An 11-unit apartment building, known as Bel Aire Apartments at 6356 East Boulevard, has sold for $4,710,000, or $428,000 per unit, or a 2.10% cap rate. The buyer is East Boulevard Property (Westland) Ltd.  The building had been listed for sale for $5,000,000.

An application has been submitted for a 7,686 SF site  on East Pender Street near Commercial Drive in East Vancouver. The plan calls for a 5-storey  mixed-use building with two levels of office space and three levels of residential space containing 15 residential units and 14 underground parking stalls. The site is zoned MC-1, which conditionally allows a mix of uses.

The site, currently improved with a single storey industrial building, was acquired earlier this year for $1,830,000 by Epix Developments.

Groundbreaking occurred yesterday for a project that has been in the making for years. Hollyburn Properties officially commenced construction of M2 (Marlborough Tower 2) yesterday, a 14-storey rental apartment building located at the corner of 14th and Chesterfield, directly adjacent City Hall. The project had originally been envisioned back in 2005 as part of a land swap with the City, but was left as a parking lot until now.

Thank you @CityOfNorthVan @DarrellMussatto, breaking ground w/ us on 14th & Chesterfield. Purpose built #rental pic.twitter.com/wLoB8xMuWA

— Hollyburn Properties (@HollyburnPpty) October 29, 2014

The building is expected to be ready for occupancy in Summer 2016 and will contain 130 units starting at $1,100 per month. The suite mix is as follows:

• 10 Townhouses
• 6 Penthouses
• 50 – 2 Bedrooms
• 70 – 1 Bedrooms

More info on the building can be found here: http://www.rentersguide.com/marlborough-tower-2 .

Another Metrotown apartment building has sold; this time at 6695 Dunblane Avenue, closer to Royal Oak Avenue. The 38 unit building is located on a 25,504 SF site and is zoned RM-3. The purchase price was $9,360,000, or $246,316 per unit.

Affordable mortgage rates and low numbers of residential vacancies are making 2014 “a breakout year” for sales of apartment buildings across Metro Vancouver.

The Goodman Report, a local newsletter covering multi-family investment property, notes that selling volumes have been robust, with prices per-suite in suburban Vancouver markets up 22 per cent over 2013, 13 per cent for buildings in the city.

“Sensing that business, political and economic signs remain positive, new buyers both offshore and local have been relentlessly pursuing older three-storey frame and highrise buildings for retrofit opportunities,” says the report.

Written by father-son realtors David and Mark Goodman, it predicts 125 apartment buildings will sell through 2014, with a total value exceeding $800 million.

With 61 buildings sold as of July, the pace of sales is 36 per cent ahead of a year ago, signalling what the Goodmans are labelling “a bullish breakout”.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/Barbara+Yaffe+Bullish+market+Vancouver+apartment/10253586/story.html