There’s been considerable media attention on our market since the beginning of the year. Our Communication department received 149 media enquiries and interview requests in the first three quarters of 2015 from local, national and international media outlets. This total surpasses the 146 media request we received in all of 2014. This increase is due to near record sale levels, rising home prices, and the perceived rise in foreign investment from Mainland China.

Board President, Darcy McLeod, has conducted interviews with the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, the BBC, The New York Times, newspapers from China and every major news outlet locally.

“Each month, print, radio, and newspapers reporters from around the world want comments and information from the Board because they recognize us as the most reliable and trusted source of information when it comes to our market,” McLeod said. “Through this work we aim to remind the public of the value, knowledge and professionalism associated with working with a REALTOR®.”

The Board and members generated or were referenced in 352 print articles in the third quarter and have been referenced in 856 articles so far in 2015.

As part of our media monitoring program, we measure our media coverage for tone. Tone is a qualitative measurement based on three criterions:  whether the coverage delivered our message, if it held the REBGV in a positive light and whether it reached our target audience.

An analysis of these criteria determines if the tone of the coverage was positive, negative or neutral. Of the 352 articles REBGV was associated with in Q.3, the tone was neutral for 95 per cent of the articles. Three per cent of the articles were identified as positive and two per cent negative in tone.

Between January and November 2015, the Board issued 19 news releases to our media contacts. The releases covered a wide range of topics, including residential and commercial market summaries, the instatement of the Board president, the announcement of this year’s REALTORS Care® award winners, and information about the 21st annual REALTORS Care® Blanket Drive.

Press Releases issued by the REBGV Communication department in 2015:

1. November 20 - Three days left to donate to the 2015 REALTORS Care® Blanket Drive
2. November 16 - The 21st annual REALTORS Care® Blanket Drive starts Monday
3. November 9 - Support the REALTORS Care® Blanket Drive and help your neighbours in need
4. November 3 - Metro Vancouver home buyers push October sales above long-term averages
5. October 2 - Metro Vancouver home buyers compete for fewer home listings
6. September 17 - Office and retail activity drive commercial real estate sales in the Lower Mainland
7. September 1 - Competition continues to drive Metro Vancouver’s housing market
8. August 5 - Summer heat doesn’t slow home buyer activity
9. July 3 - Metro Vancouver home sales set record pace in June
10. June 18 - Land sales drive commercial real estate activity in the first quarter
11. June 2 - Metro Vancouver home sales surpass 4,000 for third consecutive month
12. May 4 - Home buyer demand outpacing supply across the Metro Vancouver housing market
13. April 1 - Metro Vancouver home buyers out in force in March
14. April 1 - Real Estate Board instates 2015/2016 president
15. April 1 - REALTORS® honoured for their community service
16. March 4 - Commercial real estate sales top $6 billion in the Lower Mainland in 2014
17. March 3 - Home buyer and seller activity outpaces historical averages in February
18. February 3 - Home buyers remain active despite reduced selection
19. January 5 - Home sale and listing activity reach historical norms in 2014

2015 Year to date – media coverage examples:

• Tri-City New, Nov 19 - Realtors’ blanket and clothing drive runs until Monday
• Delta Optimist, Nov 17 - Communities rely on long-running blanket drive
• CBC News, Oct 5 - “Vancouver house prices: federal parties talk affordability”
• Georgia Straight, Sept 29 - “Realtors prepare for annual blanket drive for homeless”
• Vancouver Sun, Sept 8 - “Barbara Yaffe: Little evidence of recession in BC consumer habits”
• Vancouver Sun, May 11 - “Barbara Yaffe: Realtors devising creative strategies to win bidding wars”
• The Financial Post, May 4 - “Vancouver detached house prices rise average of 12.5% in April”
• Business News Network, April 5 - “Fresh warning bells sounded over Vancouver’s hot housing market”
• Business in Vancouver, April 2 - “Metro Vancouver detached homes hit record high for 10^th straight month”
• The Vancouver Sun, March 4 - “Average price of a home in Metro Vancouver cracks seven figures”
• The Epoch Times, February 18 - “Canada’s housing market cooling, but not in Toronto, Vancouver”
• Business in Vancouver, February 3 - “Prices for Metro Vancouver homes continue to hit all-time high”
• CBC News, January 23, 2015 - “Craigslist rental scam: Vancouver real estate agents warn about impersonators”  
• The Vancouver Observer, January 6 - “Real estate shock: Vancouver detached home benchmark price hits $1 million”

Here’s a list of your top Paragon enhancement requests that we're working to deliver. These requests are in no particular order. Black Knight, the makers of Paragon, have made these items their top priority, but there's no completion timetable as of yet:

• Add more information to auto-notification emails.
• Collated printing for reports.
• Add ‘0’ days to the Market Monitor.
• Tax map search.
• Add more fields to Opens and Tours.
• Add a field to show the difference between saved search results after changing search parameters.
• Add a drop-down list of addresses to the results view and spreadsheet views.
• Have co-listed listings appear in My Listings.
• Have listings in Property Archive Report show in chronological order, not by listing number.
• Add multiple address search with unit number field.
• Add an action icon for Virtual Tours.
• Increase the number of displayed searches in Contact Manager to 10.
• Remove the login requirement for Agent Client Connect.
• Change browser tab naming to reflect Paragon Residential and Paragon Commercial.
• Add contiguous space search (for Paragon Commercial).
• Add ‘Leased’ to Market Monitor (for Paragon Commercial).

