Canada – Page 2 – The Speaker News Journal

In West Vancouver “Properties Doubled in Eight, Nine Months”

May 13, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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According to local real estate agents for Royal LePage, property values have doubled in less than a year in some parts of Vancouver due to foreign real estate investment.

“The luxury market has been driven purely on the demand from investors and the appeal is the perfect storm of geographical appeal,” stated Jason Soprovich, who specializes in the West Vancouver market. “Low interest rates, very low active listing rates and pent up demand.”

“[In West Vancouver] we’ve seen properties double in value over the past eight, nine months,” he said. “In the British Properties, some properties we saw listed 8 months ago at $2.4 million are now selling at $4.5 million.”

Most buying was from a single source, he said, agreeing with other Vancouver real estate agents: Mainland China.

Others have noted that Chinese buyers who live in China make up at least one-third of buying in the area, which is in addition to Chinese buyers who reside in Canada — a demographic for which there are no clear statistics.

The shortage of affordable housing in the Vancouver area is causing people to leave, some creating a notable trend of buying houses as far east as Chilliwack and some moving to other provinces.

Responding to comments made by B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong, who has stated that he was himself “biased” in his belief that foreign buyers are not the main factor in what is taking place in the Lower Mainland real estate market, Soprovich said, “It’s naive to think there hasn’t been a lot of investors moving into this part of the country – there is and it has had a major affect.”

Soprovich recommended levying an extra property tax on foreign buyers, which would, he said, deter some buying, but, “If this large number of people are influxing into the city are coming to city and using infrastructure, there needs to be some level of taxation.”

BC Budget Does Little For Rural Communities, Stikine MLA Says

January 26, 2021February 18, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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Criticism of the new B.C. budget was provided at the provincial legislature today by the MLA of Stikine, who said the many of the main points of the budget meant little to rural and northern communities.

“This is not a budget for rural communities,” Douglas said. “I will be saying ‘No’ to this budget.”

In rural and northern communities, MLA Doug Donaldson said, there is little home transfer to speaker of, so the new house transfer tax break will have no real impact on most residents there. province-wide, transfers account for only 20 percent of the market, he noted, and in the communities he represented the percentage was considerably smaller.

People renovate their homes and live in them while they renovate in most rural and northern communities, Douglas explained, and while there are many people looking to buy houses in his area, they were mostly first time home buyers who would be buying new houses.

The MLA took issue with two main points: the budget included no home energy improvements — a serious challenge in his area is heating houses, many of which have poor insulation, he said — and there were no breaks for drivers.

B.C. Hydro rates have increased 28 percent under the current premier, in order for the company build more electricity generating capacity to service the dramatic population increase in the Lower Mainland and to maintain and upgrade its equipment. However, there was no provision for improving energy efficiency or in any way reducing heating costs.

Drivers are paying 30 percent more for ICBC since 2011, Douglas pointed out. In rural and northern communities, almost all transportation is necessarily by personal vehicle. He gave the example of a resident needing to use a basic medical diagnostic tool such as an MRI, for which they would need to travel to a larger town or city.

However, Douglas said, while the B.C. budget was funded by 95 million in profits from ICBC, there was nothing specifically for those who paid into that funding source.

Government Wants More Immigrants Without Language Proficiency, Immigration Minister

January 26, 2021February 18, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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The requirements people must meet before they can become Canadian citizens, such as English or French proficiency, are to be reduced, according to the Canadian government, in order to make it easier for foreigners to obtain citizenship.

Immigration Minister John McCallum said Thursday that the government intended to make changes to the Citizenship Act of Canada:

“We are in general trying to reduce the barriers people have to overcome to become a citizen,” McCallum said in an interview on CBC News Network’s Power & Politics.

Currently, those wishing to become Canadian citizens must first prove proficiency in either English or French by taking a language test.

While changes the government may make to the language test “have not been announced yet,” McCallum said, the Liberals are “certainly not ditching it.” He did not specify what changes would be made, but did mention reducing the age requirement for language proficiency.

Currently, the age requirement is set at 64. It was raised from 55 in 2014 in an attempt to reduce the number of immigrants who could not communicate in English or French.

