Category: News

Mission Possible

Lifestyle / News

Downtown Eastside charity creates green jobs for low-income women to help African children

A Vancouver charity is collecting discarded soaps and lotions from B.C. hotels and hiring at-risk Downtown Eastside women to repackage them for donations around the world.

On Monday, Mission Possible will launch the soap recycling program at their Powell Street location.

The Downtown Eastside charity will collect the discarded amenities from participating hotels, at a nominal fee of $1 per room per month, said Brian Postlewait, executive director of the Mission Possible. The soaps and bottles will then be newly sanitized and repackaged, ready to be sent to homeless shelters locally and worldwide.

Evergreen Line

Lifestyle / News

Evergreen Line Rapid Transit Project

The Evergreen Line is a new rapid transit line that will connect Coquitlam to Vancouver via Port Moody and Burnaby. The Evergreen Line will be a fast, frequent and convenient SkyTrain service, connecting Coquitlam City Centre through Port Moody to Lougheed Town Centre in approximately 13 minutes. It will seamlessly connect to the current SkyTrain network at Lougheed Town Centre Station and will integrate with regional bus and West Coast Express networks. Construction of the Evergreen Line is anticipated to begin in early 2011 and be completed in 4 years.

Pennies

News

Penny losing currency with Canadians

A majority of Canadians want to get rid of all those pennies jingling in their pockets, according to a new poll, and if they get their way the country’s economy stands to benefit, says currency analyst David Watt.

Real House Price Index

News

Global housing rebound loses steam

The real estate rebound that lifted property values around the world is losing momentum, Bank of Nova Scotia says in a new report.

Condo

News

House price increases slow in July

The slowdown in the Canadian resale housing market was “dramatic” last month, but the sector got a boost Tuesday from statistics that show new home construction is not falling as fast as anticipated.

In fact, Ottawa, which often goes against the trend in economic indicators, saw housing starts increase by 42 per cent in July as builders stepped up apartment projects. CMHC said July was Ottawa’s busiest construction month so far this year.

Adrienne Warren, an economist with the Bank of Nova Scotia, said residential real estate began to slow globally in the second quarter after demand and pricing recovered in the first quarter.

Olympic Village

News

Vancouver city hall and B.C. Housing pass buck on Olympic Village delay

Four months after the organizing committee for the 2010 Winter Games returned the Olympic Village to the city, and nearly four months after city council determined half of the 252 social housing units would be subsidized and half would be market rental, all 252 of these units remain empty.

The city and B.C. Housing have yet to release a request for proposals for a non-profit operator or operators. Non-profits can apply to manage the social housing, the rental housing, or both.

Equilibrium

Lifestyle / News

Kamloops green dream home no energy hog

It may not have been cheap to build, but a “green dream” demonstration house in Kamloops will be cheap to maintain.

The 3,000-square-foot home located in the Sun Rivers development is so loaded with energy-efficiency features that the estimated net cost for a year’s worth of electricity will be zero.

A rooftop array of solar photovoltaic panels generate enough power to warrant installation of a dual-purpose electricity meter that tracks the amount of energy consumed as well as surplus power dispatched onto the grid when the home doesn’t need it.

Global Real Estate Trends

News

Global Real Estate Trends

Global real estate markets entered 2010 with a renewed sense of optimism, piggybacking on the broader economic recovery underway. Housing demand and pricing improved in the first quarter of the year in the majority of the advanced nations we track, benefitting from ultra-low interest rates, improved affordability, and in some cases, government purchase incentives

Homebuyers and sellers less active in July

News

Homebuyers and sellers less active in July

Home sales activity in Greater Vancouver was quieter last month than most Julys over the past decade, with residential sales, prices, and the number of homes listed for sale trending downward in recent months.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that the number of residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 2,255 in July 2010. This represents a 45.2 per cent decline from the 4,114 sales in July 2009, the highest selling July ever recorded, and a 24.1 per cent decline compared to June 2010.

HST

News

HST reaction so positive B.C. cancels mail campaign, minister says

The B.C. government has cancelled a proposed mail campaign to support its Harmonized Sales Tax because it says public reaction to the new tax has been better than expected.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen said he pulled the plug on the HST mailer Wednesday during a Liberal caucus meeting in Vancouver.

“I think the roll out of the HST has been smoother than we had anticipated,” said Hansen.