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I've read an interesting article on Vancouver real estate - no wonder I find it interesting, I work in the Vancouver real estate business.

The piece was published in The Vancouver Sun, and gives a novel approach to the recent changes on real estate market in the Metro Vancouver area.

An economist interviewed by the paper, Cameron Muir, says that the overall market cycle has run its course. He thinks that  there was no bursting housing bubble, but believes there has been a change in the cycle.

"At the end of a market cycle you will see home prices remain flat, or even come off a few percentage points a year, until the next cycle begins," he said in an interview, adding that we are looking at this particular situation right now.

There are more…

Recently, I had a discussion with a friend (no, not a client this time) on buying real estate online. We agreed that this practice is not for the average home buyers. Such purchases are mostly confined to condo purchases by oversea buyers or those out-of-town.

Frankly, I don't think that buying a used house online is a very good idea. Tell me honestly, would you buy a house without viweing it, without walking in it? I won't for sure. I wouldn't even buy a used car wihtout driving it first. In my opinion it is good as it is. You can preview and shortlist houses you like and than just go and see only houses you liked the most. Every successful Vancouver realtor has to have  a web page to promote houses he is selling. So I think it won't be a problem to…

I have just received the latest stats from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).  As you may know, these guys are regularly monitoring property prices of Vancouver real estate, and following transactions. Now, they report says that property listings continue to outpace sales. "Greater Vancouver housing prices have drawn back, the last two months, from the record highs experienced in early 2008," REBGV reports.

According to their figures, housing prices across each residential category have dropped since May 2008.

REBGV president, Dave Watt says that there was a slight decline in the total active listings on the market in July, and that is  compared to June. 

Year-on-year residential property sales declined 43.9 per cent in July 2008, and…

I have just added another chapter to my popular Soundcheck Vancouver pages, a growing collection of Vancouver music clubs. This time we take a closer look at Vancouver venues with live Salsa music.

Here is a short excerpt from the article, to be found at my Vancouver real estate pages:

"The Afro-Cuban rhythms of Salsa music have taken a long and colourful trip to arrive on Canada’s West Coast. The music’s roots originated in Cuba, Colombia and Puerto Rico, birthing from the marriage of Spanish Rumba and African percussion. It wasn’t until the late forties that the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Tito Puente popularized this contagious genre in the New York scene. Since then, Latin music has proliferated on a global scale. It’s only fitting that a city as…

As I wrote earlier, I ran my first Vancouver Photo of the Month Contest recently. I thought you would like to see the results. The First prize went to Trey Ratcliff for his photograph "Morning Mist at the Lagoon"

Runners up were Lung Liu and his atmospheric image, "English Bay Run Culture" and Greg Kowal with his nightscape "Granville Street Bridge". Congratulations!

There is a very interesting article I read in BCLocalNews. Its author, Tom Fletcher says that even if real estate boom has finally cooled in B.C, property values will not lose ground as they have in the United States.

Vancouver remains an attractive place to move for work or retirement and more B.C. sellers continue to try to cash in while fewer people are buying as prices have moved out of their affordable range, the article reads.

Small price drops have been seen in the Fraser Valley and Metro Vancouver in the last two months, Tom Flatcher writes, but year-over-year prices are still up by single-digit amounts.

"Price declines in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley look to continue in the near term," according to Credit Union Central B.C.'s latest weekly…

I have launched my first Vancouver Photo Contest in June to celebrate the arrival of summer. For the best photo of Vancouver in June, I will be awarding a cash prize of $200. Send in your best pics of the city to be eligible for entry.

Morning lagoon - by Trey Ratcliff

Photos taken with any camera - as long as the picture is great - can win. As long as the photo is depicting Vancouver, BC, it shows technical excellence, originality, artistic creativity, and a mastery of the tools - it may be selected as a winner.

A selection of the best entries will be published as daily photo entries on JayBanks.ca.
Send your picture along with a brief description, your name, email address, telephone number and location of the photo to var username =…

Recently, I've found an interesting article in The Globe and Mail on real estate in Vancouver. Gary Mason, national columnist writing on B.C. affairs asks the question, who's buying up all the condos in the city. He also manages to answer it: "A good percentage of the purchasers, as it turns out, are offshore investors", he says.  He also maintains that if there is a slowdown under way, Vancouver seems to be immune from it. Here's a short excerpt from this interesting piece:
"In Vancouver, of the 2,743 condominiums expected to be finished this year, nearly 90 per cent are already sold. There are 2,925 condos scheduled to be completed in 2009; 98 per cent of those are sold. And 83 per cent of the 714 that will be finished in 2010 are gone."
What are your…