Downtown Eastside to Introduce New Vancouver Micro Lofts - Small Condos at 18 West Hastings Street - Affordable Vancouver Rental Housing

Vancouver Micro Lofts Coming to Downtown Soon!

Small condos also known as downtown Vancouver Micro Lofts will soon be coming to town. Providing new and affordable housing, thirty of these Vancouver micro lofts will be built by the same team that built the Woodwards Gastown high-rise condo and mixed use development. On Monday, the announcement will be made about the creation of 30 micro lofts for downtown Vancouver Eastside by Reliance Properties Ltd. And ITC Construction Group. The redevelopment of the downtown Vancouver Eastside real estate district wil be made at 18 West Hastings. Currently, the historic Burns Block complex is on site and the redevelopment will consist of a redo of the six storey Burns Block in the Vancouver micro lofts or small condos. The micro lofts of Vancouver will consist of 270 sq ft units and will represent the smallest rental units in the entire units. It is compared as being two parking stalls at two hundred and seventy square feet, meaning that these tight spaces will do away with modern doodads and other things not required for daily living. The official launch and announcement of the Vancouver Micro Lofts coming to 18 West Hastings Street will be this coming Monday, January 25th, 2010. With the launch of 30 new affordable rental housing units in the downtown Eastside of Vancouver, the area will gradually redevelop into a liveable and sustainable community says the development team. By cutting out all the non-essentials that usually go into the construction and pricing on new pre-construction condos, these new Vancouver Micro Lofts at 18 West Hastings Street will have minimal features that are not essential for daily living, providing more affordable spaces. The initial designs will be released soon, and according to some analysts, the 270 sqft micro lofts will contain beautiful bathrooms and kitchens as well as built in beds. In addition, these downtown Vancouver micro-lofts will also have over height ceilings. While the project was originally passed by Vancouver City Council back in 2008, no movement has been made as the construction team was busy working on the Woodwards Gastown project.

More about Micro Lofts in Vancouver Eastsid

With much research having been done on the viability and liveability within a micro loft in downtown Vancouver Eastside, many people have compared these compact living spaces to those that have successfully been built and integrated into cities within Asia as well as Europe. In many cases, a lot of people are not willing to give up on the amount of living space they have be cause of comfort and reliability of storage. However, with property prices and rental rates still skyrocketing in downtown Vancouver, these Vancouver micro lofts in the eastside of downtown will provide affordable rental housing for those who require a better price point but can sacrifice space. The vacancy rates are at all time lows and a typical bachelor suite now goes for roughly $950 per square foot. These new Vancouver micro lofts will be slightly smaller, but will provide a more affordable rental rate for those interested. Let’s see how the grand opening announcement of this 18 West Hastings Vancouver micro loft project and its reaction will be on Monday before making judgement calls.

City of Vancouver Approves Secondary Suites in the Sky - Essentially Vancouver Basement Suites or Condos Within Condos - Minimum Size of 280 sq ft

The City of Vancouver Council Passes “Mortgage Helpers” in the Sky for Condos within Condos

According to Metro Vancouver newspaper, the City of Vancouver has passed the bylaw that would allow for secondary suites within Vancouver high-rise condominiums. Citing a few problems with the current model, the City of Vancouver explained that availability as well as affordability are expected to rise with the ability to rent condos/rooms within condos legally in the City of Vancouver rental market. Secondary suites within high-rise Vancouver condominium towers are coming soon to the city, as new property developments will certainly take advantage of these incentives for mortgage helpers for new homebuyers. In a great move that will see the rise in the City of Vancouver’s rental condo stock and home affordability, the City of Vancouver coundil has agreed to the development of Vancouver secondary suites within condo homes. Often termed as mortgage helpers for sky suites, the City of Vancouver is the second municipality in the Lower Mainland to pass this form of secondary suite, just after Burnaby ok’d earlier this year. Just like a Vancouver basement suite, the Vancouver secondary suites in the sky will be lock-off units within condos that will be quite small, but affordable rentals. Much like UniverCity SFU Burnaby real estate development that is the first full-scale condominium project that has created floorplans that sustain secondary mortgage helpers and condos within condos, these Vancouver basement suites allow people to purchase a larger home while renting out these mortgage helpers to help pay down debt, and even make it more affordable for them to purchase new property. Many homebuyers may ultimately purchase a 3 bedroom condo with one of the bedrooms as a lock-off suite, as the Vancouver mortgage helpers or condominiums within condos will help pay part of the mortgage.

For details about the recently passed housing bylaw for legal Vancouver laneway housing, please refer to this link.

More About the Vancouver Secondary Suite Lock-Off Unit Plan

A secondary advantage of these Vancouver secondary suites is that it will help increase the Vancouver rental stock, which for decades has been very tight. With these basement suites or Vancouver lock-off suites the size of a small hotel room, the bylaws surrounding these mortgage helpers will be a minimum size of 280 sq ft with a bathroom, kitchen area. And for new Vancouver condo development, floorplans allowing lock-off suites down to 205 sq ft will be allowed upon a case by case scenario as long as all regulations are followed including security, storage and lighting in the Vancouver mortgage helper suite. Residentiaul suites the size of a five ton truck has never been seen in the rental Vancouver real estate market, so this is definitely a first. Allowing for families to age in place, homeowners can now rent out the suite before they have children and expand their own home during the time when their kids grow up, and then lock-it off again once their children leave, allowing Vancouver homeowners to effectively utilize and leverage their property investment. The City Council expects that it will take about 1 year before the first master-planned Vancouver condo real estate development will have secondary lock-off suites built into the floor plans. What people don’t realize is that the City of Vancouver allowed for secondary suites in the South Vancouver East Fraserlands real estate development.

More information about Burnaby lock-off suites and Burnaby secondary suites in the sky, please click here.

Rental Suites Inside Condos Approved by Vancouver City Council

According to Real Estate Weekly, the City of Vancouver have approved Vancouver lock-off suites within condos as small as two hundred and five square feet which is meant to ease the very tight rental market in the city. With Vancouver lock-off rental suites within condominiums becoming reality, many Vancouver condo owners will be able to rent out these ‘mortgage helpers’ to students or other individuals looking for small affordable spaces to live. Lending some of the approval to the City of Burnaby’s UniverCity development that saw the creation of these legal lock-off suites within condos, homebuyers in the Vancouver real estate market can now look from larger residences such as two and three bedroom condos and then rent out the legal rental suite within the condo to help with their mortgage payments, thereby making their own home into a valuable asset. With lock-off suites approved in Burnaby, the City of Vancouver has now followed suit, allowing for Vancouver lock-off suites within existing condos as small as 205 sq ft. In Burnaby, condo lock-off suites can be up to 240 square feet and were part of the UniverCity real estate master planned community for student housing. The rental suite or lock-off suite within the condo will have its own entrance, kitchen, bathroom and can be as small as 280 square feet in Vancouver down to 205 as a minimum as long as there is adequate lighting and storage for the tenant. Such rezoning and approval of Vancouver lock-off suites in condos will allow the densification of areas such as downtown Vancouver as well as Southeast False Creek in future developments. South Vancouver East Fraserlands had already gotten approval from City Council for secondary suites in strata units and that community is in its development stage right now.