Dear Minister Selena Robinson, Premier John Horgan, and Mayor Kennedy Stewart, I write to you today about the potential consequences of banning evictions in BC. These are trying times that require compassion and compromise to ensure the health and safety of all BC residents. With everyone financially strained, difficult decisions will have to be made by families and property owners alike. Many...
New Westminster and Port Coquitlam fight against climate protection by restricting property owners from upgrading their buildings, says new data. A study released by FortisBC shows how minor improvements can lead to reducing emissions by the equivalent of 43,000 gas-powered cars. “The basic upgrades alone reduce domestic hot water energy use by an average of about 12 percent per year”, this has a...
By Terry Harding, Senior Vice President As read on Western Investor’s 2019 Investor’s Guide to Western Investing Low loan-to-value ratios and cap rates keep Metro rental apartments a long-horizon strategy The multi-family market is generally seen as one of the safest real estate investment vehicles available, often considered the bond of real estate. A multi-family investment is often viewed as...
Featuring Brandon Harding on Podcast: The UnReal Estate Show by Keith Roy Keith Roy, Keith and Associates March 31, 2019 We’re quick to judge landlords, developers and owners of multi-family properties here in Vancouver when in reality we need these people if we’re going to solve the housing crisis. With each new tax and each new restriction, buying a rental building or becoming a landlord...
The battle between affordability and economic feasibility is reaching a climax as landlords are being demonized by tenants and the city continually deflects blame onto property owners. Tenants who do not want to pay market rent for their rental units are crying Wolf in an unjust world that does not allow them to live in the places their parents grew up with the same or better lifestyle. Landlords are...
New Westminster’s City Council has put forward a motion to try and curb major capital overhauls of older purpose-built rental buildings, ie. renovictions. The premise of the initiative is “Enabling Safe, Secure, Affordable Housing”. The scope of this portion of the agenda includes three points: A rental replacement policy for any new development site that includes existing rental stock...
Recently LandlordBC spoke of assessed values of rental buildings, which in turn could render into reduced investments in existing buildings and lead to fewer new developments being made. Representing rental property owners and managers, Chief executive of the organization David Hutniak states, another year of increased assessment values could mean higher property taxes for the owners of rental...
The term renoviction has become the coined term for any major capital improvements on purpose-built rental buildings; however, soon this will be a word only used for history. With Vancouver poised to set up regulations stipulating strict tenant relocation policies, a court decision allowing tenants to come back into their renovated suite at the previous rent, and a provincial task force recommending a halt...
Rent controls already force Vancouver landlords to follow strict rules, but this is not enough for some tenant advocacy groups pushing a controversial policy they call “vacancy controls.” They argue the right of landlords to charge market rates when a suite becomes vacant is unfair to tenants, and that rents should be maintained at the previous rates upon new occupancy. This comes with the...
We have seen a new phenomenon rising in 2016 that is taking the sale of apartment buildings into one of the oldest forms of buying or selling goods and services... the auction. Originally established in 500 B.C, some brokers have rebranded this ancient method of bidding as a modernized way of achieving higher values. One of the reasons this strategy has developed, in this rapidly increasing market, is a...