The 2014 bill that raised the age for language proficiency were protested by some M.P.s in B.C., such as Sukh Dhaliwal and Jenny Kwan. Some of B.C.s politicians, particularly those in areas where many people speak languages other than English, want the language requirement scrapped altogether.

The immigration minister also said that the government planned to make it impossible to take away Canadian citizenship for any reason.

BC To Collect Data On Real Estate Buyer Nationality

January 26, 2021February 16, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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Announced in the B.C. Budget Speech Tuesday, data about real estate buyer nationality will again be collected in the province due to widespread concern about the effects of foreign investment.

Such data was collected in the past, but was stopped in 1998. Since that time, house prices have skyrocketed in B.C., particularly in areas in and around Vancouver. Many Canadians are blaming foreign investment and mass immigration for the changes, but data that would furnish a practical assessment of the situation is lacking.

Finance Minister Mike de Jong made that announcement in Tuesday’s Budget Speech that the province would again be collecting nationality data starting this summer.

However, de Jong noted, nationality will only be collected when the buyer is not a citizen or resident of Canada. He also commented that foreign ownership of Canadian real estate is legal and even “encouraged” by the government.

The relevant portion of the Budget Speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dkLfoJ8rQQ

How Will The New Mortgage Rates Effect The Housing Market?

January 26, 2021February 15, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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In an effort to deal with “house prices that have been elevated,” the Canadian federal government raised down payments on houses over $500,000. Analysts have questioned whether the new policy will have any meaningful effect on the market at all, while many Canadians say the change only makes it harder for new Canadian home buyers, and may make it easier for what many are pointing to as the main cause of the ongoing massive increases in house prices — foreign ownership.

Beginning this month, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation requires a 10 percent down payment on any portion of a mortgage it insures above half a million dollars. Any portion up to $500,000 will require the same down payment as before — 5 percent.

How this change effects house buyers will likely depend on where those house buyers live. In Canada overall, the average price of a home is under $500,000. Not counting Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto, where prices have shot up 23-35 percent in the last five years, the average house costs $337,000, and if you exclude B.C. and Ontario, the price is under $300,000. In these regions, a $500,000 house would be a more expensive dwelling and would be in excess of what they typical home buyer would be looking for.

However, in Toronto and around Vancouver, the average is above $500,000. Even the Fraser Valley now has an average house price of half a million dollars. In these regions, all home buyers — even new families starting out — will be effected by the change.

There seems to be a discrepancy between what government officials and housing analysts are saying about the new mortgage rate and what Canadian citizens are saying about it, however.

The federal government said of the matter that they wanted to make sure they created an environment that protects home buyers by insuring that they have enough equity in their homes.

Analysis have said that the change will effect a tiny fraction of Vancouver home buyers, and that a strong B.C. economy and high employment rate are the cause of the huge housing price changes in Vancouver.

However, reading the responses to these statements (try either of the above links, or any other news story on housing prices) the most prevalent thread is one pointing at something the federal government and real estate analysts are not mentioning: foreign buyers, especially Chinese buyers.

The majority of commenters on news stories on this subject are to voice this concern. Yet it is not raised by local or federal politicians.

They have also pointed out that increasing the price for houses at this level will only make it more difficult for local buyers to own a house, and won’t effect foreign buyers who are already coming with a down payment that is larger than the required minimum.

What do you think, Canadians? How will the new mortgage rates effect the housing market?

Photo: Brian Fagan

Home Prices Up 12% In Canada, But Down When BC And Ontario Factored Out

January 26, 2021February 15, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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Home prices are up in Canada, hovering around the record 6-year high point, but this is almost entirely due to trends in two areas: Greater Vancouver primarily and Greater Toronto on a smaller but still significant level, according to market authorities.

The Canadian Real Estate Association reported that Canada-wide, the average home price was now $454,000, up 12 percent on a year-by-year basis.

But factoring out the GVA and GTA, the average is only $337,000, up 5.4 percent.

Further, according to CREA, even this rise is due largely to price trends in areas near Vancouver.

Elsewhere in Canada, home prices are flat or declining.

Factoring out the provinces of B.C. and Ontario, the average home currently costs $294,000, a decline of 2.2 percent year-over-year.

