that every time i’m in

Public Outrage over foreign investment. A recent Vancouver housing study has created a lot of backlash amongst Canadians. The Study released on Monday, tracked home sales in some of Vancouver’s most expensive areas, Of those 172 homes sold , 66% were sold to Chinese buyers. To say Chinese buyers are only snatching up multi-million dollar properties is also false. Take a look around, it’s a trickle down effect. I’ve witnessed it first hand, it’s happening everywhere. This undoubtedly will and should upset Vancouverites. However, it’s important to understand this is not a race issue. This not about blaming a group of people. This is a Government issue. The blame needs to be put on the Government. We have weak immigration and tax policies that allow this to happen. It just so happens that the Chinese have figured this out and they are exposing it and taking advantage of our broken system. Foreign investors are allowed to purchase as many properties as they like. Even tho, back in China in 2006, many Chinese were being priced out of the market by foreign investors. The Chinese government swiftly introduced a law limiting foreign investors to 1 home, strictly for use as a

Vancouver Prices Will Keep Rising Despite Misleading Report So a recent article which was just published by the CMHC (The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) stated that the Vancouver prices are set to Cool.  Then various news channels echoed that same message, with headlines like  “Canada’s real estate boom will come to an end in 2016.” This instantly piqued my interest so I delved into it a little further. Now it should be stated that nobody can truly predict real estate prices, not myself, not you, not even the CMHC despite what they may think. So as I’m reading these headlines, i’m thinking, wow they’re saying the boom is coming to an end. The day of reckoning is here. The madness is over. Brace yourself. It’s not. Vancouver house prices are actually set to rise in 2016 & 2017. I’m here to set the record straight. The articles headlines are very misleading and many people will simply just read the headlines and move on. What the article actually states is that prices will continue to rise. The CMHC Report says that  home prices are projected to “rise 3% next year. By 2017, that growth is expected to dip to 2.1%.”

The Georgia Viaducts are coming Down Like it or not, the Georgia Viaducts are coming down. It’s inevitable. Personally, I don’t really care.. Now before anyone can say how can you not care, you live here you need to care! I don’t. Why? Because, I don’t concern myself with things that are out of my control. You can protest and throw a big fit, but at the end of the day the City is going to make the decision, they have all the power and trust me when I tell you, those things are coming down. Now if you want my opinion, if this came down to a vote I would vote yes, tear those viaducts down. Quite frankly I find them to be an eye sore, a dated infrastructure constructed in 1972 that  sticks out like a sore thumb on such a beautiful city. In a city where land is at an absolute premium it doesn’t make sense to have this infrastructure which creates all this dead space. The potential to add an extra 4000 new residents and 4.5 acres of new waterfront park sounds pretty good to me. I know some may accuse me and say why because