Andrew Perkins

HRMbyDesign will increase vibrancy and beauty of downtown Halifax

HRMbyDesign has engaged the public in a democratic, community-led process to determine the vision for our downtown and to establish new policy that will make the vision a reality. Over the past two years the citizen-led Urban Design Task Force has consulted, engaged and communicated with thousands of members of the public to ensure that the resulting plan creates a vibrant, exciting and beautiful downtown for residents and visitors. It is a plan that balances our rich past with a vibrant and beautiful future. Without this plan, we will continue to see parking lots on our waterfront, vacant and underused properties throughout the downtown, crumbling heritage resources in need of support through legislation and incentives for restoration, and an ongoing out-migration of young, highly skilled workers looking for a dynamic and progressive place to live and work.

This Plan will neither encourage nor allow 30 high-rises in the central business district, nor will it encourage the demolition of heritage resources. On the contrary, HRMbyDesign will provide strengthened heritage protections and directs any future tall buildings to those areas where tall buildings already exist, thereby preserving the heritage heart of the downtown. Finally, HRMbyDesign is creating new planning policy and has no ability to influence applications being processed under current policy.

The establishment of the Barrington Street Heritage Conservation District (HCD), HRM's first ever HCD, will occur with the adoption of the Downtown Plan. It will help protect and conserve this continuous, well-defined heritage area through improved demolition and rehabilitation guidelines, and a tax incentive and grants program designed to stimulate the revitalization of this historic streetscape.

Improved demolition control is also being sought through provincial legislative amendments to help protect the stand-alone heritage buildings not located in the Barrington Street HCD, and through the identification of two other future heritage conservation districts - Historic Properties and Barrington Street south. Heritage design guidelines in the new Design Manual will guide appropriate development and design of buildings integrated with, and next to existing heritage buildings both inside and outside of HCD's.

Another protection for heritage exists within the proposed development approvals process and proposed downtown land use by-law. Under the existing development agreement process, new development projects can be negotiated to heights up to the ceiling of the Citadel and Ramparts View Planes. We have seen this occur countless times over the years, as evidenced by the many tall buildings in our central business district. In many cases, HRMbyDesign is actually reducing heights below those attainable under current policy, to a pre-established maximum that has been agreed upon by the public throughout this process. These heights have been widely consulted and are informed by the local neighbourhoods, adjacency to heritage conservation districts or other tall buildings, view planes, access to public open spaces such as the waterfront boardwalk, and many other factors. Further, the new bonus zoning agreement process will provide protection 2 for heritage through onsite restoration or improvements as a public benefit to be provided by the developer.

Excerpted from www.halifax.ca website

I am an avid supporter of this plan. Halifax needs to move with the times and create an exciting downtown core. I was driving in the downtown area today and there are too many buildings not being occupied. The downtown core needs to be the heart of the city. I hope this plan gets final approval and moves forward. I will keep you posted as things change.

If you are interested in buying or selling real estate in Halifax, Dartmouth and surrounding areas you can email me at andrewperkins@exitmetro.ca.

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Atlantic Canada Still Affordable/New housing starts down

With all the trouble surrounding the economy these days it is very nice to see a positive story for once. After reading this article, the next article I read was how housing starts are down over last year. It is hard sometimes to decipher what to think. As I have said before Halifax prices have had only modest increases over the last 10 years not like some of the other Canadian markets. I look for Halifax to continue this trend next year although probably not at the same pace. Check out the articles below.

Atlantic market Canada's newest housing hotspot: RBC
EDITED BY STAFF, TRANSCONTINENTAL MEDIA
The Nova Scotia Business Journal

TORONTO - According to the latest housing report by RBC Economics, rapid price increases in the past two years have eroded Atlantic Canada's affordability conditions, although some improvement is on the way in
2009.

"Forget the West. The new housing hotspots are in Atlantic Canada," said Robert Hogue, senior economist at RBC. "St. John's housing market is firing on all cylinders, trailing only Regina in terms of year-over-year price increases. Saint John and Halifax are also showing solid price momentum, creating favourable conditions for sellers."

The RBC Housing Affordability measure for Atlantic Canada, which captures the proportion of pre-tax household income needed to service the costs of owning a home, improved slightly across all four classes in the third quarter of 2008 as the benchmark detached bungalow moved to 35.4 per cent, the standard townhouse to 30.3 per cent, the standard condo to 27.6 per cent and the standard two-storey home to 41.2 per cent.

The report noted that despite recent meaningful price gains across the region, housing affordability has not deteriorated excessively during the boom of the past two years. Affordability measures in Atlantic Canada currently stand only five to 13 per cent above long-run averages. Nonetheless, momentum in the region's market is expected to wane in 2009 as economic uncertainty takes the wind out of its sail.

RBC's Affordability measure for a detached bungalow for Canada's largest cities is as follows: Vancouver 74.8 per cent, Toronto 53.3 per cent, Calgary 47.3 per cent, Ottawa 43.3 per cent and Montreal 40.4 per cent.

The report also looked at mortgage carrying costs relative to incomes for a broader sampling of cities across the country, including St. John's, Saint John, and Halifax. For these cities, RBC has used a narrower measure of housing affordability that only takes mortgage payments relative to income into account.

