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Tag: Temple Sholom Men’s Club

Real estate in time of COVID

Real estate in time of COVID

Michael Geller at the groundbreaking of ConWest’s IRONWORKS development in 2017. (photo from Michael Geller)

The COVID pandemic and the months of social isolation it created will have impacts on real estate prices, urban design and human behaviours, says a local expert. But the changes are not likely to be revolutionary so much as accelerate trends already underway.

Michael Geller, an architect, planner, real estate consultant and property developer, spoke to the Temple Sholom Men’s Club in a virtual event via the meeting platform Zoom May 25. (For more on the club, click here.) Geller is also adjunct professor in Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Sustainable Community Development and a longtime leader in Jewish communal organizations. His topic was Real Estate in the Era of COVID.

“Housing sales are down significantly and are as low as they have been in recent memory,” he said. Wages have been dramatically impacted for an enormous number of individuals and household debt is increasing significantly. Many renters are unable to meet their payments.

Housing sales are affected by the obvious issues of economics, but also because buyers and sellers are reticent about the physical interaction required in the process of viewing potential homes. Sales have not entirely collapsed, though, he noted.

“There are still some bidding wars for more affordable condos, priced under $700,000,” said Geller, adding: “Can you imagine 30 years ago being told that affordable condos would be under 700,000? It just shows you what has happened to our market in recent years.”

While sales are down, there has not been a significant increase in the supply of either listings or new homes coming to market, he said. “So, at the moment, we aren’t seeing the dramatic drop in prices that many assumed, myself included, would occur.”

What may occur is a stalling of new construction because lenders are cautious. “They don’t want to lend money for anyone to buy land at the moment,” he said. “This is a significant factor.”

While there were many years when there was almost no purpose-built rental housing created, this has shifted, with about 4,000 new units this year in the city proper and 9,300 in Metro Vancouver. This supply, combined with the economic challenges brought about by the pandemic, have had impacts on rental rates. “For the first time in a long time, we are starting to see a softening of rent,” he said.

Foreign investment has been credited with playing an outsized role in property values in recent decades and some commentators speculate that buyers may be “circling like vultures” in the event of comparative real estate bargains in British Columbia, he said.

Geller noted the opposite could occur, however, as the market softens. “Some of the people who came, especially from mainland China but also Hong Kong and Europe, might actually divest themselves of their investments and pull out of the Vancouver market,” he said.

International events will also likely play a role. Uncertainty and upheaval around changes in China’s governance of Hong Kong could make Canada very appealing, especially to the 300,000 residents of Hong Kong who have Canadian citizenship.

“We have a high level of personal safety and, when you think about it, that is one of the most important considerations,” he said. “You can have all the money in the world but if you don’t feel safe in your home at night, you may not necessarily stay in that home.”

British Columbia’s recognized success in dealing with the pandemic has enhanced its international image. “As we start to focus more and more on health issues, that cannot be ignored,” he said.

Foreign investment in Vancouver has dropped significantly since the implementation of the foreign buyers’ tax.

“Will those foreign buyers come back, even if they have to pay 20% premium?” Geller asked. “If they don’t come back, and if that means local developers decide not to build, whether it be rental or condominiums, and we start to see significant unemployment of all those construction workers … then it may well be that the government says, you know, this is a difficult situation, these are unprecedented times and maybe they’ll just decide that, for the next two years, the foreign buyers tax will be reduced to five percent rather than 20% in order to stimulate the economy.”

On the commercial real estate front, the experience of working from home may change our relationship to the office. If people continue working remotely, that could reduce demand for office space. On the flip side, new ideas of personal space and social distancing could mean that people come to expect fewer workers in more space, thereby increasing demand.

If more people do opt for remote work options, some may choose to move to more affordable and remote locations. Home design might adapt to include formal workspaces so that people aren’t using kitchen counters as desks. Condo towers and apartment buildings might opt for hotel-style shared business centres rather than spas. They may move toward more “touchless tech” – a familiar example being the Shabbat elevator.

As stores reopen, retailers may see a decline in shoppers, but Geller suspects that warehouse space is headed for a bull market. “As more and more people are buying online, there is a need for more and more warehouse space to store all this product before it’s delivered,” he said. “This applies not just to clothing and giftware, it applies to food and other goods that are stored in cold warehouses.”

Looking at social changes that have resulted from pandemics in previous centuries, Geller said, “One of the things that came out of [earlier pandemics] was an appreciation of the need for more parks and green space throughout the cities. Central Park in New York, that was created by the New York City Board of Health because of the belief that this would lead to improved human environmental health for everybody in the city. In most European cities and many other American cities, large parks and green networks were created to help people lead healthier lives.”

