Vancouver real estate: demolition-protected purple Kitsilano heritage home listed $1.9 million sold $2.5 million - The Georgia Straight | Canada News Media
One of Vancouver’s legally protected heritage homes gets a new owner.
For $2.5 million, a buyer has taken Williams House, a 1911-1912-era home in Kitsilano.
The purchase tag goes over the original asking price by over half a million dollars.
The 2722 West 7th Avenue property was listed for $1,945,000.
As a designated heritage property, the home is protected from inappopriate alterations and demolition.
The Vancouver Heritage Foundation (VHF) explains online that the Williams House is secured through agreement with the City of Vancouver.
The home acquired the protection in 2005 as a result of its voluntary designation as a heritage property by the owners at the time.
The owners also at the time participated in VHF’s True Colours, and Restore It Programs.
“This two storey wood frame house has both architectural and historical significance,” according to the VHF.
The home was constructed in 1911-1912 by builders Bentley and Wear as “one of a cluster of six houses on this side of the block”.
“The house is a good example of the early Craftsman style,” the VHF noted.
Features include a “full width arched front porch, a bay window with leaded glass in the upper sashes, and an oriel above with a similar pattern of leaded glass in the paired transoms”.
“Anthony Williams, an immigration inspector with the federal government, owned the house from 1926 until he died in 1941, followed by Florence Williams, a school teacher, who owned it until she died in 1983,” the heritage group recalled.
Moreover, the house was “repainted to a colour scheme matching its original colours in 2005 using a VHF True Colours Grant”.
“The house has also undergone restoration in the form of a complete exterior restoration (VHF Restore It 2005), and a new roof (VHF Restore It 2012),” the VHF stated on its website.
Tracking by real-estate information site fisherly.com indicates that the 2,285-square-foot house was listed on October 28, 2020.
A buyer snapped up the property on November 3.
The purchase price was $555,000 above the asking price.
The heritage home features four bedrooms, three baths, and two kitchens.
The home’s 2020 B.C. Assessment value as of July 1, 2019 comes to $1,787,000.
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.
MONTREAL – The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says Montreal-area home sales rose 9.3 per cent in August compared with the same month last year, with levels slightly higher than the historical average for this time of year.
The association says home sales in the region totalled 2,991 for the month, up from 2,737 in August 2023.
The median price for all housing types was up year-over-year, led by a six per cent increase for the price of a plex at $763,000 last month.
The median price for a single-family home rose 5.2 per cent to $590,000 and the median price for a condominium rose 4.4 per cent to $407,100.
QPAREB market analysis director Charles Brant says the strength of the Montreal resale market contrasts with declines in many other Canadian cities struggling with higher levels of household debt, lower savings and diminishing purchasing power.
Active listings for August jumped 18 per cent compared with a year earlier to 17,200, while new listings rose 1.7 per cent to 4,840.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
