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Valley home sales are up 80 per cent and prices 25 per cent higher this year compared to 2020 – but active listings have plunged to 30-year lows

For every 100 Fraser Valley townhouses listed in August 94 of them sold, according to the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board.

The Fraser Valley is posting the highest home sales and price increases in urban British Columbia this year, but Valley real estate agents warn that a shortage of listings threatens the market.

For the first eight months of 2021, home sales through the multiple listing service in the Fraser Valley increased 83.7 per cent, reports the B.C. Real Estate Association (BCREA), while the average composite home price increased 25.7 per cent from the same period in 2020.

Total sales as of August in the Valley had reached 19,311 homes, BCREA said, while the average composite home price increased to $991,151.

This compares to Greater Vancouver, which has tallied a 79.3 per cent home sales increase compared to the first eight months of 2020, to 31,910 transactions. Greater Vancouver average home prices are now up 12.6 per cent from last year, to a composite price of $1.04 million, according to BCREA data.

But both the BCREA and the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB) say a severe shortage of listings is hampering sales and driving prices higher.

“Home sales around the province have essentially returned to normal after a record- setting spring,” said BCREA Chief Economist Brendon Ogmundson. “However, we continue to see a drought in the total supply of listings as well as downward trend in new listings activity.”

Active listings of homes for sale in the Fraser Valley have plunged 46.8 per cent as of August, compared to the same period last year. As of August there were just 3,386 listings for all types of homes, compared to more than 6,100 in August 2020.

“Home buyers are facing one of the worst supply shortages in Fraser Valley history,” said Larry Anderson, president of the FVREB. “Our housing stock is at levels last seen in the early 80s.”

Anderson said the townhouse sector is particularly undersupplied.

“For every 100 townhouses on the market in August, Fraser Valley realtors sold 94,” he said.

The shortage has led to spiralling prices for Fraser Valley townhouses, which were up 23.7 per cent in August, year-over-year, to $697,000, Anderson added.

For all of B.C., a total 9,507 residential unit sales were recorded in August 2021, a decrease of 7.1 per cent over August 2020. The average residential price in was $901,712, a 17.2 per cent increase from August 2020.

B.C.’s total sales dollar volume in August was $8.6 billion, up 8.9 per cent when compared with August 2020, the BCREA reports.

Source: BIV

After a scorching pace of early-year activity, housing demand in the Lower Mainland looks to have stabilized at a lower but still robust pace.

August Multiple Listing Service sales for the combined Metro Vancouver-Abbotsford-Mission region came in at 5,154 units, up 1.8% year over year and consistent with July gains.

While the sales trend is 35% below the March record, levels remain elevated and in line with previous cycle highs from the mid-2000s. Unadjusted August sales were nearly 50% higher than same-month 2019 and 35% higher than the August average for 2010-19. Low interest rates, pandemic demand for space (although moderating) and signs of higher condo apartment demand as investors look to the return of immigrants, students and tourists are supporting demand. At the same time, affordability erosion has priced more buyers out of the market, while less restrictive public health measures have pivoted attention away from the market.
Greater Vancouver real estate board data showed a 21% year-over-year increase in apartment condos sales as detached and townhome sales fell from a year ago.

Price growth has slowed with the declining sales cycle but has remained well supported due to low inventory. The average price came in at $1.1 million in August. This was up 1.4% from July, but the trend has slightly eased since the spring. This partly reflects types of homes sold and was still 12.5% higher than a year ago. The benchmark home value, which adjusts for quality of homes sold, rose 0.5% from July and came in 17% above year-ago levels. Apartments (up 9.4% year over year), lagged behind ground-oriented property growth, which exceeded 20%.

New listings have declined alongside sales as both buyers and sellers took a step back. Active inventory is sitting at four-year lows, which have kept the market firmly in favour of sellers and supportive of prices. The fall months could bring a substantial increase in listings as more owners take advantage of high prices and re-engage with the market, but unlikely sufficient to drive a price correction.

B.C. international trade flows pulled back sharply in July, pointing to a partial reversal of the strong upward trend of much of the pandemic. Based on Statistics Canada data, Central 1 calculated a 9.5% decline in goods exports from June while imports fell 7.5%. That said, trade volume far exceeds pre-pandemic levels, and year-over-year export growth reached 42.8%, while imports gained 11.6%. •

Source: BIV

By Bryan Yu – chief economist at Central 1 Credit Union.

Opinion: Investigative journalist has written a disturbing exposé of the “mind-blowing” connections among organized crime, the Chinese Communist Party, real estate, offshore billionaires and Canadian politicians.

