RE/MAX Central

New houses being built in Surrey, Langley and Burnaby helped push the Lower Mainland's October housing starts slightly higher than the same month a year ago.

In British Columbia, October's seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban housing starts moved slightly higher to 27,800 units from 27,400 units in the previous month according to the latest data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corpor ...

OTTAWA - Home prices rose during the third quarter of 2011, but the raw numbers may not be telling the whole story of the Canadian housing market, a new survey says.

The Royal LePage House Price Survey released Wednesday found that the average price of a home in Canada increased between 5.7 and 7.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2011 compared to the same period last year.

The average price ...

VANCOUVER - Plans to remove the HST and return to a provincial sales tax mixed with the Goods and Services Tax will probably cause some homebuyers in British Columbia to delay purchases until 2013, Central 1 Credit Union forecasts.

The credit union's economist Bryan Yu said in a news release today: “People looking at new homes priced over $525,000 may very well wait until the tax changes lowe ...

Buyers from mainland China are leading a wave of Asian investment

VANCOUVER -- Vancouver's Royal Pacific Realty had such a surge of business during the first two weeks of February that agents and assistants worked day and night shifts to find homes for Chinese buyers visiting during the Lunar New Year.

"It was unprecedented," said Royal Pacific Chief Executive Officer David Choi. "I called th ...

Expensive home sales in Metro Vancouver have skewed average sale prices upward for B.C. and Canada, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Although sales activity in the first quarter of 2011 came in largely as expected, CREA said Monday, multimillion-dollar property sales in Greater Vancouver have surged unexpectedly, prompting the average price forecast to be revised higher.

CRE ...

Canada's home resale price rises in February, report says Canadian home resale prices rose in February for a third consecutive month, buoyed by continued strength in Vancouver, according to a report on Wednesday.

The Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index, which measures price changes for repeat sales of single-family homes in six metropolitan areas, showed overall prices were up 0 ...

Does strata have to tell prospective condo owners about insurance woes?

By Tony Gioventu, The ProvinceApril 17, 2011

Dear Condo Smarts: Our family has been hunting for a condo since we moved to Vancouver in December. We have three children and we have been looking for a home with at least three bedrooms in the Vancouver area.

We finally found a great fourth floor apartment with three bedroom ...

Strata's bylaw stipulating inventory of units allowed to be leased may contravene Property Act

By Tony Gioventu, The ProvinceApril 24, 2011

Q: Our strata has an interesting problem that relates to rental bylaws. We are 297 units in three buildings and we permit a maximum of 10 per cent rentals at any given time.

An owner wishes to rent their unit, but we currently have 35 rentals in the buil ...