Saturday, October 6, 2018 | Your community newspaper since 1916
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
Spilled load A trailer with an excavator on board tipped over at First Avenue and Carney Street. The incident wasn’t a good start to the driver’s day on Friday.
Bullets fly in targeted shooting Citizen staff Households near the corner of Strathcona and Norwood in the VLA awoke early Friday morning to the sound of gunfire from an apparent drug-related drive-by shooting. A neighbour, who asked his name not be used, said he heard a long succession of shots just before 6 a.m. as he was about to leave for work. At the RCMP’s request, he stayed at home for the day. “It was loud,” he said. “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” He figured about 40 shots were fired from what sounded like a semi-automatic rifle. “Definitely an interesting morning,” he said. “Not what you expect when you open your door to go for work.” He and his girlfriend had moved into their home about a half block away only on Monday. They had heard about the area’s reputation and now it’s been confirmed. Another neighbour said the shots were loud enough to wake him up. He heard about six shots while his kids may have heard more. He said it appeared the home’s occupants had been dealing in drugs. RCMP said no one was injured in what they described as a targeted shooting. The modest 1300-block Strathcona Avenue home was behind police tape while police scoured the property for evidence.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
A house in the 1300 block of Strathcona Avenue is cordoned off by police tape after an alleged drive-by shooting on Friday morning.
House prices and sales diverge, BCNREB report shows Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca An upward trend in Prince George for the average price of a single-family home continues to be offset by a decline in the number of sales so far this year, according to a B.C. Northern Real Estate Board report issued Friday. As of the end of the third quarter, the average price stood at $354,751 – a rise of
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$36,866 or 11.6 per cent over the reigning price by the same point last year. However, that was offset by a 95-unit or 11.8-percent decline in sales to 710, working out to $251.9 million of activity, a $4-million or 1.6 per cent decrease. Real estate agent Bob Quinlan explained the apparent divergence as a function of buyers willing to pay for what they want and being willing to wait to get it. “If they don’t get that house, even in competing offers, they’re not going to default
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back to the second one in line,” he said. Looking ahead, Quinlan predicted both sales and average price will continue on the same levels. “If anything is not in good condition, people are going to beat it up,” he said. “If anything is in real nice condition, it’ll go for a premium. The majority of the public wants everything fixed and finished. There is only a small percentage that will go in and do a fixer-upper and flip it.” Quinlan said he is pretty sure the Bank
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of Canada will increase the interest rate sometime this month but added the banks continue to offer great discounts on variable rates while five-year fixed rates stand at 3.5 to 3.9 per cent – well down from the so-called traditional levels. Sales were most brisk in the city’s southwest where 212 single-family homes sold and the median price was $428,000, compared to 216 homes and $312,000 by the same point last year. — see PROPERTY SALES, page 2
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