The Housing Affordability measure, which RBC has compiled since 1985, is based on the costs of owning a detached bungalow, a reasonable property benchmark for the housing market. Alternative housing types are also presented including a standard two-storey home, a standard townhouse and a standard condo. The higher the reading, the more costly it is to afford a home. For example, an Affordability reading of 50 per cent means that homeownership costs, including mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes, take up 50 per cent of a typical household's monthly pre-tax income. - Daily

Total housing starts decline in Halifax
EDITED BY STAFF, TRANSCONTINENTAL MEDIA
The Nova Scotia Business Journal

HALIFAX - Residential construction continued to moderate in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) last month as total starts declined 34 per cent compared to November 2007. According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's (CMHC) preliminary data released today for Halifax, there were 118 total housing starts last month, compared with 178 in November 2007.

Single-detached starts recorded a 22 per cent decrease to 97 starts in November compared to 125 in November 2007. Multiples moderated to 21 starts last month - all of which were semi-detached or row housing starts.

"Although single starts were up 12 per cent year-over-year through the first three quarters in HRM, they were on average 16 per cent lower in October and November," said Matthew Gilmore, senior market analyst with CMHC's Atlantic Business Centre. "Our recent forecast called for starts to moderate in the fourth quarter and into 2009. The reasons for the decrease include the current economic environment, reduced spillover demand from the existing homes market and rising prices for new construction."

In urban centres across Canada there were 12,780 total housing starts in November, 28 per cent fewer than the 17,816 starts in November 2007. There were 5,348 single-detached housing starts across Canada last month, 37 per cent less than the 8,490 single starts in November 2007. At 7,432 units, multiple housing starts represented a 20 per cent decrease from the 9,326 units started in November 2007. - Daily Business Buzz

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Halifax Real Estate Market update, December 3, 2008

How has the real estate market in Halifax performed in the last two months? With all the doom and gloom in the financial sector of the news lately I figured it would be a good time to look at the HRM real estate market as a whole compared to the previous year.

Halifax Real Estate market update for all areas of HRM for October, November 2008. Based on MLS stats for single family homes, condominiums and new construction.

Halifax Real Estate market update for all areas of HRM for October, November 2007. Based on MLS stats for single family homes, condominiums and new construction.

Total Active Listings - 3063

As you can see from these numbers the market is definitely softening over the last two months. Sales are down by 30% over last years numbers. Albeit last year was a record for sales but this is still a significant decline. The silver lining I guess is that price continues to increase. The average price has increased by 5.6%. Days on market has also increased by 3 days which is not too significant.

Right now we are seeing a buyers market in the Halifax Real Estate market. There is a lot of inventory out there and not a lot of buyers. Homes are sitting on the market for a long time. If you are looking to buy real estate in Halifax now is as good a time as any. There are deals to be had.

If you would like more info on market stats in your area, send me an email or call 902-488-0012. I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have pertaining to real estate in Halifax, Dartmouth and surrounding areas. In the coming weeks I am going to be looking at HRM by design and new condo projects coming on board, so stay tuned for that.

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Green Condos in Halifax

I was browsing through The Coast weekly Halifax newspaper and noticed this project that Greater Homes is constructing on the Northwest Arm Drive. Looks like a great investment and place to live.

Located in a desirable area of Halifax, The Waterton is Halifax's first condominium project to use geothermal. The Waterton condo project uses the breakout geothermal heating system that extracts stored heat energy from the crust of the earth. Geothermal takes the guess work out of your energy costs by using renewable energy.

It is great to see projects like this in Halifax. I think in the coming years we will be seeing more and more green projects come to fruition. The green shift is starting to happen and I feel in the coming years it is going to accelerate at crazy pace. We have waited to long to shift our focus and our environment is paying dearly for our neglect.

If you would like more information on this condo project or any other condos in Halifax send me an email andrewperkins@exitmetro.ca or call 902-488-0012. I would be more than happy to help you out.

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Halifax Home Buyers Take Notice!!!!

Thinking about buying a home and not sure how the financial crisis will affect your purchase. The Government of Canada is injecting 75 billion dollars to purchase Insured Mortgages. This is great news for home buyers. This should also help interest rates go down and make the purchase of your next home that much more affordable. Below is a press release from the government.

Federal Government's $75-Billion Purchase of Insured Mortgages Should Benefit Home Buyers

As part of its efforts to address the current financial crisis, the federal government announced that it will inject $75 billion of new money* into the financial system, by buying insured mortgage pools from Canadian financial institutions.

The purpose of this measure is to add liquidity to financial institutions - money they can then lend to businesses and consumers. The main effect of such an initiative is to increase the availability of credit while, at the same time, making the cost of credit more affordable. As a result of this plan, financial institutions' mortgage interest rates should drop, which is likely to stimulate activity on the resale market.

This announcement is good news for our financial system and for the economy in general. Ultimately, it is borrowers who will benefit from this initiative, particularly future home buyers.

This federal government intervention was made necessary by the fact that the financial crisis has led to a significant reduction in the amount of credit made available by the private sector and, as a result, higher costs. In this context, banks' financing costs increase, which translates into higher prime rates and mortgage rates.

The purchase will be made through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and will focus exclusively on mortgages that are already insured under its mortgage loan insurance program.

*Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, made an initial announcement of $25 billion last October 10, and announced an additional $50 billion on November 12.

"Excerpted from The Montreal Real Estate Blog"

The Halifax Real Estate market is starting to show signs of slow down in the last couple of months. Sales are down although average price continues to rise. Now is not a time to wait to buy, it's a buyers market right now. If you are thinking of getting into the spring market you will be looking at higher prices, although inventory will be up and more selection will be available.

If you would like more information on market stats and trends in the Halifax Real Estate market contact me or send me an email at andrewperkins@exitmetro.ca.

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