British Columbia

First-time home buyers are in the drivers’ seat in Metro Vancouver, wheeling through an environment of overbuilt new condominiums, stable or falling home prices and the lowest mortgage rates in years.

The price of a typical detached house on the toney West Side of Vancouver dropped the hardest of 20 communities surveyed in March by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. On the West Side the "benchmark" price of detached house fell 9.

B.C.'s recreational real estate market remains in the doldrums with prices in popular vacation destinations now lower than a decade ago - but some realtors see evidence of a spring turnaround.

The City of New Westminster is about to start charging high-rise condominium developers a bonus formula of $25 per square foot for the extra space achieved through higher-density zoning, according to city planners.

The B.C. Building Code, said to be the "greenest" ever in the province, was introduced December 20 2012, but parts of it will not be enforced until this summer, according to construction industry insiders.

Beginning with the April edition, a reader can scan selected Western Investor articles or advertisements with their smart phone or tablet and the printed page comes alive with a video, a web page, perhaps a fly-through of a new real estate developmen

Sales of land, not buildings, dominate the commercial real estate market in Metro Vancouver, according to a survey released by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).

The economic tsunami that has swept into Kitimat is far from cresting, according to real estate investors and city officials in this northeast B.C. town at the centre of liquified natural gas expansion.

A broad front of B.C. construction contractor associations are working to lobby the B.C. government for prompt-payment legislation, joining contractor groups in Ontario and Alberta that are pushing for parallel regulations.

About 70 per cent of industrial real estate in Metro Vancouver is bought, not leased, according to a NAIOP panel of industrial experts, which estimated that at least 20 per cent of the space is bought by investors, not owner-occupiers.