By Evan Duggan

There’s a familiar sports cliché Daniel Fournier likes to use when describing his vision for Ivanhoe Cambridge in his role as the massive commercial real estate investment firm’s chairman and CEO.

“Go big or go home,” Fournier says more than once during Wednesday’s interview in a seventh-floor suite of the 75-year-old Fairmont Hotel Vancouver — a masterpiece Ivanhoe Cambridge is currently shopping as part of an ongoing shift toward tightening its grasp on high-profile shopping centres and office tower buildings.

Fournier would repeat the phrase again downstairs in a keynote address to the Vancouver Board of Trade. He comes by the sports lingo honestly. Fournier, who took over the multi-billion dollar reins of Ivanhoe Cambridge in 2010, took a break from his studies at Oxford in 1977 to play a season for the CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders.

Fournier said he came to the West Coast partly to say “thank you to Vancouver, because we’ve done very, very well here,” but also to share insight on how he plans to transform Ivanhoe Cambridge from a real estate investment machine with $40 billion in assets, into a $70-billion behemoth.

Ivanhoe Cambridge, the real estate arm of  …read more

Source:: RENX

Impressive view of Vancouver with Mt. Baker in the background:

Here is a quick look at the average pricing for concrete condo unit resales in various sub-areas of the Westside of Vancouver. The following criteria were used:

• Condos only (not townhouses)
• Concrete only (no woodframe)
• 3 years old or newer at time of resales
• 2014 Year-to-date

Some of these subareas have very small sample sizes (ie. less than 10 in the case of Marpole and Point Grey) but it still shows an interesting view.

Source: MLS

A recent analysis of the REBGV’s Housing Price Index for single family detached resales on the Westside of Vancouver shows that the index has reached an all-time high.

Year to date, there have been 1,498 single family house sales on the Westside of Vancouver, and the average sale price is a whopping $2,733,461. Only 136 homes have sold for less than $1,500,000, and the cheapest home sold was $877,000. (a tear down on West 41st near Main Street).

Source: REBGV HPI

With numbers like these, it is no wonder we are seeing increasing values in other areas and in the multifamily market.

By Paul Brent

It is likely not news to any commercial real estate industry veteran, but Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are expensive places to do business when it comes to taxes.

A recent study from the Real Property Association of Canada (REALpac) confirms that fact, finding those three cities continue to sport the highest commercial to residential tax ratios in the country. The trio all have commercial to residential tax ratios higher than 4:1, while the average tax ratio for all Canadian municipalities was 2.79.

However, there is some good news in the report. Toronto’s commercial to residential tax ratio continues its slow but steady decline over the 11 years REALpac has been keeping track. The ratio declined to 4.01 from 4.07 a year ago. That’s part of the city’s deliberate effort to cut commercial taxes and reverse the exodus of business to the suburbs. Its goal by the end of the decade is to trim its commercial to residential tax ratio to 2.5.

In contrast, the study found Montreal’s ratio increased for the 10th consecutive year, even though there were decreases in both commercial and residential rates over the past two years. In fact, Montreal’s …read more

Source:: RENX