Deadline: January 15, 2016 

Do you know someone who represents the very best of what it means to be a REALTOR®? 

Professionalism is about putting your clients’ interests first, a commitment to lifelong learning, and volunteering your time and expertise. These qualities are what the Professional Excellence Award represents. 

Do you know someone who fits this description? Nominate a colleague today for this year’s Professional Excellence Award. Click here to complete our nomination form. 

REBGV members are eligible for nomination. 

For more information, contact Fiona Youatt at 604-730-3068 or fyouatt@rebgv.org.

Nominations for the 2015 REALTORS Care® Award are open! 

Deadline: January 15, 2016 

Do you know a Realtor or real estate office that make an extra effort to help others in their community by raising funds, volunteering, or doing other good deeds. Nominate them for a REALTORS Care® Award! 

You can nominate them by completing this form. 

For more information, please contact Fiona Youatt at 604.730.3068 or fyouatt@rebgv.org. 

Thinking back to the lamentable “leaky condo” crisis, some of us may recall that the government’s reaction to the situation was to pass the Homeowner Protection Act and create the Homeowner Protection Office (HPO). The intent was to strengthen protection for buyers of new homes to prevent them from being saddled with expensive repair costs due to shoddy construction, substandard materials, and defects.

The Homeowner Protection Act covers strata and residential properties built after November 1997. It requires builders to be licensed and approved by the HPO and to register property for the required 2-5-10 Home Warranty Insurance coverage.

There’s an exception to this, however. An "owner builder" is a person authorized by the HPO to build a new home for their personal use. An owner builder isn't required to be licensed by the HPO to build the new home, or to obtain third-party home warranty insurance on that home. Individuals wanting to become owner builders are required to obtain an Owner Builder Authorization from the HPO and to pay a fee before beginning construction of the new home. Here are details.

To prevent owner builders from using the exemption to build a home and then sell it without the warranty or HPO registration, “the owner builder must provide an HPO disclosure notice to prospective purchasers.” This disclosure notice informs the purchaser that the home was built by an owner builder. It also provides details, such as whether there’s a home warranty insurance policy. Unless they have home warranty insurance coverage, owner builders are liable for construction defects in the new home for a 10-year period to any and all subsequent purchasers during this same period.

The Homeowner Protection Act outlines the specific obligations of the owner builder during this period. These obligations are similar to the protection from defects under a home warranty insurance policy; for example, two years against defects in material and labour, five years against defects in the building envelope, and ten years against structural defects.

It’s important to remember that an owner-built home cannot be offered for sale, sold, or rented earlier than one year after its completion, except in special circumstances and only when pre-approved by the HPO.

Occasionally, an owner builder will ask a member to list their property. If the requirements of the Homeowner Protection Act have been met, then the member can list the property. However, if less than one year has passed since the occupancy permit was issued, the member should not take the listing. Taking the listing would be a potential breach of the Homeowner Protection Act by the seller and any REALTOR® offering that property for sale.

This is where the Real Estate Council of BC comes in. The HPO regularly scans newly constructed properties being offered for sale, matching the addresses with its records. If the HPO discovers a property listed that does not comply with the Homeowner Protection Act, they notify the owner, and, in cases where the property has been listed by a Realtor, the HPO notifies the Council. The Council then writes to the brokerage and can discipline members for contravening the Homeowner Protection Act. The HPO can also fine members for breaching the Act. Read what Council has to say on this subject.

Note: There’s a substantial section in the current Legal Update course manual about the Homeowner Protection Act and members’ obligations under it. It includes discussion of the Special Rules for New Homes Offered for Sale by an Owner Builder and discusses a recent Consent Order on this topic.

In the 1990s, Evelina Power owned a bungalow heated by an oil furnace. When she sold the home, the furnace and the fuel storage tank were in full view in the cellar.

A decade later, a process server rang Power’s doorbell, confirmed her identity, and handed her a summons to appear in small claims court.

“While bulldozing a backyard shed, the most recent owner uncovered an abandoned oil tank underneath which was leaking toxic oil,” said Power. The owner decided to sue Power under the Contaminated Sites Regulation.