Improved sanitation, water supply and sewage treatment systems were also at least partly a result of these catastrophes. Home design changed, including the advent of sleeping porches, based on the understanding that fresh air was preferable to stuffy interiors. The modern bathroom, including the proliferation of white tiles that both made it easier to clean and added to the perception of sterility, emerged. Wooden toilet seats, which were the norm, were replaced by plastic ones.

“The powder room became a creation in a larger house because the man who came to deliver the coal or to deliver the ice, you didn’t want them going through your house using your bathroom, so powder rooms became popular,” he said.

Though he had plenty of ideas, Geller was emphatic that he didn’t really know what the future holds. But he has some confidence about a general forecast.

“Often,” he said, “pandemics and similar sorts of events accelerate changes that were already happening.”

Format ImagePosted on June 12, 2020June 11, 2020Author Pat JohnsonCategories LocalTags coronavirus, COVID-19, finance, Jewish life, real estate, Temple Sholom Men's Club
Men’s club is booming

Men’s club is booming

Members of Temple Sholom Men’s Club at last year’s Whistler retreat. This year’s event, scheduled for May but canceled due to the pandemic, was to focus on indigenous issues. (photo from templesholom.ca)

Temple Sholom Men’s Club, which hosted the Michael Geller talk May 25 (click here for story), is catching the attention of the larger Reform movement for bucking the trend of declining vibrancy among synagogue men’s groups. In the process, say its leaders, they are also taking a stab at reducing the sociological phenomenon of men experiencing a dwindling social circle.

The synagogue has seen its men’s club grow from defunct to 260 members since being revived in 2016.

President Larry Bloom and vice-president David Schwartz credit the success to individual members stepping up to organize programming. But they also think one of the keys to success is identifying a particular need for men of all ages in the shul community.

Traditionally, they say, sisterhoods have had clear objectives, including fundraising and specific projects. Men’s groups have tended to be more amorphous in terms of their mission.

“Men’s clubs are traditionally, I think, a ‘what have you done for me lately’-type of deal,” said Bloom. “Typically, men’s club programming is maybe a softball team, a dozen guys in the summer, may be a bagel and bite before services, maybe a poker game at somebody’s house once a month or once a season.”

The Temple Sholom Men’s Club reinvigorated itself through a range of programs with what they call “added value.”

A trip to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra – one of the club’s “co-ed” events – featured a pre-event talk by Gordon Cherry, a former trombonist for the orchestra, as well as from a current VSO member. Movie nights feature guest speakers. When they screened Above and Beyond, the Nancy Spielberg film about the Israel Air Force, Temple member Mark Elster, who served in the Israel Defence Forces, spoke.

Other activities include a regular Mix-and-Mingle before services, family outings to Vancouver Canadians baseball games, beer and wine tastings, educational events, a Men’s Café with Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, the shul’s senior rabbi, Jewish walking tours, and seminars and workshops on topics such as How to Make Your Seder Fun and Meaningful, and Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. Their annual fundraiser – a latke sale that this year fried and sold 1,000 of the Chanukah treats – donates revenue to the Temple Sholom school.

A popular annual retreat in Whistler, scheduled for May but canceled due to the pandemic, was to focus on indigenous issues, including First Nations speakers and a blanket ceremony.

Another popular recurring event is Pastrami and Poker, in which a professional poker facilitator comes in with casino-calibre tables and the mood is distinctly high-stakes. The price of admission includes pastrami sandwiches and $5,000 in chips.

“We play a little Sinatra Spotify in the background and you feel like you’ve gone to Vegas,” said Schwartz. A retired lawyer, Schwartz assures that everything is in line with provincial gaming regulations. At the end of the night, winnings are prorated and paid out in raffle tickets, which are drawn for some swanky donated prizes like high-end Scotch.

Bloom is especially proud that the club attracts men from every age group, something that is not always the case in such forums, he said.

“That was always important to us, that we didn’t narrow our range and just go after the boomers and older,” he said.

The success is a counterweight to the known phenomenon that men’s close friendships tend to dwindle as life progresses.

“I don’t think guys go out of their way to say, ‘Gee, I wish I had more friends,’” said Bloom. “But I think most guys, if they were honest, would probably say, ‘I wish I had more buddies.’… That was very important to us right from the start. Let’s bring guys together, give them a venue, give them an opportunity to come together, socialize and then maybe some bonding will happen after that.”

Bloom, who stresses that his title of president is mostly for administrative purposes and the club functions cohesively as a non-hierarchical group, also credits the success to the support of the synagogue.

“We get a lot of support from the shul, a lot of support from our president of the board, from the board itself, from Rabbi Dan for sure,” he said. “I’m not sure every synagogue gives their men’s club the kind of support we get.”

Format ImagePosted on June 12, 2020June 11, 2020Author Pat JohnsonCategories LocalTags David Schwartz, Jewish life, Larry Bloom, Temple Sholom Men's Club
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