955 East Hastings Street moves to public hearing next week. Wall Financial is proposing to rezone the site from M-1 Industrial to CD-1 for a 12-storey mixed use development including over 64,000 square feet of commercial and light industrial job space. The proposal would accommodate 352 residential units, 70 (20%) of which would be social housing units. The total density proposed is 6.15 FSR.

Staff and Council gave conditional approval on September 18 to move forward. A CAC of approximately $20.00 /SF was applied as an in-kind contribution towards the social housing component.

A look at the Real Estate Board of Vancouver’s September statistics shows continued evidence that pricing is beginning to be affected by a rapid slowdown in sales. Overall benchmark pricing is down 0.8% YoY and 1.8% over the last six months.

A more detailed review of performance by submarket shows some clear winners and losers over the last 6 months around the time the market started to show signs of weakening. Only 4 submarkets did not show a decline in benchmark prices over the past 6 months: Coquitlam, North Vancouver, Port Moody and Squamish.

Source: REBGV stats. Benchmark resale price change over 6 months ending Sep 2012.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest benchmark price decline over the past 6 months was for single family homes on the West side of Vancouver, declining 6.3%. Richmond was not far behind. Port Coquitlam also showed a decrease of 4.0% in attached homes.

Squamish and Port Moody were clearly two of the strongest markets, showing price increases over the past 6 months for every housing type. One could argue that every submarket will eventually show declines, although some markets, such as Squamish appear to have little room to drop amid stagnant sales activity since 2007.

Housing Analysis Blog has underaken a more in-depth analysis of the stats release; worth the read…

8486 Granville Street provides the opportunity to acquire a nearly 10,000 square foot site in the Marpole area of Vancouver.  The property is immediately across Granville Street from Westbank’s Landmark project  – Granville at 70th. 

For more information please contact Ted Mildon or Matt Saunders.

Ted Mildon & Matt Saunders are proud to announce the sale of 243 East 13th Avenue in Mount Pleasant.  243 East 13th Avenue is an 11 unit, three storey, apartment building with underground parking.  The sale price was $1.8 million.

For more information on this sale please contact Ted Mildon or Matt Saunders.

Canada’s growing appetite for luxury cars has convinced a veteran auto dealer to invest more than $75 million in sales of Mercedes-Benz, Land Rovers and other high-end imports.

Dilawri Auto Group broke ground Thursday on a $25-million construction project for a new Audi dealership at the high-profile intersection of Burrard Street and West 2nd Avenue in Vancouver, as part of an expansion that includes a Porsche sales centre on Terminal Avenue and a new Mercedes dealership in Langley. Dilawri is a family-owned operation that bills itself as Canada’s largest automotive group, with operations in Ontario and Western Canada.

“We will be representing 11 brands by the time our Mercedes-Benz and Audi stores are built, and with the renovation and the relocation of our two Acura stores, it’s approximately $75 million in construction costs – never mind the original acquisition costs of the facilities,” Dilawri regional director of operations Christian Dubois said in a telephone interview.

Courtesy National Post.  To view the entire article click here: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/25/dilawri-makes-75-million-plus-investment-in-luxury-vehicle-trend/