“They wanted me to pay up to $25,000 for not disclosing the tank and for cleanup and remediation costs,” said Power.

Power spent days tracking down the person from whom she had bought the property. He signed an affidavit that Power could not have known about the tank since he hadn’t known about it.

Months later, during a settlement conference, an adjudicator found Power was an innocent buyer and had known nothing about the tank. The current owner had to go back further to locate previous owners.

How many tanks are out there?

No one knows for sure how many tanks are still buried in Metro Vancouver’s 21 municipalities, according to Lucas Wouters of West Coast Tank Recovery.

Underground storage tanks were extensively used to contain home heating fuel until the 1970s when natural gas became readily available. “Tanks never required registration and there was no permitting system, so it’s impossible to know how many exist,” said Wouters.

Often, they’ve been forgotten and are buried and hidden in yards and basements. While telltale signs can include vent and fill pipes or copper lines sticking out of lawns or the ground close to buildings, there may be no other indications.

“Keep in mind, in areas such as Pemberton and the Gulf Islands, tanks are also still used,” said Wouters. Depending on the terrain, some may be visible.

Provincial and local regulations

In BC, residential fuel storage tanks are regulated by the BC Fire Code, Part 4, which covers the installation, maintenance, repair, removal, and abandonment of tanks.

Toxic leaks are governed by the BC Environmental Management Act and the Contaminated Sites Regulation.

Within the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver area, 20 municipalities may also have bylaws, policies, and additional requirements for removing or abandoning tanks that are administered by the local fire department.

This Fact Sheet links to each municipal bylaw, and includes the costs of fees and permits, requirements for remediation and inspection, and guidelines for dealing with leaking tanks, abandoning tanks in place and penalties.

Why are tanks an issue?

The life span of a tank is about 25 years and as tanks age and corrode, they can become a health and safety hazard, according to Wouters.

Heating oil, gas, diesel fuel and other toxic substances can leak into surrounding soil, neighbouring properties and even the groundwater system and can cause a fire or an explosion hazard.

Cleanup costs range from $5,000 to $30,000, according to Wouters, although there are cases where homeowners have paid as much as $123,000, according to Mike Mangan, a real estate lawyer and contributor to BC Real Estate Association’s Legally Speaking.

Who’s responsible for tank removal and cleanup?

“Those who are in some way responsible for causing contamination are classified as responsible persons,” according to the Ministry of Environment’s Remediation Liability Overview.

This can include a current owner, a previous owner, and even a producer or transporter of a substance that caused the contamination.

Who isn’t responsible?

Property owners who innocently acquired the site. An innocent owner or previous owner must prove:

• at the time they bought the property it was already contaminated;
• they had no way of knowing the property was contaminated; 
• and they asked the previous owner about whether there had been a tank on the site.

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Commercial sales in the Lower Mainland registered a five-year third-quarter high between July and September of 2015 thanks to increased demand for land and office and retail properties, according to data from Commercial Edge, a commercial real estate system operated by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).

There were 550 commercial real estate sales in the Lower Mainland in the third quarter (Q3) 2015. This is a 16.8 per cent increase compared to the 471 sales recorded in Q3 2014, a 13.2 per cent increase from the 486 sales recorded in Q3 2013, and a 14.8 per cent increase from the 479 sales recorded over the same period in 2012.

The total dollar value of commercial sales in the region was $1.9 billion in Q3, a 33.6 per cent increase from Q3 2014.

 “We’ve seen steady demand in our commercial real estate market throughout 2015,” Darcy McLeod, REBGV president said. “Commercial activity in the Lower Mainland is benefiting from the strength of our provincial economy, which has outperformed the rest of the country for much of the year.” 

Q3 2015 activity by category

Land: There were 192 commercial land sales registered with the Land Title and Survey Authority of BC (LTSA) in the Lower Mainland in Q3 2015, a 28.9 per cent increase from the 149 land sales in Q3 2014. The dollar value of land sales in Q3 2015 was $839 million, up 47.5 per cent from $569 million in Q3 2014.

Office and Retail: There were 215 office and retail sales in the Lower Mainland in Q3 2015, a 16.8 per cent increase from the 184 office and retail sales in Q3 2014. The dollar value of office and retail sales in Q3 2015 was $512 million, a 6.2 per cent decline from $546 million in Q3 2014.

Industrial: There were 112 industrial land sales in the Lower Mainland in Q3 2015, which is unchanged from the 112 industrial land sales in Q3 2014. The dollar value of industrial sales in Q3 2015 was $242 million, a 49.1 per cent increase from $162 million in Q3 2014.

Multi-Family: There were 31 multi-family sales in the Lower Mainland in Q3 2015, which is up 19.2 per cent from the 26 sales in Q3 2014. The dollar value of multi-family sales in Q3 2015 was $283 million, a 123 per cent increase from $127 million in Q3 2014.