The strong sellers’ market appears to be nearing an end in this province. The British Columbia Real Estate Association expects more modest housing-price increases in 2008 compared with the previous year across most of the province. The only exceptions are the Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board’s and the Victoria Real Estate Board’s areas, where the average multiple-listing-service prices are forecast to rise at slightly higher rates than in 2007.

A BC Housing spokesperson has confirmed that a phased development of the Little Mountain Housing complex on Main Street, between 33rd and 37th avenues, probably won’t be possible.

The Vancouver city planning commission has asked city council to fund a neighbourhood-amenity mapping project at a cost of $30,000. In a report going to council’s standing committee on planning and environment on Thursday (May 1), the advisory body is asking council to set aside the money to help better understand how to adapt old buildings to modern uses.

Making a deal is as important as working safe for Karin Davidson.

The debate is on over what environmental standard Mayor Sam Sullivan’s EcoDensity initiative should set for private buildings in Vancouver.

Every year, real-estate marketer Bob Rennie speaks to members of the Urban Development Institute’s Vancouver chapter. This year, the annual general meeting is scheduled for May 15, and Rennie plans to carry on where he left off last year: talking about affordability. He ended his 2007 speech by asking where police officers, firefighters, and other wage earners could buy homes.

The B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld a decision by the registrar of mortgage brokers to refuse to allow a convicted cocaine trafficker to apply for a licence until 2014. The registrar, former police officer Alan Clark, rejected Eugenio Pugliese’s application last year for a submortgage broker’s licence, concluding that Pugliese was “unsuitable and his proposed registration is objectionable”.

For more than three decades, Michael Geller has been one of the best-known figures in the Lower Mainland real-estate sector. Once the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation project manager on the development of South False Creek, Geller later headed his own real-estate consulting and development firm. He also spent some time as president of the Urban Development Institute, and he probably still has a few scars from when he was the frontman for developments going before city councils.

Former Vancouver city councillor Alan Herbert knows some things about the effect of rapid-transit projects on urban real-estate markets.

Tucked away on the eastern shores of Vancouver Island, the little town of Ladysmith is abuzz over a proposed residential development by its most famous native, Hollywood sex symbol and animal-rights advocate Pamela Anderson.

The Greater Vancouver Housing Corporation is moving cautiously to designate nonsmoking rental accommodations in its properties in the absence of a law against smoking in multi-unit residential buildings.

With his February 26 federal budget, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has rejected two proposals from the real-estate industry to address high housing costs in Canadian cities.

Vision Vancouver councillor Heather Deal suggests that if Mayor Sam Sullivan had stuck with the word sustainability, neighbourhood associations wouldn’t be feeling anxious about “EcoDensity”.

Housing activists want millions of dollars held by an investment agency on behalf of the B.C. Liberal government to go towards building houses for the province’s growing homeless population.

Until recently, Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General John Les didn’t appear to be a great fan of the idea of regulating home inspectors. When NDP housing critic Diane Thorne noted during question period at the legislative assembly that there are no provincial certification requirements, the B.C. Liberal minister scoffed at the suggestion to regulate the profession.