December 2008 Newsletter

Welcome to Squamish Rocks Realtors E-News letter
New Foundations

Preening for the Olympics.

An excerpt from the New York Times

With the 2010 Winter Games a bit more than a year away, many buildings are rising in and around Vancouver. Some of these new buildings will be condominiums, and a significant number of them will be owned by those who plan to use them.as,second.homes.

Those involved in local real estate estimate that about 20 percent of those second-home buyers will be Americans. We're really liveable, which is why America likes us, said Bob Rennie, whose company, Rennie Marketing Systems, promotes several developments in Vancouver.

After the Winter Games, the 16-building Olympic Village, which will house about 2,800 athletes, is to be converted into a 730-unit luxury condominium complex called Millennium Water. About half the units have already been sold, Mr. Rennie said. Although it is only 35 miles north of the border, Vancouver looks and feels different from any city in the United States or, for that matter, Canada. With its glass-and-steel towers crowding a sweeping harbour, it could be in Asia.

Some long time residents in this city of about 600,000 still chuckle when they remember how Jim McKay, the sportscasters, referred to Vancouver as a village. when the city's soccer team, the Whitecaps, was on its way to winning the North American Soccer League championship in 1979. The city has come a long way.

Despite the Olympics-generated optimism, Vancouver has not been immune to the current real estate slump. According to a report released last month by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the number of residential property sales declined by 55 percent from October 2007 to October 2008, from 3,028 to 1,364. And typical residential prices fell by 8.8 percent between May and October, to 518,668 Canadian dollars for single residences and to 358,359 dollars for apartment properties.

According to reports, the Fortress Investment Group, the hedge fund and private equity firm that is the primary source of financing for the $1 billion Olympic Village near downtown, received an advance of 100 million Canadian dollars from the Vancouver City Council to cover cost overruns. Real estate agents remain optimistic, though, that the market in general will snap back, perhaps in time for the Olympics. Dave Watt, a veteran residential agent and president of the real estate board, said prices ramped up too much, I think. As Mr. Watt and others tell it, Vancouver became a much more international city after the World Exposition was held there in 1986. Asians began buying and developing property in the late 1990s. The city attracted Americans, too, many to a growing film industry.

You don't have to get on a highway for an hour or two to get to things, as you do in Los Angeles, said Evelyn Froese, an agent for Royal LePage Westside who specializes in waterfront condominiums in Vancouver. Partly as a result of Vancouver's appeal to Americans, real estate values nearly doubled between 2001 and 2006, Mr. Watt said, with typical single residences rising to a price of nearly 650,000 Canadian dollars and apartments and condos rising to about 400,000 dollars. Those prices began to slide only recently, influenced by the downturn in the American economy. You guys sneeze, Mr. Rennie said, and we get a little bit of a cold. The Canadian dollar, which was worth more than the American dollar as recently as September, has dipped to a little over 80 cents. When the American dollar buys more in Canada, the number of visitors from the United States increases.

The Olympics are expected to add more curiosity. In February 2010, the rest of the world will see, via Olympic telecasts over 16 days, the assets of Vancouver and expanses of British Columbia. There's no question that having Vancouver on that international stage can be nothing but fuel for the real estate market here, said Mark Lester, a senior vice president at Colliers International, real estate consultants.