The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 3,512 in April 2010, the fifth highest-selling April on record. The figure represents an increase of 18.5 percent compared to the 2,963 sales in April 2009; 9.1 percent more than April 2008’s 3,218 sales; and 3.7 percent more than April 2007’s 3,387 sales. April 2010 sales also represent a 12 percent increase compared to last month.

“We’re in the midst of another strong spring season thanks to high levels of activity on both the buyer and seller side of our market,” Jake Moldowan, REBGV president said. “The number of homes coming on the market has increased significantly in recent months, which is providing a healthy level of choice for those looking to buy during this busy period.”

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties in Greater Vancouver totalled 7,648 in April 2010, a 64.5 percent increase compared to April 2009 when 4,649 new units were listed, and a 9.2 percent increase compared to March 2010 when 7,004 properties were added to the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®).

At 15,901, the total number of property listings on the MLS® increased 17 percent in April compared to last month, and is up 11 percent compared to this time last year.

Over the last 12 months, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver increased 18.9 percent to $593,419 from $499,021 in April 2009.

“It was at this time last year when home prices in our region began their recovery from the declines that occurred during the recession period,” Moldowan said.

Sales of detached properties in April 2010 reached 1,370, an increase of 15.1 percent from the 1,190 detached sales recorded in April 2009 and a six percent increase from the 1,293 units sold in April 2008. The benchmark price for detached properties increased 21.2 per cent from April 2009 to $818,403.

Sales of apartment properties reached 1,526 in April 2010, an increase of 29.4 percent compared to the 1,179 sales in April 2009 and an increase of 15.9 percent compared to the 1,317 sales in April 2008.The benchmark price of an apartment property increased 16.9 percent from April 2009 to $397,779.

Attached property sales in April 2010 totalled 616, an increase of 3.7 percent compared to the 594 sales in April 2009 and a 1.3 percent increase from the 608 attached properties sold in April 2008. The benchmark price of an attached unit increased 16.4 percent between April 2009 and 2010 to $502,399. ~Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver

Fridge vs Avocado Green, Stainless Steel, White…

Running Car vs Paint Colour, Shape window tints….

3 bedroom home plans vs spacial environment and finishes inside and out

Having worked in the construction industry for years before taking the design career by the horns has helped a lot in web design. A single building is drawn by an architect,  many engineers and a designer. The architectural drawings describe how it’s built, the engineering describes what size pipes, wiring, supporting walls etc. And the design drawing give the finishes. They almost always all work together at some point in the planning process.

Creating a web site can be just as complicated as house construction.

The web developer is like the architect. If there is no final wire frame (plan) in mind then that becomes part of the solution. The developer must create a website that allows for the design to be altered by the user.

The web designer brands, colours and re-shapes the functioning website.

If you hire a designer to develop your site, hopefully they will contract out the hard coding parts and not attempt to do it themsleves.

If you hire a developer to design and brand your site, hope fully the same will apply as above.

Very rarely do both co-exist in one person with any degree of success. It’s a simple fact of left brain right brain thinking.

No where in this post is SEO mentioned. That’s because SEO not just part of website construction alone and has nothing to do with branding and design. If SEO is important to the website owner (and who wouldn’t), it get’s built in as part of the development. It is then taught to the owner on how to use it, what content to write and where to put it. If SEO is the most important thing on your website list, don’t ask for it last.

Think of it this way:

A website is a bricks and mortar storefront, (Really it is the new store front of today but that’s entirely another post). How easy the door swings open is how easy it is for search engines to index. But here’s the kicker, (and a big giant ass kicker to some), if there is nothing inside your store worth going in for, then no one will go in, including search engines. It’s not that simple but close.

More and more people who understand this concept are winning the SEO battle. They treat their websites like a real store on a real street. They make it look good, inviting, social and interesting to the niche they want to attract. They change it up, keep it clean and easy to get around. The more people who visit the website, or should I say: The more crowded the inside of that store becomes the more popular it becomes – to search engines too. Go figure: it’s just . like . real . life.

If you see a crowd of people in a store, you go in, even if the door is a little hard to open. You are going to find your way in.

Not a believer yet?