It’s not every day a reporter who has worked for The Vancouver Sun and The Province writes a book that hits No. 1 in sales on Amazon.ca and continues to hover near the top.

But that is what dogged journalist Sam Cooper has achieved with his thrilling and deeply disturbing exposé of what he rightly calls the “mind-blowing” connections among organized crime, casinos, the Chinese Communist Party, real estate, money laundering, offshore billionaires and Canadian politicians.

Connecting the dots like no other journalist or researcher before him, Cooper’s devastating book, Wilful Blindness: How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West, took root in 2009 when he began doing investigative work for The Province.

That’s where Cooper crossed paths with Fabian Dawson, another shoe-leather journalist who had broken numerous stories about Asian criminals buying copious amounts of prime Vancouver real estate. Dawson, raised in Malaysia, had “international sources and understanding of politics and business in Asia,” Cooper writes, which contributed to his blockbuster accounts linking Asian triads to some of Canada’s top business leaders and elected officials.

Written in the first person, almost like a detective thriller, Cooper’s book reveals how courageous front-line police, investigators and intelligence officials, like Calvin Chrustie and Ross Alderson, uncovered shocking international criminal behaviour in Canada, which was often covered-up by senior officials in law enforcement and government.

One of many indications of Cooper’s high impact is the way scores of his articles for The Province, The Vancouver Sun and Global News (where he is now employed, based in Ottawa) have become official evidence for Austin Cullen, the B.C. Supreme Court judge heading B.C.’s commission into money laundering.

Since his book was published last month, Cooper has been appearing before parliamentary committees and fact-finding prosecutors.

Wilful Blindness: How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West, by Sam Cooper.PNG

Wilful Blindness focuses on how tycoons, gangsters, sex-traffickers and agents of the Communist party have over the decades penetrated deep into Canada’s economy, political fundraisers and housing markets. The book’s forewords by professor Teng Biao and former Beijing-based diplomat Charles Burton clarify the obvious: It’s crucial to avoid, as Burton says, “the misidentification of the Canadian Chinese community with the Communist-Party led brutal, repressive and corrupt regime in China today.”

The book’s title and cover sum up a great deal.

The title targets the “wilful blindness” of a host of Canadian officials and politicians (many of them named) who have looked the other way for decades while “a network of narcos, tycoons and CCP agents infiltrated the West.” The cover illustration, in turn, shows a map of the world, peppered with lethal opioid pills, with the stars of China’s flag centred on Vancouver.

In the midst of describing grisly gang shootings in restaurants and assassinations by crossbow in the otherwise beautiful metropolis of Metro Vancouver, Cooper shows in gritty detail how “Canada has become a command centre for the world’s most-prolific Chinese transnational narcos.”

After Cooper describes yet another high-level internal document obtained from brave and frustrated sources within the RCMP, which shows intimate links between gangsters and state intelligence officers from China, the author explains his motivation to keep trying to get to the bottom of things.

“I’m following the money and the power and the greatest threat to Canadian society. It’s not that other crime groups — domestic and foreign — get a pass. But I recognize the unique threat posed by state-sponsored crime,” Cooper writes.

Although Cooper is the leader in exposing such infiltration into Canada, he makes it clear other journalists have also reported on or supported front-line probes into the insidious relationship between Asian billionaires, drug manufacturers, loan sharks, gangsters, real estate insiders and politicians.

The B.C.-based writers and editors he cites include Jonathan Manthorpe, Doug Quan, Ian James Young, Cassidy Olivier, Harold Munro, Sandy Garrossino, Kathy Tomlinson, Bob Mackin, Terry Glavin, Joanna Chiu and more.

Cooper has had to endure lawsuits and China’s perpetual claims of racism to simply continue to probe what a once-secret CSIS investigation, sparked by the early stories of Dawson and others, made clear 25 years ago. The so-called Sidewinder report, which was leaked in 2001 after being buried by former prime minister Jean Chretien, described the way triads, tycoons and Chinese intelligence operatives had corrupted Canada’s institutions and markets.

It is not possible, in a short review, to do justice to the hundreds of yarns Cooper stitches together. He unveils the labyrinthine connections among hundreds of international criminals, $100,000-a-bet gamblers, Lamborghini-buying real-estate tycoons and over-cosy politicians. The final chapter alone is a remarkable tale of intrigue in the upper echelons — exploring the sordid knots behind the drive-by shooting at Richmond’s Manzo restaurant in 2020 of underground banker Jian Jun Zhu and illicit gambling kingpin Paul King Jin.

Wilful Blindness is not only a tremendous resource for journalists, law enforcement officials and (we hope) scholars who seek to “follow the money” that’s pouring into the West, it’s an eye-opening experience for ordinary readers.

