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The receiver (www.bowragroup.com) decided to drop the prices to clear out all the remaining units in the Homer + Helmcken Yaletown building.
They will be accepting offers on site this weekend (Feb 7,8 2009).
There was an open house during the last 2 weekends.
Posted prices were from $266K for a 533 sq. ft studio to $599K for a 1273 sq. ft townhouse with Homer street and hallway entrance. My favourite (value wise) was the 605 unit: 2 Bedrooms + Flex (small office), 1 Bathroom, 721 sq. ft for a listed price of $379K
Some units are nice, but i think the pricing is not that great yet.
See the Bowra Group website for full details.

I believe the developers in Vancouver area are scared and are trying to unload inventory before a bigger price drop materializes.
Realistically, 500 sq ft downtown should be about $200K

As I wrote earlier Chandler’s group H+H Yaletown project , along with Garden City, Richmond went into receivership in November of 2007. The appointed receiver is The Bowra Group. They have submitted to the court a report about the 2 projects. Here is some interesting information from that report regarding H&H Yaletown (Homer and Helmcken in Vancouver):

1. “Construction on floors 14, 15, and 16 of the H&H project has been delayed due to development issues. While we believe that floors 1 through 13 will be completed along the budgeted timeframe, it is likely that floors 14 through 16 will not be completed until the middle of September at the earliest”
2. “The South side of the H&H property used to be a gas station. The gas station completed the appropriate environmental remediation work when it shut down and obtained a clearance certificate under commercial zoning requirements. It has been determined that the gas station was leaching hydrocarbons under Helmcken Street. There is a risk that groundwater may flow from Helmcken into the H&H property discharging hydrocarbon fumes. Preliminary approval has been obtained from the City to trap ground water that may contain hydrocarbons and drain it to the City sanitary system. To obtain final approval of this process drawings need to be prepared and submitted to the City and Ministry of Environment along with a report from an environmental engineer with water sampling test results. The city will also require quarterly water sampling until they are satisfied that the ground water standards meet environmental standardsWe estimate the cost to trap and drain the water, environmental consultants and application fees are $85K plus an additional $10K per year for water sampling until such time as the water testing samples comply with environmental standards”
3. “We estimate the additional funding requirement over and above the bcIMC construction funding total …$3.9M for H&H” The additional funding will be financed at 24% interest - WOW!
4. ” We have received several marketing proposals from various firms in connection with the sale of the condominium units. These proposals include proposals from MAC, KLM Marketing, Regent Park Real Estate and Rob Boies & Associates. In addition we contacted two other parties including Rennie & Associates and the Platinum Group. Both these parties advised that they were not prepared to submit proposals. In one case the firm was too busy, and in the other case, they were not prepared to be involved in a competitive bid process.”
5. “…4 penthouse sales: 2 to Mark Chandler, 1 to Wendy Young and 1 to Daniel Scott. All contracts are assumed to be canceled and resold at market value as these are non-arms length transactions and below market value”

There are still 9 unsold units in the H&H project, even though the sign on the street has SOLD OUT pasted over it.  The receiver states:
“There are 9 unsold units at the H&H Project. Anyone interested in purchasing a unit should contact Kimberlee Robertson at MAC Realty at 604-629-1515 ext 544. “

A prime development property in the center of Yaletown, Vancouver’s most chic neighborhood has now fallen into receivership. We are talking about H+H Yaletown, located at Homer and Helmcken. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, looks like the bubble is experiencing some discomfort.

We will have to watch this issue to see how it plays out. But this is not good for downtown ‘flippers’ and I know there are a few of you out there. Back on November 28, 2007 The Bowra Group was appointed as the receiver. Read the report to the court for some juicy tidbits. Funny thing is there are still a few assignments on craigslist for that development. Who is going to buy them now? Bowra has indicated that they would like to proceed with finishing the project, and that all pre-sale contracts that were sold at fair market value will be honoured. The estimated cost of completion will be $3.7M. They did find a company willing to finance that, so now we will have to wait for the court to approve.

There still are 9 unsold units in that development, according to Bowra.

link to the report: reciever’s manager report to the court