Canadian home prices have increased an average of 17% over the last year! This is despite the pandemic, months long lockdowns, high unemployment, ballooning federal… Read More »WHY NO ONE CAN PREDICT THE REAL ESTATE MARKET
For many Canadians, owning and eventually paying off their home represents the bulk of their retirement nest egg. Usually a home will keep up or… Read More »Taxing your Principal Residence – Is it in the Cards?
News articles over the past year have reported that strata insurance premiums and deductibles for many of BC’s 1,500,000 strata unit owners have risen dramatically.… Read More »Strata Corporation Insurance Issues – Controlling the Cost of Premiums
It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future! Yogi Berra This is the inevitable question that comes up whenever there is a crisis or… Read More »Vancouver Real Estate: Is it the right time to buy?
A recent article in the Vancouver Sun makes mention of an arcane practice among insurance brokers called “best terms pricing.” It seems that at the… Read More »“Best terms pricing” for strata insurance –but best for who?
Recently Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (“CMHC”), a federal crown corporation, announced that it would tighten rules for mortgage insurance starting on July 1, 2020… Read More »Making it harder to borrow: Is CMHC on the right track?
BC has extended the State of Emergency (“SOE”) in this province until the end of April 2020 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. It would… Read More »Tenants’ Rights during the State of Emergency in BC
Vancouver resident, Jason Weselowski was unfortunately caught by the draconian “deeming provision” set out in s.7 of the Vancouver Empty Homes Tax Bylaw. Mr. Weselowksi… Read More »City of Vancouver finally extends its Empty Homes Tax Declaration Deadline
“Across Canada about 65,000 homes traded hands in the first two months of the year, and many of those sales are now closing in a… Read More »In the News: Canadian real estate markets hit hard by pandemic
The disingenuous Empty Homes Tax (“EHT”) was predicated on the theory that there were 25,000 empty homes in Vancouver. When the city’s own data revealed… Read More »Robbing Peter to pay Paul