BC Business
Not the best timingJust as the transit tax referendum’s final days near, an accident triggered an overnight fire that ended up shutting down service on the SkyTrain’s Expo Line between Waterfront and Joyce stations Friday morning. In response, TransLink made transit free for a day. While the disruption may have slowed some Friday morning commuters, the transit authority’s Twitter team was no doubt all hands on deck, reaching out to riders over social media; for more on that story, go here. Referendum voting closes May 29.
Condo market revelationsVancouver’s real estate market may not be as bleak as it seems. At least, that’s what a recent survey conducted by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reported. Having looked at 42,191 households in both Vancouver and Toronto, the survey found that 84 per cent of condo owners resided in said residence and 16 per cent owned at least two condo units. “Our results show that most COS investors are in the market for the long term and expect to keep their last purchased secondary unit for more than five years,” said Robyn Adamache, CMHC principal market analyst for Vancouver.
.Sucks to be you Apparently, .sucks domains—think bcbusiness.sucks (it doesn’t!)—are driving many companies to protect themselves against competitors and online instigators. The way to do so? Buy the domain (which costs about $3,000) before someone else can. Major brands like Yahoo and Apple have already begun doing just that. Vancouver-based Webnames.ca, which helps companies register domain names, has been as busy as it’s ever been in 15 years since .sucks was approved for use by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Webnames.ca CEO Cybele Negris described the scramble as a “black mark on our industry” in a recent Vancouver Sun article.