About a year ago, Vancouver city council designated a West End home as a protected heritage property.
This secured the 1907-era residence at 1517 Comox Street from demolition and exterior alterations that affect its historical value.
In addition, city hall approved a plan to renovate the rental home’s interior.
The plan includes adding a new three-storey rental building with two units at the back of the lot.
With a development permit in place, the place is ready to be refurbished.
A new owner may want to take on that project.
The 1507 Comox Street heritage home is selling for $4.5 million.
Real estate agency Goodman Commercial Inc. listed the property on the market.
The listing describes it as ideal for either an owner-occupier or investor.
It notes that the home has two self-contained rental suites, and five “sleeping rooms”, of which two are “unauthorized”.
Goodman Commercial explains that a new owner has three options.
One is to renovate the existing building, and add a new infill building with two rental units as approved in its development permit.
Second is to renovate the existing building, and wait to add the infill.
The third is simply to continue operating as a rental property in its current form.
According to Goodman Commercial, the owner took the property through the city’s development permit process with Stuart Howard Architects Inc.
“The development permit has been approved and paid for and plans are available for qualified interested parties,” the property agency states in the listing.
After public hearing, Vancouver city council on September 10, 2019 approved the designation of 1517 Comox Street as a protected heritage property.
The designation covers the structure and exterior of the home.
In a report to council, Jason Olinek, assistant director of planning, related that the home is known as the George Residence.
According to city planner, the property is “valued for its association with the growth and development of the West End neighbourhood and for its Edwardian-era architectural features”.
“The George Residence was constructed at the beginning of a major wave of development in the West End neighbourhood in the early twentieth century,” Olinek recalled.
He added that the home “continued to represent the needs of the West End neighbourhood by converting to a rooming house in the early 1940s during the further densification of the neighbourhood”.
Its Edwardian-era architectural details include “bay windows, decorative wood finishes, gabled roof with embellished peak, full-width porch, and wooden windows with diamond multi-pane upper sashes”.
Moreover, “The heritage building and its neighbour at 1523 Comox Street were designed and constructed by local carpenter and active Edwardian-era builder, Thomas J. Lightheart.”
Olinek also informed council that the Vancouver Heritage Commission reviewed and supported the development permit application for the property.
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.