Why then do I come up 2nd or third on a Google Search typing in the words BC Ferries Assured Boarding? Because it’s more interesting than the boring static government regulated website. People comment here creating more activity. You go there because you have to, you come here because you want to.

I found a great article that lists the importance of SEO techniques and other factors considered when everyone else is trying to shoehorn a site into search engine existence. The highest ranking factor is popularity among other things. but here are some of the things I found listed low on the SEO importance list that you may find interesting.

HTML Validation to W3C Standards is of minimal importance (a good thing for this site – let me tell you)
Server/Hosting Uptime minimal importance
Use of XML Sitemap(s) 29% minimal importance
Social Media/Social Graph Based Ranking Factors minimal importance

Surprisingly

Geographic Location of the Host IP Address of the Domain 57% high importance (wouldn’t have thunk it)

Check it out yourself at http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors/

I don’t know why my friends are sending me this stuff. I love all my clients.

How much does it cost is a common question for a design business’s email inbox supplying websites to Realtors. Of course no one minds answering. It’s what we signed up for in this line of work. But there is no easy short answer to the how much question because everyone is different – or are they?

Almost all inquiries about how much a website cost to design and build are coming from people without any branding what-so-ever. It seems a common trait in the real estate niche but for a small few. In any other business there is a plan in place but in real estate the end result is the plan and most web designers working in this real estate niche are creating the visual branding as part of the web-design and including it in their price.

“My web guy designed my logo” is a pretty common thing to hear when a sign guy needs the printable artwork to work with or a printshop is trying to put together the business cards and all they have to work with are crappy web graphics.

So the question how much is a website isn’t the really the question.

This is a week filled with meetings. Meetings with people who are in the business of designing for real estate. Together we will work to discover the true nature of the problem and come up with a unique solution – or two.

I live in an alley. It’s a townhouse where our “backyard” is at alley level as are about 16 of our 40+ units. My design and lobby has been to rid the fences we have between us and the alley and claim the alley as our street. The rest of the building has decided it’s better to maintain large high fences to separate us from the undesirables. So we have a large high fence.

I have some hopes for future occupants of Vancouver’s new laneway houses. I see in the specifications there must be room for greening and “yard space”. The specifications also require most windows face the alley. The alley is the unit’s view. So it seems inevitable that alleys will have to become more palatable.

If your thinking of building a laneway house, here’s a quick rundown:

• In RS-1 and RS-5 single family areas
• On lots 33’ wide and wider, with an open lane, on a double fronting street, or on a corner with a lane dedication
• Generally located in the space where a garage would be permitted, i.e. in the rear 26’ of the lot (and a minimum of 16’ separation between the laneway house and the main house)
• Rental or family only / no strata-titling
• Minimum of one on-site parking space
• Unit size based on lot size to a maximum of 750 sq.ft. (approx. a 500 sq.ft. unit on a 33’ X 122’ lot)
• 1 and 1 ½ storey configurations, with guidelines to address upper storey massing, privacy, and shadowing
• Enabling homeowners to add a laneway house while retaining their existing main house; with or without a secondary suite in the main house (a laneway house could also be built with a new house)

Here’s how the price of a new $700,000 home in BC or Vancouver will be affected. The homebuyer would pay a total of $84,000 in BC HST taxes (12% on $700,000). But wait, there’s a homebuyer HST rebate for purchases above $400,000. The homebuyer would receive the $20,000 back which reduces their HST cost to $64,000 in taxes for a total of $764,000. Currently, the 5% GST applicable to the same home would cost only $35,000 (a $29,000 difference). *This does not include the HST applicable to closing fees.

The HST brings up a lot of questions. Here are 8 facts we do know about the HST.