The VGA home costs $761,000 on average, up 35 percent from 5 years ago, and houses in nearby areas such as the Fraser Valley are also up to nearly $500,000, representing a rise of over 23 percent in the last 5 years. In both of these areas, all types of dwellings are up — two-story single family, one-story, townhouse and apartment.

The biggest price rise in the last 5 years, though, was Toronto, where the average house price rose 42 percent to put it at $574,000, still $200,000 cheaper than Vancouver. All types of dwellings continue a steady rise in Greater Toronto — the steadiest rising trends of any market represented in CREA’s chart data.

Images:CREA

Are Albertans Mailing Their House Keys Back To The Bank?

July 30, 2016February 13, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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A phenomenon known as “jingle mail,” where home-owners faced with mortgages they cannot pay mail their keys back to the bank, may be taking place in Alberta’s slumping economy, concerning the Canadian federal government.

The name of the game is “strategic default” — where those who have recently bought houses but have not paid for them find walking away more attractive than trying to pay off the rest of their investment.

The number to watch for is 20 percent, according insolvency experts. When high-end house prices drop that much, people start to consider the option.

This is because the downpayment on a house is also usually around 20 percent and, unlike all other Canadian provinces, the home owners often suffer no liability when they take this course since non-recourse residential mortgages are so common in Alberta. Lenders cannot take the home owner to court to seize their other assets.

The peak for housing prices in Alberta was in 2014, so many new house buyers are now under water. Their mortgages are higher than house appraisals for the houses purchased during the industrial boom that has now passed.

Since 2014, oil prices have plummeted and many Albertans who had been taking home above-average incomes are now without job prospects in their fields.

Jingle mail also was sent in the province in the 1980s when a trend of leaving Alberta for work in other provinces began.

This time, according to bankers, it has started in towns like Grande Prairie and Fort Mac, where many people are involved in servicing the oil and gas industry in one way or another.

By Andy Stern

Richmond To Ensure English On Signs On City Property

January 26, 2021February 13, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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Due to the pressure of Canadians who have complained about Richmond’s predominantly-Chinese signs, the city has signed a contract for some signs — those at bus stops — to be predominantly English.

“We’ve had the ongoing issue in Richmond about signs on businesses being in Chinese only or predominantly in Chinese, and there’s great concerns and complaints in the community.” said Richmond city spokesman Ted Townsend.

“We’ve always made it clear that it’s our desire that signs should be at least 50 percent English. In this case because the signs and bus shelters are on city land we can take a proactive approach and actually put in the requirement,” he said.

The signs on city land, Townsend said, would be “predominantly English.” The city’s move does not affect signs on property not belonging to the city, where most of the Chinese-language signs are located.

The city has been dealing with controversy over the use of Chinese language instead of English or combinations of both languages.

Over the past 30 years, the percentage of people who self-identify as Chinese living in Richmond has shot up from around 5 percent to over half, due to mass immigration into the area. In 1981, there were around 5,000 Chinese in the city; in 2011, 90,000, while white Richmondites have been leaving the city steadily over the same period of time. The current percentage of Chinese and white Canadians in the city is not known because more recent statistics are not available. The last Census was taken in 2011.

The matter of English requirements for signs came up in Richmond city business in 2013, when the local council voted against banning signs that do not contain English. In 2015, a petition for English only signs was also voted down by the council.

The city also recently made news for complaints from English tenants of a condo where the strata council, composed of Chinese speakers, decided to conduct all official business in Mandarin only.

Chinese Canadian strata council president Ed Mao had informed tenants that while they were free to come to meetings, the council had no intention of using English, the tenants reported.

One tenant filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights commission on behalf of himself and three others.

The issues of language for business and residential meetings are new ones for British Columbia. Neither has been the subject of legislation in the past, so no rules yet exist to restrict the use of languages in place of English.

World’s First Running Night Festival In Two Canadian Cities

July 30, 2016February 11, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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Joggers and festival-goers will convene again this year for the world’s first night running music festival. The event will take place in 35 locations around the world, including two Canadian cities and dozens of U.S. cities.

The 2016 Night Nation Run now has over one million registered members.

