New Construction in Langley: Master Planned Communities

How the neighbourhoods are planned

The Township plans Willoughby in neighbourhood plans, each covering a few hundred acres, that lay out where the townhomes, condos, detached lots, schools, parks and shopping go, and in what sequence. Builders buy the land and build in phases that follow the plan. For a buyer this is useful: the plan is public, and it tells you what the empty lot across from your townhome will become. A park is nice. A four-storey building is a different view. Read the plan for the specific block before you buy; the sales centre's rendering shows trees where the plan may show towers.

What is being built

Mostly three and four bedroom townhomes aimed at families, from a rotating cast of large builders. Condos in the Willoughby Town Centre and Yorkson areas. Detached homes on compact lots, often with legal suites, on the quieter streets. Newer phases are tighter and more energy-efficient than the 2010 product, because the Step Code has moved. New schools and the Langley Events Centre have followed the housing, and the 196 Street SkyTrain station will anchor the western edge.

What a presale really costs

• GST at 5 percent, with rebates for some buyers and price ranges. The largest line on the sheet.
• Transfer tax, unless the newly built home exemption applies; it covers homes up to $1.1 million in full.
• Deposits of 10 to 20 percent in stages, in trust for a year or more before completion.
• Extras: parking stalls and lockers sold separately, upgrade packages, and a strata fee estimate that tends to rise after the first year.
• Carrying two homes if completion slips past the date you sold or your lease ended, which it often does.

Your protections, and their limits

Under BC's Real Estate Development Marketing Act you have seven days after signing or receiving the disclosure statement to cancel a presale for any reason. Use them to have a lawyer read the whole disclosure statement, which sets out the developer's rights to extend completion, substitute finishes, alter layouts and restrict assignment. Completion windows are usually a year or more wide, and extensions are common. Assignment, selling your contract before completion, is restricted by most developers and taxed differently from a resale. Do not buy a presale on the assumption you can get out of it easily.

The comparison I always make

Before a client signs for a presale townhome in Willoughby, we look at a five-year-old resale townhome from the same builder or a comparable one, ideally within a few blocks. The resale shows you how the builder's work ages, what the strata fee actually became, whether there were deficiencies and how they were handled, and what resale value the complex has held while new phases completed around it. Sometimes the presale wins on finishes and warranty. Often the resale wins on price, certainty and a strata that has already found its feet. You cannot make that call from the sales centre.

New strata, new problems

A new strata corporation starts with a small contingency fund, a budget written by the developer, and owners who have never run one. The first two years often bring a fee increase, warranty claims, and the discovery that the landscaping budget was optimistic. None of this is fatal, but it is predictable, and a buyer should budget for it. Ask the developer for the first-year budget and compare it with the actual fees at the builder's earlier phases.

The short version

• Willoughby's neighbourhood plans are public. Read the plan for your block before you buy.
• Budget GST, transfer tax, staged deposits, extras and the risk of a late completion.
• Use the seven-day rescission period to have a lawyer read the disclosure statement.
• Compare every presale with a five-year-old resale nearby before you sign.
• Expect the strata fee to rise and the first two years to be bumpy.

If you are looking at a specific project in Langley, send me the name. I will tell you how that builder's earlier phases have resold and what their strata records say, which is the information the sales centre will not volunteer.