1. Implementation of the BC Harmonized Sales Tax will take place on July 1, 2010.
2. The Harmonized Sales Tax (also known as the new BC HST) is 12% tax applicable to most goods and services, including new homes, real estate, and property.
3. The new B.C. HST 12% Tax is the combination of the Federal Goods and Services Tax (5% GST) and the Provincial Sales Tax (7% PST).
4. The BC HST is NOT a 12% real estate tax, but a provincial harmonized tax on most goods, services and consumer products including new homes.
5. Currently, new BC and Vancouver homes are subject to 5% GST (federal tax) in which first time homebuyers or investors can receive GST rebates. This 5% GST will be replaced with the higher 12% B.C. Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), a 7% difference in taxes on the total purchase price of a new British Columbia home or property.
6. The B.C. HST program will give partial rebates for new BC homes priced up to $400,000. The government will give these homebuyers a partial five per cent BC HST rebate on the provincial tax side which makes any new B.C. home or Vancouver property $400,000 or less no more expensive than it is today.
7. Homebuyers looking to buy new Vancouver property over $400,000 will receive a maximum BC HST rebate of $20,000, but will see the purchase price above that level subject to the extra five per cent tax rate system.
8. The British Columbia Harmonized Sales Tax of 12% HST is also applicable to any costs and fees associated with your property/home purchase including legal/notary fees, commissions and other closing costs.

The shirt used in this post can be ordered from Zazzle.com

logo

Starting a new business? Think you can design your own logo?

What happens when you’re a designer designing your own logo? I found out nothing can end up happening. I sit staring at my thumbnail sketches tearing them apart with my critical mind. And I thought this was going to be the easiest part of developing a business.

Business planning done. Content written. Breakout business development tested and released. Website design nearly complete. Logo! – or not. I thought I knew what I wanted from the start. The concept was falling together so easily.

TribalYell: A  design and marketing tribe. Our difference? The health of our employees and the community we market to come first. If those two things prosper, so will the business.

This meant the logo was to be cave painted hand prints about the company name. Or some kind of stylized cave/hand print.

Well it’s not going to be a hand print now. The hand print concept falls down when you find out how used up this idea actually is. But I love what I’ve come up with. It’s just a pencil sketch right now.

BC Ferries

In normal circumstances the term reservation means you have a guaranteed spot on the plane, train or automobile. BC Ferries calls their Reserved Boarding Ticket a Guaranteed Travel Option on their Fare Info Page. But instead of rewarding a person for planning ahead and offering a ticket for less, BC Ferries charges a per diem for the privileged of arriving on time. This is not a reservation. Call it a “I don’t want to show up early tax”, “I’m richer than you and get more options surcharge” or call it anything but it’s not a reservation. Especially now that the fine print was activated this holiday weekend and people with Reserved Boarding tickets found themselves with the – ah-hum – rest of the unreserved riff-raff, the truth about BC Ferries’ reservations comes out.

If BC Ferries thought to do it right and correct, they would find it easier to run their entire system.

1 Reward people for thinking ahead and charge them less for reserving because then…

2 more people will think ahead and…

3 The entire system will have a better idea of how many are travelling on any given day

Whatever BC Ferries is doing now, it’s not a reservation and if any other private company advertised like that, there would be hell to pay.

Mobile listing solutions are going to take over as devices become more powerful, Connection speeds increase, displays more beautiful so websites don’t have to adjust to the scale as much. The term “mobile” might even become a word of the past (when describing online versions) as everything is expected to be online everywhere all the time. It’s just going to happen.

The future of the Realtor’s website will need to be more community driven. If their farm area is a certain location then they will be expected to have everything about that location on their website, listing every single business, every event, every listing and how about rentals? Oh, but there are community sites out there already doing this you say? Not really. It cost money and takes time to maintain a site like this. The paid links are not a good representation of what the community is. After all, paid links are what pay the bills.

A community site must be free to the community it serves. As more small business owners realize how important it is to have incoming links from outside sites pointing to them, they will look to a real community site that will list them for free and allow them to log in and list themselves for free, allow them to log in and post events, allow them to log in and take ownership of certain aspects of the community site and even guest post on the community blog. And yes, there will be real estate listings with walk scores, maps and much more. A successful Realtor will own this site.

A site like this is easier to maintain and keep current than most real estate sites are today, (those that do update their sites). It’s conceivable that a Realtor would hardly have to touch a site like this other than to confirm registrations (done through email) and farm the people who have logged in to get more information on the listings. They can go back to doing what they do best.

By providing this valuable resource to the community where a Realtor does business, their perception among those who live, work, play, list and purchase in the area can become a lot higher than it is now (below that of a used car salesman at the moment).

In summery a community site must have:

• Maps with walk scores
• Free organized listings of events and businesses
• Community blog for community postings
• A registration and login for the community
• A “mobile” version

Some Realtors are already starting this.