Vancouver’s real estate market in the next 15 years will actually be two separate markets financed by one chequebook, real estate marketer and “condo king” Bob Rennie told an Urban Development Institute audience in Vancouver Thursday.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is dismissing fears about Canada’s housing market, saying the current slowdown is welcome news and that there is no need for further government intervention.

OTTAWA - Canadian snowbirds may soon be able to spend an extra two months nesting in their favourite sunshine state each year.

It’s old news that it’s expensive to live in Vancouver, where splashy headlines about terrible housing affordability are the norm. With a provincial election approaching, The Vancouver Sun surveyed experts for ideas about what a new government could do to make housing more affordable. The Sun also asked political parties what they would do if elected.

The high costs of development could be helping to drive up housing prices in the city of Vancouver, figures provided to The Vancouver Sun by the Urban Development Institute show. Various city development fees, community amenity charges and sustainability requirements add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of building a condominium unit in the city of Vancouver. Vancouver charges far more than Burnaby and Surrey, the figures show.

It’s in no danger from the dark lord Sauron’s minions, but one of Vancouver’s two “Hobbit Houses” is up for sale with the realtor hyping the potential to tear it down and build a bigger and newer home.

Even years after her first tenants moved out, Donna Grimshaw still remembers the damage the they did to her townhouse.

OTTAWA - Statistics Canada says its price index for new houses rose 0.1 per cent in March, after a 0.2 per cent increase in February.

Families building laneway homes adjacent to their main residence may be eligible for HST or GST rebates, depending on which tax was in force at the time of construction. But, as at least three Vancouver homeowners are finding out the hard way, don’t bet the farm.

West Vancouver is exploring whether to allow coach houses on single family lots to improve housing affordability and to increase the variety of housing available. Stephen Mikicich, a West Vancouver community planner, said this “gentler form of densification” could add options to an area that has many single family homes and a few apartments, but very little in between.

New ‘suburbia’ features affordable and sustainable housing close to shops, dining and transit

Bring home only the useful and the beautiful

Brentwood Bay on Saanich Inlet priced to reflect recessionary building-expenses

Five-storey Destiny addition to North Vancouver community a promise of glass-house-in-the-forest residency

Builders and their brokers put a lot of thought into the names of their buildings