BC Economic Fundamentals 2008-08

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You`ll look like a hero until the market takes an ugly turn

A bear market is no fun, but it can provide a much-needed reality check for your investing strategy.

Investing is a snap when the market is going up. Your portfolio is growing and it`s all too easy to believe it`s because of investing prowess rather than a favourable market or sheer dumb luck.

But when things turn bad as they have since last fall, investments that once looked brilliant can suddenly seem stupid and one-time market heroes are losing sleep.

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/mon...8a-0a5ad0547027

 

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Whistler detour route to be improved

SURREY | The provincial government announced Friday two multi-million dollar projects to improve Highway 99 between Lillooet and Pemberton.

The highway -- which is getting extra traffic lately as a detour around Tuesday`s rock slide -- will see a new $5.2-million concrete bridge south of Lillooet and a $7.1-million paving job north of Pemberton, according to a government press release.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/we...63-9787950cdaa2

 

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Port and Metro battling over former Canfor lands

A battle is brewing between Ports Vancouver and Metro Vancouver over ownership of the Canfor lands in New Westminster.

Ports Vancouver claims it signed a purchase agreement for the 18.3-hectare parcel, located in the Braid industrial area, three days before the property was expropriated by Metro Vancouver on April 14.

The waterfront property was put up for sale earlier this year after Canadian Forest Products closed its panel mill on the site.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/we...d9-ac5b860c401c

 

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Downtown office space tightens more

With downtown Vancouver`s office-vacancy rate at a record low and set to ratchet down even further, at least one commercial realtor is musing about how pressure on the market will be relieved.

Barclay Street Real Estate`s second-quarter report counts just 400,000 square feet of vacant space of the 19.4-million square feet of space that it tracks in downtown buildings, a mere 2.06-per-cent vacancy rate.

Although leasing activity has slowed, the firm expects tenants to take up another 184,000 square feet of that space by the end of 2008, leaving vacancy at just 1.1 per cent, a level it expects to hold through 2009 then possibly even drop to 0.3 per cent in 2010.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/bu...a5-b404acb3787f

 

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Canadian forest companies struggle against foreign producers

Forest products producers in emerging regions posted promising financial results in 2007, while Canada posted the poorest results, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers annual review of the Top 100 forest companies.
Latin America posted 7.8 per cent for return on capital employed, "emerging" regions in Asia posted a result of 7.3 per cent and the United States 5.5 per cent. Return on capital employed is a key financial measure for the capital intensive forest sector.

http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/2008080...-producers.html

 

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Highway 14 improvements delayed

Just as residents of Sooke and Port Renfrew were marking the half-century anniversary of Highway 14 between the two communities west of Victoria, the government decided to delay improvements to the roadway.

That decision came after a geotechnical investigation uncovered a fissure, pushing back the upgrade`s expected completion to after the 2010 Olympics.

Sooke Mayor Janet Evans, who grew up in Port Renfrew, says the highway is "a thousand times better than it was."

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonis...41-d3c8d6ea33ec

 

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Real estate inventories the highest in a decade

Slowing sales and rising inventory in Greater Victoria last month show how the once red hot real estate market is cooling down.

Today`s real estate reality means home sellers must closely watch when nearby properties are sporting "for sale" signs, says the B.C. Real Estate Association`s chief economist.

At this time last year, the market was tilted more in favour of home sellers, Cameron Muir said yesterday from Vancouver.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonis...70-3315420ff77c

 

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Luxury condominium project diversifies waterfront hotel

Brentwood Bay Lodge and Spa`s new footprint on the earth took a step forward last week as the five-star hotel handed in its plans for the six-unit residential component it hopes to have completed by next spring.

According to president Dan Behune, the working drawings of the condominiums have been completed and building permits submitted to Central Saanich. "We`re hoping to get the permits in September and we hope to be completed in the spring of 2009," he said.

The addition to the 33-unit hotel was made official earlier this year. Four of the six condominiums -- each 1,850 square feet with two bedrooms plus den, media room and great room -- have been listed on the multiple listing service ranging in price from $1.395 million to $1.795 million.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonis...1f-ec555cc5cec6

 

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Trading space for a long commute

As gas prices rise, many wallet-conscious households have given up on their suburban lifestyles and begun to trickle back into the city. But gas pains and long commute times haven`t deterred families opting for a house with a rural setting.

They are attracted by lower housing costs, the endearing small-town community virtues that characterize rural life and being closer to nature.

Mill Bay is a bedroom community of about 4,000, about 41 kilometres north of Victoria. It was established in the 1860s, 20 years after Victoria was founded.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonis...c3-f76ae752e111

 

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You`ve got mail -- but where should we send it?

Dear Condo Smarts: Our strata corporation is a small three-unit townhouse complex.

We are very informal about how we agree to pay for repairs and enforce bylaws, and we deal with situations as they arise.

