REAL VALUE » Innovation

Breaking New Ground in “Green” Housing

cmhcauthor — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 01:56:04 +0000

CMHC’s newest EQuilibrium™ Housing demonstration home opens its doors in Winnipeg

EQuilibrium™ Housing is a national initiative led by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) that brings the private and public sectors together to develop homes that are energy- and resource-efficient, environmentally friendly, and healthy to live in.

To help Canadians learn first-hand about sustainable housing, CMHC has been working with teams of designers, architects, builders and developers to design, construct and demonstrate EQuilibrium™ Sustainable Housing Demonstration homes across the country. The latest of these projects to open its doors to the public is Winnipeg’s Urban Ecology — a two-storey duplex located on an infill site in the heart of the city’s downtown core.

Designed by Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation (WHRC), Urban Ecology includes energy-efficient and resource-conscious features and on-site integrated renewable energy systems. The result is an attractive and highly advanced “green” home that significantly reduces its energy consumption and minimizes its environmental footprint.

Among its other innovations, the Urban Ecology home features:

An accessible, adaptable and attractive open-concept design;
Locally-produced and environmentally-appropriate building materials, to reduce pollution and enhance indoor air quality;
Energy-efficient lighting and appliances designed to reduce energy consumption to as little as 17 percent of the energy used in a typical Canadian home;
Passive solar heating and a four-panel flat plate solar collector system to help heat the home and provide hot water;
A drain water heat recovery system that is predicted to decrease the home’s hot water heating requirements by close to 20 percent;
A photovoltaic (PV) energy system which will be connected to the local power grid, allowing the occupants to “sell” excess energy back to Manitoba Hydro;
Advanced water-conserving features and fixtures, including rain gardens and the ability to harvest rainwater runoff from the roof for landscaping during dry spells;
An air-tight high-performance building envelope to provide a comfortable living environment.

For more information about this project, the CMHC EQuilibrium™ Sustainable Housing Demonstration Initiative or to schedule a tour of a demonstration home near you, visit our website at www.cmhc.ca/equilibriumhousing or call CMHC at 1-800-668-2642. For more than 60 years, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has been Canada’s national housing agency and a source of objective, reliable housing information.

EFFECTS OF U.S. DOLLAR PARITY

Marcus Assalone — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:37:30 +0000

On March 17^th 2010, trading of the Canadian dollar rose to just over 0.992¢ in U.S. dollars, bringing thoughts of Dollar parity with the United States. The problems of the United States dollar are well known and documented. Their greatest problem is the historic levels of debt in the nation. Deficit spending is rattling the value of their dollar, because when the government needs money, they simply print dollars, degrading the value of the currency. China has been happy to buy U.S. debt up to now, as the Chinese want to keep their Renminbi more or less pegged to the U.S. dollar. However, the United States is planning on increasing their costs, and thus their deficit, not reducing it. Another source of instability is whether or not China will continue this debt buying policy. Many believe that dollar parity with the U.S. will be an extended period lasting at least many years.

Such a situation raises havoc in Canada as our exports to the United States look less attractive. Canada already had problems convincing U.S. consumers to buy our products because of their debt problems. This is another factor to compound the matter even more. In fact, Canadians are more likely to buy U.S. manufactured goods because parity make them much more appealing. Cross border shopping in New York State has become popular to those of us in South-Western Ontario, and I am sure in other parts of the country close the U.S. border as well. The already reduced prices on the U.S. inventory of homes make them irresistible investments! To us in Ontario, parity is a double whammy, as lower exports will mean, less good paying jobs, and also our real estate will have to compete with properties in the United States.

You may have heard that home prices are based on the previous sale price of a similar home in the same neighbourhood. In practice, this is not the case, especially in a downward trending market. Values of homes have more of a relationship with how many people are employed in the local area. This is why the unemployment rate is so important to real estate investors.

Starting July 1^st 2010, the Bank of Canada will begin to raise its overnight lending rate, causing Canadian banks to raise mortgage rates. Higher lending costs will remove some potential homebuyers from the market and will also begin to impede the mortgage service ability of some who have already purchased their home. Many of them will forced to sell their home. This process will not be an overnight thing, but the sale prices of homes will be forced downward because of this pressure.

Where will house prices end their fall? I personally believe that the gains from spring 2009 to the present date are not caused because of improvements to the economic situation. Wages have not increased, employment has not decreased, trade has not increased, and economic growth has not exceeded anything that we used to attribute to inflation. So, the rise we have seen in home prices in 2009, I believe will be eroded. Of course, I am speaking generally; there will be exceptions to this. There are some asset types in Toronto that I am sure will hold their value, and there are also some property types in the GTA who have already seen an erosion of their home prices. If you want to know my opinion on your specific case, please contact me I will be happy to perform this evaluation for you. In general though, look for the average sale prices of homes to fall.

It has never been more important to use the services of a Realtor than in the current economic climate. Whenever I assist a client purchase a property they know that the performance of the investment is well researched and fits into the goals for their life. I always guide my clients to buy an asset that enriches their life. Together, no matter the obstacles we will find the home of your dreams and a supporter for your future.

MICROSOFT SURFACE

Marcus Assalone — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:58:55 +0000

With Microsoft Surface, we catch a
glimpse of the future of computing. It is a
computer platform where the interface is a table top.
Cameras identify human movement and translate that
into an interaction with digital items just as if they
were physical objects. There is no keyboard, or
mouse.

Many users can use the same surface
at the same time, so it is ideal for collaborative
ventures.

The price tag right now is around
$12,500 and
at the moment it is available only for commercial
locations like hotels and banks.

In the future, it will be able to
communicate with other electronic devices like cell
phones so that it would function as shown in the video
to the right.

A similar device will
eventually replace your coffee table, or even
integrated into household appliances.

What is Microsoft Surface?

This week Coldwell Banker
revealed the first real estate property search
application for the platform, that is sure to be
template for the future.

Not only can you research
homes, but also neighborhoods and amenities.

You can look at photos, videos,
maps, and build an itinerary of properties you would
like to visit.

Coldwell Banker has always been at
the forefront of using new technologies, making
searching easier and marketing your home to a larger
audience.

The Microsoft Surface platform has been criticized for being an oversized iPhone, being nothing more that a gimmick because it really doesn’t offer any more functionality than an ordinary computer. However, the real reason for investing in this project really is not so much its present rewards, but, (like investing in real estate itself) the real reward comes in the future. Coldwell Banker is the oldest real estate company in the world and we keep adding to our greatest asset. With Coldwell Banker’s Microsoft Surface application, it forced us to look at information from new angles, imagining what consumers will demand in the future. We have learned a lot about how best to convert a physical home into an easier to manipulate digital one, experimenting with what information the consumer expects to have in that representation.

This project is just one of our research ventures, there are other tools that we have pioneered and are in use right now to help our clients. If you are buying or selling, ask me about some of the technologies I deploy on your behalf that our competition are not able to offer. When you are talking about the place you call home, you will want to have an edge over your competition.