One of Vancouver’s heritage homes has a new owner.
The residence called Jeffrey House sold for $1,614,750 after only two days on the market.
The 2168 Parker Street residence is located in the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood, where many heritage homes can be found.
In 2018, the Jeffrey House got a centenary sign from the Grandview Heritage Group.
The grassroots-based organization recalls online that the building permit for the house was issued on November 18, 1912.
The house was built for William Jeffrey, who worked as a furnace man at the Terminal City Iron Works.
The builder was R. Armishaw, according to the Grandview Heritage Group.
“It was to be a $1,500 one-storey residence for William, his wife Georgina, and their three children,” the local heritage group related.
“In 1921, they added a $75 garage. They were still living in the house when Georgina died in January 1924 after a long illness. This house is a bit of a hybrid, but its main form is California Bungalow – the cottage-sized version of the Craftsman house of the period.”
The Jeffrey House is listed in the Vancouver Heritage Register in the C category.
This means that the home’s heritage significance is “Contextual or Character”, based on the City of Vancouver’s classification.
A home of contextual or character significance “represents those buildings that contribute to the historic character of an area or streetscape, usually found in groupings of more than one building but may also be of individual importance,” the city register explains.
On its website, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation refers to the original owner as William Jeffery.
“Jeffery, a printer, remained at the house until at least 1955. The house is an example of a simple Craftsman style residence,” the heritage foundation relates.
RE/MAX Select Properties listed the home on November 10, 2020 for $1,698,000.
The listing was terminated, and replaced with a new one on the same day for a reduced price of $1,568,000.
The property sold on November 12 for $1,614,750, according to tracking by real-estate information site fisherly.com.
Real-estate site Redfin provides a sales history for the 2168 Parker Street home.
Available information from the site indicates that the house sold in 1975 for $45,000.
In May 1985, it was bought for $104,000.
In June 2010, a buyer purchased the heritage home for $809,000, according to documentation by Redfin.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
