Vancouver-based Aedis Appraisals Ltd. is branching out this month, formally launching two new Aedis-branded divisions that will handle property management and residential sales, respectively. The unique combination aims to diversify the company’s offerings while applying background in the business of property valuation to building value for clients.
“As an appraiser and risk consultant for banks, I know what lenders want to see as far as financial and maintenance diligence in a strata, which a typical strata manager would not,” said Jason Upton, president of Aedis and a partner in the venture with industry veteran Derwyn Owen.
Similarly, in establishing a sales division – a unique area of business for an appraisal firm – Upton sees the potential to draw on an understanding of valuation to price properties appropriately.
“When making offers or listing properties, we can take our appraisal valuation skills and apply them directly to that,” he said.
Upton’s two decades of experience in appraisals blend with Owen’s five decades working for senior levels of government, teaching and work as a strata manager for Crosby Property Management Ltd.
The management company will offer online strata records management to clients, giving strata councils, unit owners and realtors convenient access to the records needed to document or understand properties.
The online shift is part of a growing move in the real estate sector as companies seek to help strata residents manage the documentation they’re required to keep. Companies like Gastown’s Thiink Strata offers online records management and social networking tools to property managers and owners, for example, and North Vancouver’s Conasys Inc., which offers online management of building documentation.
Golf-oriented properties face difficulties, with rumours of trouble swirling around various projects from Bear Mountain on Vancouver Island to Tower Ranch in Kelowna.
But that’s not stopping Calgary-based Bellstar Hotels and Resorts from proceeding with a new project in the Okanagan resort market. Recent editions of this column have documented some of the optimism sprouting in the Okanagan Valley this year, the latest being Bellstar’s plans for Canyon Desert Resort, a venture with the Osoyoos Indian Band and Vancouver-based Watermark Asset Management Ltd.
September 28 will see 20 course-hugging villas offered for sale. The course is in Oliver, and the sales launch follows plans for 40 units as part of the Spirit Ridge Residence Club at the band’s Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort above Osoyoos, which Bellstar also manages.
Pricing begins at $299,000, an attractive cut below the $489,000 tag on the Spirit Ridge residences (though an eighth interest can be had for as little as $80,000).
Boosting the finishes on residences is giving consumers a taste of luxury that doesn’t break the bank – either the consumer’s or the developer’s – according to Bellstar president and CEO Ed Romanowski, reflecting the still-cautious state of the Okanagan market.
The low pricing is also in evidence at the Waterfront project in Kelowna, where Trasolini Chetner Construction Corp. has sold 11 of 20 units this summer at prices as low as $949,000 – $800,000 below 2007 pricing. Three offers are pending. Trasolini Chetner is offering to carry financing costs and strata fees until buyers take possession of units next summer as an incentive for those who put down 30% on a unit.
A recent visit of colleagues from California garnered a few noteworthy observations on the up-and-coming Eastside neighbourhoods of Gastown, the Woodward’s district and points east (at least as far as Oppenheimer Park).
While the binner rummaging through a dumpster at the end of Blood Alley as we made our way back to Salt Tasting Room for a post-ambulatory libation added to the colour of the tour, the overall impression was of a clean city. This comment being made, mind, walking up Gore shortly after passing Oppenheimer Park. Strathcona and Chinatown have nothing on San Francisco’s Tenderloin, testimony as much to the positive changes in the Downtown Eastside in recent years as to the tame nature of Vancouver’s issues relative to those of other cities.
Perhaps the most trenchant observation came while passing the boutiques on West Cordova at the beginning of the walkabout.
Use of the monikers “urban” and “modern” in many of the shops’ names stood out, a point not lost on the visitors. A need to remind shoppers that Vancouver offers the urban and modern, perhaps? It was almost distracting, they felt, given local architecture – the towering new Woodward’s complex with photographer Stan Douglas’ “Abbot & Cordova, 7 August 1971” installation being an especial point of interest.