On the night of the event, runners will dress up in bright colors and don glow-in-the-dark and illuminated items. Check-ins start at 5:30 p.m. The pre-party will begin at 7:30 p.m.

The run — along an illuminated 5 kilometer course — will be accompanied by live music, lights and lasers, and will start at 8:30 p.m.

At the end of the run, a party will be held for the runners, featuring fog, lights, cyro, confetti guns, and giveaways, besides the music — including a surprise headliner DJ.

The run will happen in Toronto on July 23 and Vancouver on August 6.

Tickets for the event cost $70, but early bird prices of $35 are available until February 12. Tickets include a T-shirt, race bib, and glow necklace, besides admission to all of the night’s events. Kids under 8 years old are free when they accompany a paying adult.

Proceeds from event tickets will go partly to fund the charity organization Stand Up To Cancer.

Night Nation Run is reminding all participants to bring a copy of their confirmation email to the event for faster processing.

By Andy Stern

Vancouver Is Getting A 200-Foot High Glass-Floored Pool

July 30, 2016February 2, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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A new development in Vancouver is getting a city first: a shared swimming pool with a glass bottom. Underneath the glass floor panes of the pool is a drop of 200 feet.

The architects of Concord Pacific’s upcoming building — called the ARC after its distinctive shape — are sacrificing residential space for iconic impact. It is estimated that the space unused inside the building’s “arc” would be worth millions if developed into dwellings, but in order to create a distinctive impression the company is forgoing the revenue.

“What we realized is that there’s an opportunity here where if we actually have these two towers that are in fact connected at a higher level, we could put the amenity up there and all the residents from their homes could go up and enjoy the views and outlets from this higher level amenity,” said Concord Pacific Senior Vice President Peter Webb.

In order to manage the “arc” structure, the building will include giant steel and concrete beams that will be made at the building site. Glotman Simpson Engineers will undertake the engineering work for these elements as well as the 60 foot horizontal span that will sustain the pool area.

“In this particular case we really challenged our office and went back and forth with Walter and with Peter to try and create a space that gave them what they wanted, which was this really cool clear span space that’s high, that has the ability to put a pool in it, between the beams,” said Principal at Glotman Simpson Geoffrey Glotman. “And to do that overall was a really interesting, exciting opportunity for us.”

By Andy Stern
Images: Concord Pacific

TD Bank Raises Fees

July 30, 2016January 22, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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Canada’s TD Bank has raised fees in several areas this year, including significant charges for things that were free before.

The cost to withdraw cash from non-TD Bank ATMS has risen 50 cents to $2.00, but perhaps most significant are the completely new fees:

Interac e-Transfers, which were a free service with TD Bank, now cost $5 each. It will also cost $5 to deposit a post-dated check, which was free before.

Also, TD Bank’s tax-free savings accounts previously allowed free transfers to other banks. Now those transfers will cost $75 plus tax.

The bank has also added insufficient funds fees, whereas before such fees were not applicable.

The changes will take effect March 1, according to a TD Bank customer email sent out this week.

By Andy Stern

Chinese Vancouverite Aided Chinese Military In Theft Of F-35 Blueprints, Report Claims

July 30, 2016January 20, 2016 by The Speaker Editors

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The Globe and Mail has caused a court “book of record” to be released from the Vancouver court in which a trial against a Chinese Vancouverite accused of spying for China is taking place. The most recent development: Two unnamed co-conspirators in the case have been found to be Chinese soldiers.

Allegedly, Su Bin, a 50-year old entrepreneur living in Vancouver, helped the Chinese cyper-spying operation steal American fighter jet plans by providing focus for the hacking efforts of the Chinese soldiers. This help was documented in intercepted emails, according to the court documents.

In the trial, based on a U.S. charge, the two Chinese soldiers were referred to only as “unindicted co-conspirators” “affiliated with mulitiple organizations and entities.” No mention was made that they were tied to the Chinese army.

The Globe and Mail-obtained court documents show that the two had been explicitly referred to as “two Chinese military officers.” The two Chinese soldiers have also been identified by U.S. authories, according to the documents, although the names are not revealed by the Globe-obtained documents.

By Devon James