Team Aragon

Wesbild to open its info centre Saturday

The number of housing starts may have fallen like snow over the past year but Burke Mountain developers say they’re confident the spring sunshine will usher in a new wave of home buyers for northeast Coquitlam.

Tomorrow, Wesbild Holdings Ltd., which owns about 200 acres of developable land on Burke Mountain, will open its information centre at the corner of Coast Meridian Road and David Avenue.

Wesbild’s Jen Derbyshire said the company needed a central location on Burke for builders to showcase their lots and homes to customers in the Foothills neighbourhood and “to tell our story” about what Wesbild has done on the mountain so far.

The city of Coquitlam — the largest landowner on Burke Mountain — plans to add another 24,000 residents to the lower slopes by 2020 in five master-planned villages: Upper Hyde Creek, Lower Hyde Creek, Smiling Creek, Partington Creek and Hazel Drive.

Wesbild undertook neighbourhood plan designs for Upper Hyde and Smiling creeks, a process that took several years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Wesbild has six builders for its sites responsible for construction of up to 1,600 residential units; they are: Morningstar Homes, Wallmark Homes, CP Homes, Foxridge Homes, Polygon Homes and Thomas Homes.

MacDonald Realty realtor Taryn Aragon said early spring is typically a good time for home sales. And with the poor economic climate, lending rates are low and prices are down — about $150,000 less than last year for some Burke properties, she said.

“Getting on the ground floor — in a new home, in a new community with new schools — from the beginning makes good investment sense because the prices are bound to go up sooner than later,” she said.

Dale Barron, president of Morningstar Homes, which is based in Coquitlam, said January was the best month in his company’s history, with 23 sales in five projects in the Lower Mainland. Last weekend, it sold seven homes in the Belmont neighbourhood on Burke, bringing its total sales for single-family detached homes to about 60 (it bought 155 lots from Wesbild last fall).

Like Morningstar, Thomas Homes will have a sales representative at the Foothills information centre for its eight houses, located off David Avenue. To date, it has sold two.

“Things are pretty tough right now,” owner Thomas Hogge said, “but more people come out to look in the spring so we’re expecting things to pick up a bit.”

The builders’ and realtor’s comments come as the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. announced yesterday it’s forecasting sharply lower levels of house starts for the next two years and sliding home sales because of the global recession. CMHC also predicts existing home sales to drop 14.6% this year.

Belmont Walk, Polygon’s collection of heritage-inspired duplex homes at The Foothills in Coquitlam will open for sale, showcasing two display homes. The homes are up to 2,600 square feet and four-bedrooms with open floor plans.

 The maintained lawns and gardens offer convenience for hectic lives. The burgeoning neighbourhood of The Foothills will welcome its residents with new schools, community parks, and dedicated pedestrian and cycling routes, while also remaining connected to the metropolitan advantages of Coquitlam Town Centre through just a short drive.  

There are a limited number of homes with prices starting at just $419,900. 

Call TEAM ARAGON today for an appointment and personal tour!

The Foxridge Homes community named Burke Mountain Heights in Coquitlam will be offering previews of the homes to come. There will be an information package available and a limited number of homes for sale.

Foxridge Homes, a Qualico Developments company is building 26 single family homes at Burke Mountain Heights.  Each home will boast three or four bedrooms upstairs, soaring ten foot main floor ceilings, huge windows with transoms above, double attached garages, fully landscaped front and rear yards including fencing, and beautiful finishings throughout. Best of all, you don’t have to choose from limiting set color schemes, you can customize your home in our on site Design Centre.

Call Team Aragon today for your appointment. We look forward to giving you a personal tour!

And our dullest national trait -- common sense -- is singled out by influential Newsweek editor and columnist Fareed Zakaria as "the genius of the Canadians."

Zakaria writes Canada is in good shape to withstand the recession because it did not follow the U.S. and Europe, which loosened regulations on financial industries over the past 15 years.

"Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1 -- compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1, and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1," he writes in a column.

"Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize."

Canada has been protected from the worst of this crisis because its housing prices have not fluctuated as wildly as those in the United States, he notes.

"Home prices are down 25 per cent in the United States, but only half as much in Canada. Why? Well, the Canadian tax code does not provide the massive incentive for overconsumption that the U.S. code does: interest on your mortgage isn't deductible up north.

"Ah, but you've heard American politicians wax eloquent on the need for these expensive programs -- interest deductibility alone costs the federal government $100 billion a year -- because they allow the average Joe to fulfill the American Dream of owning a home. Sixty-eight per cent of Americans own their own homes. And the rate of Canadian homeownership? It's 68.4 per cent."

Zakaria suggests Canada is well positioned to take advantage of the global downturn.

"Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors," he gushes. "Yup, it's Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system the healthiest in the world. America's ranked 40th, Britain's 44th."

"Canada has been remarkably responsible over the past decade or so. It has had 12 years of budget surpluses, and can now spend money to fuel a recovery from a strong position."

Call TEAM ARAGON to arrange your viewing appointment.

Vancouver Sun January 30, 2009

B.C. will become the first province in Canada to license home inspectors to protect buyers, the province's Solicitor General John van Dongen announced Friday in Vancouver.

"A home is the single biggest investment most British Columbians make but financial risk can be the result of an incorrect or misleading report from an unqualified inspector," said van Dongen in a news release. "Whether they're buying their first condo or starter home, dream or retirement home, consumers need to have confidence that the person who is doing the inspection has the qualifications to make a professional assessment."

Up until now, home inspection training has been voluntary, and consumers have had no way of knowing if the inspector they hired were adequately knowledgeable.

As of March 31, the government will assess qualifications of people who want to work as home inspectors in this Province, deal with complaints from consumers and monitor compliance through inspections and enforcements, with penalties as high as $5,000.

Courtesy of: The Vancouver Sun