Happy Thanksgivivng!

Our offices will be closed Monday October 8th, 2018.  We will resume regular business hours Tuesday October 9, 2018

Make sure you are ready to buy

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Our offices will be closed Monday August 6, 2018 to observe the BC Day holiday.

Our offices will re-open at 9:00am Tuesday August 7, 2018.

Our offices will be closed on Monday July 2, 2018

We will resume regular business hours on Tuesday June 3, 2018 at 9:00am - 5:00pm

What a difference a couple of years makes in commercial real estate.

J. Neil HamiltonWestern Investor

Is it Amazon? It is President Donald Trump? Whatever is causing it there definitely appears to be a dearth of office space in Vancouver, especially downtown.

Funny, isn’t it?

Not that long ago, many people were decrying the flight of head offices out of Vancouver to Canada’s new Riyadh, Calgary, and the thousands of square feet of office space that was freeing up. But our loonie went from par to just over US$0.70 (since to claw its way back up to US$0.82 but with seeming little negative effect) and Canada started to look good again for US multinationals and tech companies.

Then President Trump (that phrase still sounds like an oxymoron – or should that read “political moron”?) decided to bar people of certain ethnic backgrounds, religions or parts of the world (many of whom are amazingly talented in the tech sector) from entering or re-entering the United States, making Canada that much more attractive.

Add to those things the last three months of Hawaii-like weather we’ve had here (I’ll conveniently forget the preceding winter…) and bang! Everybody wants to live and work here.

Did you know that at present, of our major cities in Canada, Vancouver is the best for job seekers? Restauranteurs, retailers and tech companies alike can’t find people to work in their establishments. Granted, some of the smaller tech people are having trouble attracting talent here due to the high cost of accommodation in this city, but the bigger companies are still locating in YVR. After all, San Francisco is about as bad (or worse) for cost of living, and the movie people are still on a roll here as well.

And even though Amazon has already taken a lot of space here, they’re still sniffing around for a second North American headquarters. However, the space they would require and the number of people they would have to hire (not to mention the housing expenses here, and our proximity to Seattle) probably takes us out of the running for that behemoth. Tim Ellis of Geek Wire ranks Vancouver as #10 out of the Top 10 cities that Amazon could locate in, mostly for the above reasons.

But locally grown tech “unicorns” such as HootSuite, Avigilon and Slack are all making their voracity for office space known. A recent report by Cushman & Wakefield foretells the second-lowest office-vacancy rate in the western hemisphere for Vancouver by 2019. Their prediction is for a YVR office-vacancy rate of just over 6 per cent by then, putting us just behind Toronto at around 4 per cent. And according to Colliers International, we’re pretty well there now, with a current rate of 6.3%, the lowest Metro Vancouver vacancy rate since the first quarter of 2009, when it was 5.7%.

So, let’s recap. We have no office space, and no condos for people to live in, either to rent or to buy, and the highest gas prices in the country (or close to it). Will people start moving away from our jewel-by-the-sea? We’ve all heard stories of the so-called “exodus” of young people moving to Kelowna, etc, due to the high cost of accommodation. But then again, equal numbers seem to be arriving. This writer experienced exactly that at a recent small networking gathering, meeting a newly arrived young female writer from San Francisco and a just-graduated architect from Argentina.

And they’ll need office space…

Sunday May 13th

For all those mothers out there...

A recent study commissioned by Real Estate Webmasters say that last year, 53 per cent of rel estate professionals spent less than $5,000 on their annual marketing efforts, including both offline avenues.  However, one in eight real estate agents spent more than $20,000, with the top three per cent spending more than $80,000 on their marketing.

Click HERE to read full story

The 13th annual Vancouver Chery Blosson Festival celebrating the pinking of Vancouver starts Tuesday and runs until April 29th.

It's springtime festival that urges us to look up from our mobile devices long enough to take inthe clouds of blooms above us and down the street.  And it offers almost two dozen blossom-themed community events,most of which are free.  This year the event is presented by Coromandel Properties and the Vancouver Park Board.

Click here to see full article

Our offices will be closed on Friday March 30th in honor of "Good Friday"

Murder, suicide, ghosts…What must be disclosed?

Read Full Story on disclosure responsiblities.

Come and visit us at our Metrrotown office Open House!  If you haven't come in to this new space then this is the time to do so. Both Real Estate and Insurance advisors are welcomed to use this space for meetings, drop off/pick up paperwork or just need a quite space to work.  Please RSVP to msum@pacificplacegroup.com

Six of the top 10 cities are in the Lower Mainland, accoring to annual rankings.

The rapidly growing city of Surrey is once again ranked as the best to invest your buck in Real Estate, accoring to an annual ranking by the Real Estate Investment Network (REIN).

The 2017 survey identifies the top 10 cities in the province for real estate investment,based on REIN's research.  REIN's methodology includes "all economic and demographic fundamental key drivers combined with the current impacting specific markets," accoring to the report.

The top 10 cities for the year's ranking are:

1. Surrey
2. Abbotsford
3. New Westminster
4. Victoria
5. Kamloops
6. Kelowna
7. Chilliwack
8. Tri-Cities
9. Burnaby
10. Vancouver

Looking to buy a home?  Check out the homebuyer road map first.

According to the Conference Board of Canada (CBoC), Vancouver’s economy is forecast to grow 2.5% in 2018, continuing a steady upward trend seen in recent years. The CBoC cautions that federal and provincial governments’ respective measures to cool the housing market and the drop in the Vancouver resale market in spring 2017 may contribute to a weaker outlook in the near term. But there are also signs that the market is shrugging off the foreign buyers’ tax: the benchmark price for condos rose 19.4% between August 2016 and August 2017, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver—though detached home prices rose only 2.2% over the same period.

According to the survey, investor demand and redevelopment opportunities in Vancouver are thehighest in Canada. But regional developers and investors anticipate they’ll be more conservative in 2018 due to the impact of policy changes and interest rate hikes. As a result, industry players are preparing for an “eventual downturn” by focusing on operational efficiency, maintaining the status quo by holding off on acquisitions and being more selective and patient when building their portfolios. Vancouver is a seller’s market, observed one interviewee, and that’s driving companies that won’t stay still to move fast to avoid missing opportunities. Overall, interviewees were bullish on industrial and commercial property, as those types “require less management than residential,” as well as mixed-use and residential in “second-core” areas.

In Vancouver, people are split over solutions to the region’s spiralling real estate prices and rents. Some in the region advocate that the government needs to embrace more radical thinking. Housing affordability was a top issue in British Columbia’s 2017 election. During the campaign, the NDP even promised to build more than 100,000 affordable rental, non-profit and co-op housing units over 10 years. Others feel the approvals process for new projects, including condo projects, takes too long and is too expensive—and that housing supply could increase significantly over the short term if municipalities sped up the process and reduced fees.

As this years winds down, we offer our best wishes and happiness to you and your families this holiday season and look forward to another successful upcoming year!