I Recently came across this great youtube video that explains in simple terms how a heatpump works.  click to view!

In a precedent setting case, a Surrey woman is being forced to sell her condo over multiple complaints from neighbours and unpaid strata fines.  On Tuesday, the province’s highest court has upheld a rare judgment that ordered the woman to sell her condo.  The people who lived in the same building as Rose Jordison and her son Jordy say calling them the “neighbours from hell” would be an understatement.

Since 2006, the Jordisons had generated more than a thousand complaints, many of them relating to noise and abuse.  Neighbours claimed the son stomped around the suite, screamed obscenities at residents, made rude gestures and even spat at them.  Some residents had even taken to wearing cameras to record the confrontations.

A video released to Global News shows Jordy Jordison splashing water on one of his neighbours.

After a long legal battle, the court of appeal has agreed with a lower court ruling that said forcing the Jordisons to sell is justified in such extreme cases.  “It simply looks at the balancing of individual rights and community rights, particularly in a strata,” says strata lawyer Phil Dougan. “We think it is going to be massive here in British Columbia.”

Dougan says they hope the ruling will have a deterrent effect for those causing trouble to re-think their behaviour.

Geoff Hastings and Yuliya Talmazan  Global News

http://globalnews.ca/news/965874/watch-precedent-setting-case-could-serve-as-warning-for-condo-owners-across-b-c/

Home Price Index debuts in Greater Victoria today
Carla Wilson / Times Colonist

October 31, 2013 10:05 PM

The new standard for real estate statistics is expected to benefit buyers and sellers. 

A new way of analyzing and illustrating real estate sales and trends is being rolled out in Greater Victoria today.
The Home Price Index is designed to deliver a more accurate and reliable picture of housing prices by tracking prices
levels for a typical or “benchmark” home in a community.

Real estate watchers are used to seeing monthly statistics showing average and median prices in the region for
properties sold through the Victoria Real Estate Board’s Multiple Listing Service.

But the local real estate board has cautioned for years that averages are easily skewed depending on the value of
home sales. Last month, for example, 12 single-family houses sold for more than $1 million.

An average is calculated by adding up the prices and then dividing by the number of sales. A median is the mid-way
between the high and low prices. 

This system shows home prices based on features in a home, said David Corey, executive officer of the Victoria
board. A typical home will include quantitative features, such as the number of rooms and bathrooms, and its age, as
well as qualitative features such as proximity to amenities and renovations.

The Victoria board will continue releasing the old data table, listing average and median prices, for the next few
months so that people can compare the systems, said Maggie Kerr-Southin, board communications manager.
The index is already used by real estate boards in Calgary, Greater Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, Montreal, Toronto
and the Canadian Real Estate Association. Vancouver Island’s board (largely representing the area north of the
Malahat) will also be participating.

Cameron Muir, chief economist for the B.C. Real Estate Association, said the Home Price Index provides a “much
more accurate picture” than averages and median prices. The old system is easier to misread.
“Average prices are subject to a lot of volatility, or what we call skewing. Any given month, you can have a whole
bunch of luxury waterfront homes sell, and then the next month they don’t and it looks like prices have gone up and
then fallen.”  The statistical model extracts the attributes of a typical home in a community and then assigns values to that and creates a benchmark price out of that, he said.

Ronan O’Sullivan, a 20-year realtor with Remax Camosun, said the introduction of the Home Price Index is good for
both sellers and buyers. “This will enhance the way real estate agents approach pricing a home and how buyers
structure their offers by using the more detailed and accurate statistical information the [index] provides,” he said.
Monthly statistics providing average and median selling prices “were often misleading and did little to help establish
property values or market trend information,” said O’Sullivan. “Conventional wisdom in arriving at a value for a specific
property is to compare the property in question to recent sales and current competing listings in the immediate
neighbourhood. “The rationale for comparing neighbourhood-specific properties goes to the “location-location-location” concept.  Comparing properties in other areas without regard to the location differences could lead to incorrect estimates of value.”

The Home Price Index offers the real estate agent performing a home evaluation more precise neighbourhood
information, said O’Sullivan. It is updated monthly and also allows for accurate side-by-side neighbourhood trend
comparison by property type. It is also highly useful for agents acting for buyers in developing negotiating strategies
for offers, he added.
© Copyright 2013