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Entries from January 2016

Still lots of mystery behind the flip of two Nelson Street properties for quadruple assessed value

April 25th, 2016 · 7 Comments

I think many of you saw this fun piece by Ian Young at the South China Morning Post about the interesting doings with two Nelson Street properties, purchased by Bruno and Peter Wall just two years ago and recently sold for $68 million to a new player in town, Gao Shan. Ian’s style can be very […]

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A fun heat map showing where people use transit the most

April 21st, 2016 · 1 Comment

A nice visual look at transit use in Vancouver, compliments of a group called the 10 and 3, who sent this to me. http://www.the10and3.com/a-heat-map-of-public-transit-use-in-vancouver/ A Heat Map of Public Transit Use in Vancouver By Arik Motskin and Zack Gallinger Vancouver Skytrain Vancouver was relatively late to the game in Canada when it came to building […]

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In the continent’s hottest housing market, Vancouver will try to create an “affordable home ownership” program

April 19th, 2016 · 10 Comments

The good folks at city hall are probably wishing someone had started the idea of an affordable home-ownership program 10 years ago, when prices were way more reasonable. At any rate, they’re going to try now by getting units in new development projects through developer community-amenity contributions and then selling them to people at below-market […]

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Your chance to contribute to a housing documentary, if you haven’t got enough info yet

April 19th, 2016 · No Comments

This arrived in an email and I’m passing it on as a PSA Vancouver, B.C. – The housing crisis leads the headlines, but there’s more to the story than foreign investment from mainland China entering the real estate market. A new independent film series called Crisis in the Greenest City is set to go deeper […]

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Concord purchase of central industrial site has everyone in a flap

April 13th, 2016 · 15 Comments

It’s amazing how much interest there has been in Vancouver’s beer factory at the south end of the Burrard Bridge. Ever since Molson announced it was being sold, there’s been speculation about the buyer and the price and the future. It’s not the first time Vancouver’s west side has gone through this. For you youngsters, […]

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Latest wrinkle in Vancouver’s strange housing market: Formal warnings about dangers of no-subject offers

April 12th, 2016 · 2 Comments

It’s more than a full-time job trying to keep up with the way behaviour in the real-estate market is morphing these days. The latest: Buyers possibly being asked to sign forms saying they understand the dangers of making no-subject offers. (One of my Twitter commenters already noted that this makes it sound as though it’s […]

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Your chance to request a bike-share dock in front of your house (or not)

April 8th, 2016 · 4 Comments

This news release from the city, asking for suggestions for locations for bike-share docks, seems like fertile ground for fun. I do know other cities have had some mini-wars over the location of docks. Personally, I am lobbying for one directly in front of my house. I know others won’t feel the same. Suggest a […]

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The Airbnb civil war: politicians look at limits, while hosts point to the benefits

April 6th, 2016 · 29 Comments

Vancouver is gearing up this week to deal with Airbnb, with Councillor Geoff Meggs spearheading a motion to have staff get more aggressive about getting information from the company and about getting information on the impacts. It’s a popular move for many. Landlords, strata councils, neighbours, housing advocates and more are all worried about the […]

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As Vancouver’s old industries leave “Mount Pixel,” city struggles to define new meaning of industrial

April 6th, 2016 · 11 Comments

Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant industrial area is undergoing a profound transformation. For years, the old steel-plating, gadget-manufacturing, and garment-producing businesses had been leaving slowly. But that speeded up three years ago when two things happened. Hootsuite, the city’s bigfoot digital company, moved into a building in the area. (It was a building zoned for office use, […]

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City pushes to collect new info on Airbnb with view to new rules

April 1st, 2016 · 36 Comments

So interesting to see how the ground is shifting on this issue of Airbnb. When I first wrote about the phenomenon in Vancouver four years ago (inspired by rumblings of dissatisfaction I’d been hearing in other cities), there didn’t seem to be a lot of concern. The bed-and-breakfast people weren’t so happy, but the hotel […]

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