Many people view real estate appraisers as someone your lender insists must be hired before they will lend the money you require. Appraisers are always called towards the end of the process after everyone else has decided what the value of a property is. Should the appraiser conclude a value different than the preconceived value, then the appraiser is the reason the deal did not close or a mortgage could not be obtained.

I have always believed that appraisers should be consulted much sooner in the process - either when someone is purchasing a property or seeking to finance or refinance a property. An appraiser who has had years of experience can assist a purchaser with their due diligence, point out recent market activity and provide the purchaser with market data to assist in the negotiation. When seeking financing, the borrower who has a current appraisal report can usually obtain a quicker response from the lender.

I guess that is enough self-promotion for this month, now on to the latest real estate sales and news.

SALES

January started with a bang with the Glenview OFFICE BUILDING portfolio sale to Bentall/Penreal. The portfolio consisted of Carling Executiv Park, Park of Commerce, 1900 City Park Drive and 100-130 Colonnade Road. The total purchase price was $120,870,000 for 10 office buildings and 15.12 acres of excess land. The portfolio is broken down as follows:

Carling Executive Park is a three building, 303,813 sq.ft. office park that sold for $39,800,000 or $131/sq.ft.

Park of Commerce is a four building office park in the east end of the region that also had 1.4 acres of excess land. This project has 442,851 sq.ft. of office space and sold for $54,150,00 or $122/sq.ft.

The two buildings on Colonnade Road are 156,948 sq.ft in size and sold for $14,650,000 or $93/sq.ft. There was also 9.54 acres of excess land on Colonnade Road that sold for an additional $870,000 or $91,195/acre.

Lastly, 1900 City Park Drive is a 105,000 sq.ft. office building with 4.18 acres of excess land that sold for $11,400,000 or $109/sq.ft.

In a separate transaction, Glenview also sold 2540 Lancaster Road to The Canadian Blood Services for $3,300,000. This property consists of a two-storey 30,051 sq.ft. office building and 5.08 acres of excess land. The purchase price is equal to $110/sq.ft. of building area.

McRae Holdings Limited sold an older Class "C" seven-storey 38,451 sq./ft. office building at 251-259 Bank Street to Marbel Management Ltd. for $1,200,000 or $31/sq.ft. District Realty was the agent for the purchaser.

Eftia OSS Solutions sold their 8,142 sq.ft. office building at 1493 Merivale Road to Merivale Financial Centre Inc. for $725,000 or $89/sq.ft. District Realty was the agent for the vendor in this transaction.

Fairhall, Moffatt & Woodland sold their office building at 235 Terence Matthews Crescent in the Kanata South Business Park to 1364515 Ontario Limited for $730,000.

A MIXED USE building located at 713 Somerset Street West was sold by Humstead Company Limited to Kung Lim for $395,000 or $75/sq.ft. The property consists of ground floor retail uses and four two bedroom apartment units on the 2nd floor.

A two-storey commercial building located at 379 & 387 Catherine Street was sold by Arzac Tavern Limited to 1384511 Ontario Ltd. for $565,000 or $45/sq.ft. The property was in the process of being renovated into four two-storey units.

There were also a few sales of INDUSTRIAL buildings in January. A 25,500 sq.ft. building at 2570 Blackwell Street was sold by 2854-5150 Quebec Inc. to Sylard Enterprises Ltd. for $930,000 or $36/sq.ft.

Newbridge Networks Corporation sold 603 March Road to Tundra Semiconductor Corporation who is the tenant for $3,350,000 or $85/sq.ft. The building is 39,500 sq.ft. in size and the site has an area of 4.66 acres. The property was listed by Brad Denison and John Seymour of Colliers.

A 10,940 sq.ft. building at 2320 Stevenage Drive was sold by Diesel Realty Limited to Conax Properties Ltd. for $550,000 or $50/sq.ft. John Hughes of Colliers acted for the purchaser while Mario Staltari of jj Barnicke was the listing broker.

There were also a few APARTMENT building transactions in January. The most notable was the sale of the Montebello Apartment building at 341 MacLaren Street by 969388 Ontario Limited to 341 MacLaren Ltd. The property sold for $5,050,000 or $42,797 per unit. This is afourteen-storey, 118 unit building that was constructed in 1972. Some 25% of the units are reported to be furnished as the property had been operated as an apartment hotel in the past.

