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

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

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.

At the rate we’re changing, the talk might have been called “Death of the Realtor”. The “Gutenberg phenomena” called the Internet will eventually change real estate so completely we won’t recognize it. Their commission structure have already been under fire for a long time as discussed in a stream on NPR here, read in the New York Times article “Endangered Species” and Maclean’s, “Money for Nothing, Lawn Sign for Free“.

The event he spoke at was a networking shin-dig sponsored by Ubertor and Reachd via Meet-up, and it was interesting, informative and for anyone who’s taken any marketing courses, re-informative. What I found more interesting and just as informative was the fact that a Realtor would act this transparent. I mean this in a ‘good for him’ way. It’s really refreshing to see a Realtor give out his “secrets”. He’s not the only participant at this event who thinks in this way. There is a following to this thinking. The topic of an online ustream.tv discussion I took part in was how the public listing tool realtor.ca was not very transparent and easy for the public to use.

The same technology that makes it easy to market product online, access information and inform the public will eventually have the public scratching their heads as to why the commissions are spread the way they are and if Realtors are willing to market and change then the change will come. I think it’s worth writing a bit about it so I did.

Whether the change is grass roots and forces the industry to change or self regulated is something someone else can speculate on. All I know is this: Those future earners who have never known the world without the Internet, who they choose to help them sell and purchase their homes could very well be a different type of person than today’s Realtor.

I don’t run either of these phones right now so I can’t give it any kind of a review but I am hoping on hearing more about it soon. I clicked over to Agent Will ( Will Wertheim of TRG) knowing he’s a MyRealPage listing subscriber who blogs a lot and is “in-the-know” about such things. He’s had a bit of an opportunity to try it out. I’m also hoping to soon post more about it than the blog released by My RealPage themsleves. That will have to wait but know that I will.

So a bit about what I know is this: It’s a geo-location aware property search application for iPhone and Android-based phones which means it knows where you are and finds listings around you and gives detailed information about them. It comes hot on the heels of, iPhone OS 3.0 and Android “Cupcake” release. It also sounds as if they are not labotomizing their normal property seach functions for the sake of  getting it mobile as you can see by the list of what a prospect can do (listed below). In fact the GPS inegration to my mind simply adds to their normal list of listing features. Who needs walk routes (which is a regular feature of MyRealPage listings) when you are right there in the neighbourhood!

What’s more is this new mobile application is just in beta release which means they expect that it will evolve.

Here is a quick list of what you can do in this application:

• Automatically locate yourself via GPS and see all available listings for sale in up to 1km radius around you
• Have the application “follow” you by updating your position and nearby listings as you walk or drive
• Drag the map to pan around and see the nearby listings automatically searched for you
• Manually override your current location by entering the address of your choice
• Login into your Virtual Office Website (VOW) account to see and do more
• See full details of each individual listing, including all photos
• Email listings to family and friends
• Inquire about the listing with the agent/team/broker
• “Star” the listing for later review through the Virtual Office Website (VOW) account
• Sign up for a Virtual Office Website (VOW) account
• Make a phone call and/or send a SMS message directly from the contact forms

I’m hoping to hear more about how it works and give it a try myself for a review.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that the number of residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 3,524 in May 2009, an increase of 17.4 per cent from the 3,002 sales recorded in May 2008, and an increase of 18.9 per cent compared to last month.

Since the beginning of the year, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver has increased 4.5 per cent to $506,201 from $484,211. However, home prices compared to May 2008 levels are down 10.9 per cent.

“The increased level of buyer activity over the last few months has had a stabilizing effect on home prices across our region,” Scott Russell, REBGV president said. “MLS® data continues to show a trend toward a balanced market in the region.”

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties declined in Greater Vancouver, down 36 per cent to 4,733 in May 2009 compared to May 2008, when 7,390 new units were listed. At 13,641, the total number of property listings on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) declined 4.7 per cent compared to last month and 16 per cent compared to May 2008.

Sales of detached properties increased 16.5 per cent to 1,402 from the 1,203 detached sales recorded during the same period in 2008. The HPI benchmark price for detached properties declined 11.8 per cent from May 2008 to $680,320.

Sales of apartment properties in May 2009 increased 17.2 per cent to 1,458, compared to 1,244 sales in May 2008. The benchmark price of an apartment property declined 10.2 per cent from May 2008 to $349,987.

Attached property sales in May 2009 are up 19.6 per cent to 664, compared with the 555 sales in May 2008. The benchmark price of an attached unit decreased 9 per cent between May 2008 and 2009 to $435,848.

Richard Branson, although from a well-to-do family, values personal adventure and risks more than some with less to lose. We understand Branson's Personal Brand.

Personal Branding is becoming an important topic as social media continues to be discovered. Most industries are starting to get it.

Realtors: with the addition of Social Media bringing about a change in marketing directions it’s now more important than ever to step up your branding. That is to say, ditch the old school slogans and awards and become authentic with who you are.

A Realtor’s business life and personal life mix on social media to the point where (I have read) that some create two different accounts on social media networks. Some good recent posts on the subject can be found here and here. What’s worse in my opinion is they have one account and only write about their business  activities, market reporting and name dropping. These Realtors seem to follow each other too. A better alternative  would be to follow your friends and community who happen to be your client base and not talk business, (but bring it up when asked or the opportunity arises).

Let’s do a case in point

(first a disclaimer): For this case-in-point I am going to pick any old slogan out of the hat and in no way intend to intentionally pick on anyone in particular. The fact is the slogan I choose to use as an example will sadly be in use by many Realtors – so you’re not alone if it’s yours.

“Vancouver’s Family Home Specialist”

Let’s choose that one (or something like that anyway- you’ll get the point). If this is a Realtor’s slogan but they don’t comment on family blogs, write blogs about family, advertise on family websites to support them, talk about family matters on Twitter and Facebook and don’t have a following of people with the same interest then what is the point? Their branding is not authentic and everyday people can now see this.

What I’m talking about here are some new concepts in marketing. Conversational Marketing, Permission Based Marketing and a Seth Godin’s new favourite, Leading a Tribe (which people are picking up now and calling Tribe Marketing). This type of marketing all begins with an authentic brand and story that are based on your values.

Realtor’s are always on when it comes to marketing. Anyone could be a future client. Why not just make your life easier and deal with people you choose, create a fan base and deal with all the residual business that naturally comes in as well.

Remember, with all things being equal people do business with people they click with. Even more importantly, with all things not being equal, people still do business with people they click with. So go out there and have real conversations online.