by  Janis Warren - The Tri-City News
posted Mar 24, 2015 at 1:00 PM

http://www.tricitynews.com/entertainment/297434651.html

Soon, you’ll receive a mail-in ballot asking you to vote by May 29, 2015 on whether you support the Metro Vancouver Congestion Improvement Tax.

The referendum is for a 0.5% sales tax increase to raise $7.5 billion over 10 years for transportation and transit improvements. Already the province has committed to paying for $2.5 billion of this.

Here are six reasons to vote yes:

1. 35 cents a day is what it will cost. For this, we’ll get an improved quality of life in our neighbourhoods with 400 new buses, 25 express routes, 11 B-Lines, a new subway along...

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Location, location, location

A new Bank of Montreal report highlights the sudden shift in Canada’s regional housing markets, notably the “very weak” nature of those on the Prairies.

As The Globe and Mail’s Tamsin McMahon has chronicled, the plunge in crude prices has put a damper on the markets in oil-sensitive regions like those in Alberta.

“While Canada’s housing market balance has turned slightly weaker overall, location has become increasingly important,” said senior economist Robert Kavcic of BMO Nesbitt Burns.

“Market balance on...

The skylines of Canadian cities, long defined by condominiums, are undergoing a quiet transformation as rental housing makes a comeback.

There were nearly 24,000 rental units under construction across Canada in the second half of last year, up 52 per cent from a year earlier, according to commercial real estate brokerage CBRE Group Inc.

Across Canada’s six biggest cities, rental starts are double their five-year average. In Toronto, there are 21 rental apartment buildings under way, up from 12 two years ago. Official statistics likely under-count the real picture,...

According to statistics released today by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), national home sales activity edged up slightly on month-over-month basis in February 2015.

Highlights:
• National home sales edged up 1.0% from January to February.
• Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity stood 2.7% above February 2014 levels.
• The number of newly listed homes fell 2.5% from January to February.
• The Canadian housing market remains balanced.
• The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) rose 5.01% year-over-year in February.
• The national average sale price...

The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a total of 6,661 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in February, up 19.4 per cent from the same month last year. Total sales dollar volume was $4.3 billion, an increase of 24.8 per cent compared to a year ago. The average MLS® residential price in the province rose to $639,405, up 4.5 per cent from the same month last year.

“Consumer demand remained robust in February on the strength of rock bottom interest rates and improving economic&...

Canadian house prices may be up for the second month in a row, but a key report warns that “there have clearly been corrections” in some markets.

The Teranet-National Bank house price index rose in February by 0.1 per cent from January, but prices were actually up in just three of the 11 markets tracked in the report released Thursday.

Prices rose 1.5 per cent in Vancouver, 0.5 per cent in Victoria and 0.3 per cent in Hamilton. And that’s where it ends.

The index showed losses of 0.1 per cent in Toronto and Quebec City, 0.3 per cent in Calgary and Montreal,...

The trend measure of housing starts in Canada was 182,137 units in February compared to 188,761 in January, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly
seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR)1 of housing starts.

“The trend in housing starts decreased for a fifth consecutive month in February and reflects a decreasing trend in multiple starts,” said Bob Dugan, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre. “The declining trend in multiple starts is helping to gradually erode...

The Bank of Canada announced on March 4th, 2015 it was keeping its trend-setting overnight lending rate at 0.75 per cent. Six weeks earlier, the Bank surprised markets by cutting the rate by a quarter of a percentage point as insurance against economic damage from the drop in oil prices.

In its March announcement, the Bank was upbeat about recent and further expected strength from exports and investment. Only time will tell to what extent these factors offset economic fallout from lower oil prices, so speculation remains as to whether the Bank will cut interest rates again later this year.

As of...

The BCREA Commercial Leading Indicator (CLI) rose 0.8 index points to 119.8, the fourth consecutive quarterly increase. The continued advance in the CLI trend points to optimism surrounding the economic environment underlying the commercial real estate market.

“Rising consumer confidence combined with a lower value of the loonie and a strengthening US economy helped to push the economic activity component of the CLI higher in the fourth quarter,” said BCREA Economist Brendon Ogmundson. “A stronger provincial economy in 2015 will support increased commercial real estate activity...

Conditions within the Metro Vancouver* housing market continued to strengthen in February as home sale and listing totals came in well above the region’s ten-year average for the month.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential property sales in Greater Vancouver reached 3,061 on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in February 2015.

This represents a 21 per cent increase compared to the 2,530 sales recorded in February 2014, and a 60 per cent increase compared to the 1,913 sales in January 2015.

Last month’s sales were 20.2...