Saeed Farahani’s Blog

Halloween falls on October 31 because the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain, considered the earliest known root of Halloween, occurred on this day. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to praise all saints. Soon, All Saints' Day incorporated some traditions of Samhain and the evening before was known…

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim has announced seven ideas to increase housing supply in the city. These include prezoning 26 "villages" to permit construction of multiplexes, townhouses and low-rise apartments, and amending the Vancouver Charter to remove the need for rezoning. The six other ideas will be discussed at a council meeting next week. Continue to…

Ratehub.ca has calculated the minimum annual income required to buy an avg home in Canada’s major cities. Minimum income to buy an avg $1.2M home in Vancouver rose to $246,100 due to rising mortgage rates.Reports reveals affordability worsened despite a slight $2,300 decrease in avg home prices.

Vancouver office conversions have the potential to provide more affordable housing in the city, but will require the cooperation of the local government, developers, and tenants. The local government must provide incentives for developers to convert office buildings into housing, developers must be willing to invest in the necessary changes, and tenants must be willing…

The UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index report has revealed that real estate in Canadian metros Vancouver and Toronto have moved out of the bubble risk category and into the "overvalued" category due to increasing financing costs and higher mortgage stress test rates leading to prices dropping by more than 10% in inflation-adjusted terms since…

Vancouver city staff are proposing fee increases for a variety of services., including STRs. It’s an effort to offset a proposed property tax increase of over 9% for 2024. The proposed fee increases would also bring Vancouver's fees more in line with other BC municipalities.

The Moderate Income Rental Housing Pilot Program (MIRHPP) was created in 2017 to provide affordable rental housing to households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $80,000. 16 projects with a combined total of 2,975 rental homes, including Molnar Group's Renfrew Apartments, have been approved under the MIRHPP stream. However, due to rent limits that do…

The September 28 Colliers report found that the office vacancy rate in Metro Vancouver had climbed to 11.9% in the 3rd quarter of 2023, the highest rate in nearly 20 years. Despite these obstacles, asking rents remain high due to redevelopment and concessions beyond rent. The health-care sector was the leader for office demand in…

Seasonally adjusted home sales in Vancouver ↓ 10.5% MoM in August. Sales are expected to decelerate further in the months ahead due to rising rates and affordability concerns. New listings ↓ 1.6% in August, the first contraction in 5-mo.

Vancouver city hall has proposed policy amendments to incentivize developers to build more rental homes, both market-rate and below-market. Despite the 2017 pilot program for below-market rentals being initially successful, construction of the 70 approved projects have not yet taken place due to increasing construction costs and interest rates. The proposed policy changes include increasing…