Judging by book sales, they’re the ones already proving they consider it their duty to stop being naive about the community-destroying world of the transnational rich and powerful, as well as their political enablers, many of whom forever strive to do their dirty collaborations in private.

Canada’s new mortgage stress test rules are going to make purchasing homes a bit harder for first-time homebuyers, according to several mortgage and housing policy experts. The new rules, which are set to come into effect June 1, ups the minimum qualifying rate, which is a gauge of whether borrowers can handle payments should interest rates increase. According to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), which confirmed the upcoming changes on Thursday, the rates would rise to either the contracted rate plus two percentage points or 5.25 per cent — whichever is higher of the two. Several mortgage and housing policy experts have told Global News that the rise would make it more difficult for some to qualify for a mortgage in the short-term. Vancouver-based mortgage broker Alex McFadyen said that first-time homebuyers in particular are likely going to be impacted the most from the new rules because they’re likely to not have as much equity as those who’ve already purchased a home and that a majority of them would be taking insured mortgages. Such insured mortgages are loans that have less than 20 per cent of the property’s down payment paid, but come riddled with more rules, regulations and guidelines. “There is going to be an impact. It’s not, as we talked about, a dramatic impact,” said McFayden in an interview with Global News on Saturday. According to him, the changes are not likely to impact the market in the same way as when the stress test last changed. The 2018 stress test change reduced borrowing power by 22 per cent while this year’s change would reduce borrowing power by only about four to five per cent, he said. Several other experts said that while there would be some impact on groups like first-time homebuyers, the changes would be very slightly felt as a whole across the Canadian housing market. “Subtle changes in the stress test rules have little impact. Yes, first-time buyers on the margins get hurt slightly,” wrote University of Toronto urban planning professor David Hulchanski in an email. Hulchanski said that real estate associations and home builders would also be impacted, as houses that aren’t sold or built would decrease profits for them, though the major players in the Canadian housing market, such as multiple property owners, aren’t going to be affected at all due to the “huge income and wealth gap.” “So the changes on June 1 will only affect a small number of potential first-time buyers and those playing the market who are not very wealthy,” he wrote. University of Toronto geography and planning professor Dr. Alan Walks also agreed that the changes would likely have an effect, albeit small, on the housing market. “I think one of the banks estimated the changes will reduce purchasing power by something like four or five per cent, so not huge on its own,” said Walks in an email Saturday. Whether or not an influx of potential homebuyers will be scrambling to finalize their purchases ahead of June 1 is still up in the air, however. According to Walks, the short time span between now and June 1 would allow just a few homebuyers to squeeze in purchases this week. On the other hand, McFadyen said that we’re more likely to see “a sprint to the finish line here in the next seven to 10 days” of homebuyers finalizing their purchases before the June date. What he says is another serious issue about the change is just a plain lack of communication and clarification from the government. “We are seeing a lot of people asking questions, there’s a lot of confusion in the marketplace, so I find a lot of false information because the information keeps changing,” McFadyen said. “You know, again, I think it’s one of those situations where clearly the government or whoever is involved in making these decisions should be communicating much more clearly — people are not actually in a position to [make] a change seven days before it goes into effect without a lot of clarity.”

A new version of Shangri-La minutes omits details about the risks and cost of replacing windows in the tower that had been in an earlier version.

Author of the article:

Joanne Lee-Young

Publishing date:

Feb 12, 2021 • 16 hours ago • 3 minute read

Questions are being raised after condo strata minutes detailing serious concerns about windows possibly shattering were amended with a more muted version at the Shangri-La, Vancouver’s tallest tower, which is known for its floor-to-ceiling views.

Earlier, the building’s two stratas filed lawsuits to recover costs under warranty from insurers and are also suing developers, builders and contractors over the windows. A 100-day trial for these is set to begin in October.

It also comes as prospective buyers might be considering one of the nine units currently listed for sale. They range in asking price from $865,000 for one on the 28th floor to units on the highest floors that are asking over $5 million.

The minutes for a special general meeting held on Sept. 10, 2020, for the strata that represents owners of 234 condo units on floors 16 to 43 in the tower, originally contained details about the inner panes of what are known as insulated glass units, or windows.

A separate strata represents owners of units on floors 44 to 62.

The minutes alleged the windows “suffer from a nickel sulphide inclusion and/or manufacturing defects, which can cause (them) to spontaneously shatter.”

They also allege up to 70 per cent of the windows are failing “prematurely by decades and reaching just a fraction of their expected lifespan of 40 years.”

The minutes identified nine floors where shattered inner panes in the insulated gas units have been taken from condos.