A 26 unit building at 660 St. Patrick Street was sold by 660 St. Patrick Street Corporation to 1374937 Ontario Inc. for $800,000 or $30,769/unit. This is a three and one-half storey walk up building that was constructed in 1961. The purchase price included the assumption of a $91,000 forgivable mortgage from Ontario Mortgage Corporation. This property was listed by Eric Schulz at Royal Lepage.

One sign of improving market conditions is the increased volume of LAND sales.

Minto Developments has been busy as both a vendor and a purchaser. As a vendor they sold a 4.93 acre parcel on Hines Road in Kanata North to Hines Road Inc. for $399,000 or $80,933 per acre. The purchaser is planning on constructing an 80,000 sq.ft. office building on the site.

As a purchaser, Minto bought a 21,747 sq.ft. site at 1459 Merivale Road from Tillie Lasker and Jennie Gussin for $520,013 or $24/sq.ft. Minto owns a much larger site to the immediate west of this site.

Minto has also been busy land banking in the East Urban Community. They purchased a 51.7 acre parcel on the east side of Tenth Line Road to the south of Innes Road from 1084859 Ontario Inc. for $1,300,000 or $25,129/acre.

The City of Nepean sold a 6.118 acre site to the Conseil Scolaire du District Catholique de Centre-Est de l'Ontario for $962,325 or $157,294/acre. This site is located on Longfields Drive in the South Urban Community of Nepean.

The City of Nepean also sold 45.954 acres in the South Merivale Business Park to JDS Uniphase for $3,998,433 or $87,000/acre. The property waspurchased to allow for a further expansion to JDS's existing facility in the park.

The City of Cumberland also sold land in January. Their site is located on Centrum Boulevard at the foot of Commercial Drive and is 1.755 acres in size. The site was purchased by Les Terrasses d'Orleans Inc. for $300,000 or $170,940/acre.

A 60,000 sq.ft. site on Carling Avenue in the Kanata North Business Park was sold by Mastomattei Holdings Limited to Hewetson Hewetson Incorporated for $320,000 or $5.33/sq.ft.

Lastly, Canadian Property Holdings Inc. (CREIT) sold their parking lot on Queen, Kent and Albert Streets in downtown Ottawa to 1384658 Ontario Inc. (O & Y Properties) for $8,000,000 or $155/sq.ft. This is the same site that Campeau Corporation sold to MD Realty in 1990 for $25,000,000. For those of you who have not been in the business as long as some of us, Campeau Corporation became Camdev which then became O & Y Properties. Also, MD Realty was taken over by CREIT. Needless to say, alot has changed in the Canadian real estate market in the last 10 years.

NEWS

The latest Industrial Space Survey by Royal LePage shows the overall vacancy rate at only 3.9% for the end of 1999 down from 8.6% last year. All of the sub-markets were below 8% except for the Ottawa Centre sub-market which was at 11.9%. The survey noted that there was only 850,000 sq.ft. of vacant industrial space in the whole region. It is alsoof note that there was absorption of almost 1,000,000 sq.ft. in 1999.Lastly, it is no surprise that the sub-market with the lowest vacancy rate is the Kanata/Stittsville market at a mere 0.5%. Based on this survey, I would not be surprised if we see new spec construction sometime this year.

RT Properties and Colonnade Developments will be constructing a five-storey 86,000 sq.ft. office building at the intersection of March and Solandt Roads in the Kanata North Business Park.

Cisco Systems has chosen Canderel's NorthTech campus for their new technology centre. They are to construct the first of five 100,000 sq.ft. buildings this spring with occupancy in December.

The National Capital Commission is in the process of assembling a block of land in the downtown core that is bounded by Sparks, Metcalfe, O'Connor and Queen Streets. According to Marcel Beaudry (Chairman of the NCC) the NCC would like to redevelop the western portion of the site with 60,000 sq.ft. of commercial space, 200,000 sq.ft. of office space and 150 residential units. The eastern part of the site would be developed into an urban park.