You could WIN
$15,000
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Coffee With: Read why a homebuyer and his family love their new house
Come home to $15,000 worth of furnishings, home electronics and groceries . . . from Visions Electronics, Save-On-Foods and The Brick. Contest runs May 7 to May 31, 2009. Check out MetroVancouver’s new homes and play along each week to increase your chance of winning.
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May 14, 2009
Choices that let you customize
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5/7/09 4:57:48 PM
Professor Tsur Somerville, UBC Sauder School of Business, tours the Olympic athletes’ village at Vancouver’s False Creek.
Rob Newell photo
Winter Games 2010: it’s our chance to shine Impact on the housing market will depend on location and the economy The year 2010 seemed far away in July 2003, when International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge first announced the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games will be hosted by Vancouver. Now, the Games are just around the cor-
ner – less than nine months away – and the potential impacts of the international event on the Greater Vancouver area are being bandied about by experts and professionals in all fields. Many wonder what the Olympics will mean for the housing market, before and after the Games. For Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver president Scott Russell, the Olympics presents an opportunity to showcase B.C. and the Lower Mainland on the world stage.
“We’re excited. The spotlight is going to be on our province,” he says. “We have a world-class city... we want people to look at Vancouver and say, ‘Wow, this is a great place to live.’” Hosting Expo ’86 “really launched” a housing boom in the province, but whether or not that happens after the 2010 Games, hosting the Olympics will help raise Greater Vancouver’s profile in the international CONTINUED ON P.2
From floor plans to colour schemes, Wallmark Homes is allowing buyers to use their own style to the design the home they want. And where else would this be more evident than at their scenic Birchwood Estates, located at Coquitlam’s The Foothills? “The whole lower level is like you’re walking out onto your lawn,” says Tina Giustino, project co-ordinator for SCI, noting the development’s characteristic walk-out basements in the hilly community on Burke Mountain. “From a finished basement to an unfinished basement, a lot of people can design their own basement and pick what they want.” An established company in the Greater Vancouver area, Wallmark has received commendation for their home quality and their ability to meet buyers’ needs. Giustino adds that she has noticed Wallmark’s ability to build a wonderful, family home and praises the big and spacious rooms of Birchwood’s homes as well as the company’s unique approach to giving its buyers the customization they want. “[Wallmark] has got a number of models and you go in and say, ‘Do this, this and this,’” she says. “I think in today’s market that’s pretty reasonable.” READ MORE ON P.5