They also presented the option of reconstructing a curtain wall and replacing all of the window units in increments at an initial cost estimate of $65 million. The final cost would depend on many things, including the type and specific design of windows that would have to be used.

On the portal with information available to owners, that version of minutes has been replaced with a new version that omits these details.

Real estate agents representing sellers and buyers say that recent requests for minutes of the special general meeting minutes get them the new version, which also does not mention the change or explain why it was done.

The details about the windows in the original minutes were in a preamble to a motion for a special levy that was ultimately defeated.

“It’s definitely brought on a lot of questions from prospective buyers that want to know about these windows and how much it could cost them in the future,” said real estate agent Paolo Cartocci.

He’s sold five units in the building in the last few years. The listing for a unit he currently has for sale went up in early January, but has been on and off the market, he said.

“What motivated the change? I would think (they) owe an explanation or some kind of indication that these are replacement minutes,” said Ron Usher, a Vancouver real estate lawyer.

A strata council “must ensure its minutes are accurate because the council knows that others will reasonably rely on those minutes. The strata council members may be liable for misrepresentation if they provide inaccurate or misleading information to someone who suffers a loss because he or she reasonably relies on it,” according to The Condominium Manual, a reference guide for the Strata Property Act.

The manual explains that if a strata council has confidential discussions, it must refer to this and label them in the minutes as having being held in camera. In minutes before the special general meeting, there are several instances where the Shangri-la strata went in camera for discussions about the windows.

Minutes in November do give some indication that the minutes for the September special general meeting were “leaked to the media following distribution to the Owners. They have since been removed and will be reviewed by council again prior to their re-distribution.”

Postmedia didn’t get a reply to a phone message and email sent to Thomas McGreer, vice-president, and Michael Schuss, CEO, at AWM-Alliance Real Estate Group, which manages the property, and to Diane Tam, who took on the position of strata council president starting in December.

jlee-young@postmedia.com 

Last May, I wrote an opinion piece titled Time to buy? What the pandemic means for Vancouver’s real estate market where I explained that historically for every one per cent rise in unemployment there is a four per cent decrease in housing prices.
However, this is not what has happened during the last several months. Between February and August this year the unemployment rate doubled while the Canadian housing market hit all-time highs.  
Homeowners who lost their jobs due to the pandemic were able to keep their homes thanks to various government income replacement programs and banks offering the option to defer mortgage payments. These initiatives bought struggling homeowners some time and allowed them to keep their homes off the market.
At the same time, interest rates dropped.
This lowered the cost of borrowing for buyers and increased the amount of “house” they could qualify for. The lower rates increased demand at a time when supply was relatively low and, as a result, despite unemployment numbers doubling, the prices of real estate hit new highs.
• Average Canadian house price soared 18% in past year, CREA says
Several factors will affect upward trend
Whether the upward trend in real estate sales and prices continues will depend on several factors, such as: the severity of future waves of COVID-19; how quickly the economy can recover; and when our borders will reopen to immigration. However, what will have the most impact will be government action and the policies they implement to keep Canadians and the economy afloat. As long as government aid is flowing — which I think will continue until we have a vaccine and/or the economy is back on track — asset prices can keep rising.  
Financially, on average, Canadians are in better shape now than they were pre-pandemic. Household spending has dropped by 13 per cent, which has increased our savings rate by 28 per cent. The government income replacement programs were effective, but it appears they overshot a bit as for every dollar in salary lost due to the pandemic, the government replaced it with approximately $2.50.
Now that these programs are being dialled back, it will be interesting to see how the changes will affect the economy and housing market.
• Vancouver mayor to introduce housing program aimed at middle-income earners
As for the seven per cent of B.C. mortgage holders who deferred their payments, I don’t think many will default on their mortgages. Some deferred not because they needed to, but because it was an option and they felt it prudent to save money just in case things turned really bad.
Others deferred due to temporary job loss, but then the government programs helped fill their income gap until they could return to work.
In both these cases, most of these mortgage holders should be able to resume their payments.
Homeowners at risk
Unfortunately, there are some homeowners who remain unemployed and may have to sell their homes once their mortgage payment deferral option comes to an end.
For those forced to sell there is at least a silver lining in that real estate prices have gone up, putting them in a better position today than six months ago.
The group I consider most at risk are condo speculators.
There has been a fundamental shift in what is deemed desirable in real estate. Now that the work-from-home movement is no longer a trend but a necessity, living close to your workplace isn’t as important as it used to be. The items that are on top of today’s buyers’ wish lists include a backyard and an extra room for a home office.

Many people are selling their downtown condos and purchasing houses in the suburbs.
As a result, we have a tight detached home market while new listings for condos are surging — a trend that I can see not only continuing but accelerating in the near term.