We recently missed notice of lawsuit because it was sent by mail to an owner who was away for two months, and now we are scrambling to correct the errors and failure to respond to the claim in the time periods.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonis...9b-9192aa251c9c

 

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Demand for new building materials growing

A little butter with your kitchen cabinets? The ingredient lists of a growing number of engineered sheet lumber materials, including medium density fibreboard and oriented strand board, seem to read more like recipes for artisan breads than building products.

Materials such as rye and wheat straw, hemp and kenaf stalks are being mixed with formaldehyde-free adhesives, like soy-based resin, and increasingly supplementing wood composites in everything from door cores to cabinetry.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonis...f6-8b06288ab0e2

 

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Prices fall as Vancouver home sales cool

Real-estate prices in Greater Vancouver are dropping and the number of listings is increasing, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said yesterday.

The changes continue a recent, dramatic departure from the searing housing market of recent years, when annual price increases in the double-digit percentages were common.

Housing prices in every category have continued to decline since May, the board said.

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sto...ef-12c487db801f

 

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TransLink, province will divide up transit projects

The provincial government and TransLink have decided to split up the work in implementing their $14-billion transit plan.

They announced yesterday that the province is the project lead on the $1.4 billion Evergreen Line rapid-transit project, with TransLink remaining a partner on the extension of the Millennium and Expo SkyTrain lines to Coquitlam.

The situation is a reversal of what happened with the $2-billion Canada Line, where TransLink is the lead agency and the province is a funding partner, along with the federal government, the Vancouver Airport Authority and private partner InTransitBC.

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sto...66-6e8257235478

 

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B.C. gets tough with gas marketers

VANCOUVER -- The British Columbia Utilities Commission is cracking down on natural gas marketers who fail to follow the rules when they`re signing up new customers, documents show.

The commission has this year levied single and multiple fines ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 per offence against marketers including Smart Energy, Direct Energy, Access Gas Services, Summitt Energy, Planet Energy and Universal Energy.

In all cases, the fines arise from customer complaints including aggressive sales tactics, misrepresentation and other things that the commission deemed sufficiently serious to warrant more than a cancellation of a contract with a customer.

http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/new...c8-26fc3200ee30

 

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Enbridge renews push for pipeline

Enbridge Inc. has put its proposed $4.2-billion oil and condensate pipeline through northern B.C. back on the front burner after shelving it in late 2006.
The company says it has raised $100 million from Western Canadian producers and key Asian refiners to get the project through the regulatory process. The company says it intends to file a regulatory application in the first three months of 2009, and hopes to have the pipeline running by 2014.

http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/2008080...r-pipeline.html

 

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Consider increasing carbon tax, B.C. urged

VANCOUVER -- The British Columbia government should consider increasing and expanding its carbon tax if necessary to stay on track with an aggressive target for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, a provincial cabinet advisory group recommended yesterday.

The Climate Action Team made 31 specific recommendations for action, including "a hard cap" on industrial emissions and expanding the carbon tax to encompass greenhouse gas emissions that now escape the tax.

It calls for the government to implement by the end of this year "legally mandated" emission-reduction targets for 2012 and 2016. These would be interim targets leading to Premier Gordon Campbell`s goal of a 33-per-cent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonis...2c-21b0dab48b55

 

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Pamela Anderson`s waterfront plan for Ladysmith gets green light

LADYSMITH -- Actress Pamela Anderson and hockey star Geoff Courtnall are Ladysmith`s newest developers.

The pair received Ladysmith council`s approval to build an 83-unit development on two hectares of oceanfront property where Anderson`s family once operated a holiday camp.

The proposal hit a bump last month when neighbours expressed concerns about the proposed seven-storey height of one of the buildings. The planned 28.6-metre building needed a variance permit because it was 16.6 metres above the maximum allowed in the town`s development bylaws.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonis...78-ff18f88782d0

 

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Valley loses designated farmland, angering Delta NDP critic

The Fraser Valley has lost seven per cent of its designated farmland -- 5,400 hectares -- since 1974, according to an Agricultural Land Commission report.

As of this year, there were less than 72,000 hectares in the Agricultural Land Reserve in the valley, according to the report.

"We should be concerned," said NDP MLA Guy Gentner of North Delta.

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sto...0b-39aa7d13c156

 

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Bus service may be halved: TransLink

Looming cuts at TransLink are a big concern for bus drivers` union boss Don MacLeod.

"It`s always the bus service they go to first," said MacLeod, president of Local 111 of the Canadian Auto Workers.

"We make all these commitments and promises but we have no money to support it," he said of TransLink plans.

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sto...75-5f6f1808a2d4

 

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B.C. economy losing some zip

B.C.`s economy will lose speed in 2008, the Conference Board of Canada says.

The province`s gross domestic product growth will tumble to 2.2 per cent this year from 2.8 per cent last year as the forest industry reels from the U.S. downturn, the board said yesterday in its summer provincial outlook.

Forestry remains a linchpin of the B.C. economy. Wood products and pulp-and-paper generate 35 per cent of all manufacturing output, the board said.

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/mon...13-5453c806c777