Vancouver is no longer the best place in the world to live. After nearly a decade of topping livability studies, the city has slipped to number three behind Melbourne and Vienna, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Global Livability Survey.

It was not the riots that did it. Instead it was an adjustment in Vancouver’s score for transport infrastructure, “reflecting recent intermittent closures of the key Malahat highway that resulted in a 0.7 percentage point decline in the city’s overall livability rating,” said the report.

The June riot came too late in the year to affect livability, the report said, but could lead to further downward revisions of Vancouver’s overall score in future surveys.

Overall, there was only a difference of 0.2 points between Melbourne (97.5) and Vancouver (97.2). The top three cities stacked up equivalent points for the indicators of stability, health care and education, with Vancouver scoring much higher than Melbourne and Vienna for culture and environment (100 as opposed to 95.1 and 94.4 respectively). The only place it stumbled was in terms of infrastructure — scoring 92.9 in the face of a perfect score of 100 by the other two cities.

Seven of the top ten cities are in Australia and Canada. Toronto ranked fourth and Calgary fifth.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s livability rating is an annual survey aimed to quantify “the challenges that might be presented to an individual’s lifestyle in any given location, and allows for direct comparison between locations.”

Here are the world's 10 most livable cities, according to the EIU:

1. Melbourne, Australia

2. Vienna, Austria

3. Vancouver, Canada

4. Toronto, Canada

5. Calgary, Canada

6. Sydney, Australia

7. Helsinki, Finland

8. Perth, Australia

9. Adelaide, Australia

10. Auckland, New Zealand

It concluded that ownership costs for a standard bungalow in Vancouver amount to 92.5 per cent of median household income, prompting chief economist Craig Wright to say that owning a home in Vancouver "is a dream that only the area's highest-earning households can contemplate."

Not to take issue with such a renowned economist, but the dream is still realizable for median-income earners if buyers are willing to make compromises.

Let's start with the RBC assumptions that form the basis of the affordability index. These include a 25-percent down payment, a mortgage with a 25-year amortization and a five-year fixed rate. The standard bungalow has a floor area of 1,200 square feet, the standard condo 900 square feet and the standard two-storey 1,500 square feet.

While these measures are necessary to create a universally applicable index, they tend to simplify the reality of Vancouver's real estate market. A cursory glance at property listings, for instance, indicates that although condos of 900 square feet represent an average of the inventory in the city, units of that size do not dominate the market. More often, what's on offer are condos ranging from 500 square feet (or less) to 800 square feet. The website Realtylink.org lists 442 apartment properties below the RBC average price of $410,800. And that's just on the west side. There are 336 more in east Vancouver.

Furthermore, there are options between a bungalow and a standard two-storey home. You can't buy a twostorey detached house in Vancouver for $660,000, but that's the asking price for a two-level, three bedroom townhouse on West 8th with mountain and city views and nearly 1,600 square feet of floor space, which is larger than the RBC standard twostorey.

That being said, RBC's average price of a standard two-storey house of $843,300 may understate the case because there is virtually nothing detached on the west side for under $1 million and it's slim pickings on the east side as well. Indeed, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver says its benchmark price for all single detached homes in Metro Vancouver is $902,000. However, anyone prepared to commute can buy a lot of house nearby at prices far below those in the city. Detached homes can be had for just over $500,000 in Squamish, less than hour's drive from downtown Vancouver; and $360,000 in Mission, at the end of the West Coast Express line. There are also bargains - relatively speaking - in Tsawwassen, Coquitlam, Langley and Surrey and other Lower Mainland communities.

What's more, RBC's index requirements fail to take into account the flexibility buyers have in arranging their financing. About a third of Canadians opt for variable-rate mortgages, which were recently two percentage points below the current posted fiveyear fixed rate. At a variable rate of three per cent, a $100,000 mortgage works out to a monthly payment of $474, or $110 less than the five-year rate. Extend the amortization to 30 years, as many Canadian have chosen to do, and the variable rate monthly payment drops to $421, or $163 less than the five-year rate.

Lowering expectations - do you really need five-bedrooms on a halfacre lot backing onto a green belt 10 minutes from downtown? - and making financing choices that reduce the monthly payment can dramatically alter the calculation of affordability. A consensus of lenders agree that no more than 32 per cent of gross annual income should go to home carrying costs, namely principal, interest, property taxes and utilities. Based on RBC data, the qualifying income for a condo in Vancouver is $80,500, for a bungalow $157,800 and for a twostorey $163,100. The median household income in Vancouver is $67,550. These depressing numbers may be valuable for studying trends, making predictions and agitating for policy changes, but they are not useful as a buyer's guide to the market.

The variety of properties available at different price points and flexibility in financing, including variable rate mortgages and extended amortization, along with a bit of luck, can help fulfil the dream of home ownership for agile buyers willing to keep their options open - even in Vancouver's "unaffordable" market.

OTTAWA — A much anticipated correction in the Canadian housing market is not in the cards, according to a report by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

In its third-quarter market outlook, the national housing agency forecasts the market will ease slightly but "remain steady" this year and next.

"Housing starts have been strong in the last few months, but are forecast to moderate closer in line with demographic fundamentals," Mathieu Laberge, deputy chief economist for CMHC, said Wednesday. "Despite recent financial uncertainty, factors such as employment, immigration and mortgage rates remain supportive of the Canadian housing sector."

In fact, CMHC revised up its outlook for 2011 housing starts to 183,200 units from 179,500 in its second quarter report. It forecasts the number will climb in 2012 to 183,900 units.

In 2010, there were 189,930 housing starts.

CMHC also forecasts existing home sales will total 446,700 units in 2011 — approximately the same level as in 2010, although slightly lower than its second quarter forecast of 452,100. It forecasts sales will rise "modestly" in 2012 to 458,000 units.

The outlook runs contrary to a report in July from TD Economics, which projected that Canada's housing market was poised to correct over the next two calendar years, with resale activity falling 15.2 per cent and average prices dropping 10.2 per cent.

"A combination of more subdued job and household income growth, rising interest rates, the recent tightening in borrowing rules for insured mortgages and fewer first-time home buyers are expected to be the chief culprits behind the slowdown," said the report, prepared by deputy chief economist Derek Burleton and economist Sonya Gulati.

Earlier this summer, BMO Capital Markets warned that the Canadian market could suffer a price setback if there is a rapid rise in interest rates due to higher inflation, an increase in unemployment because of a weak U.S. economy or a slowing in foreign investment.

CMHC, however, projects that despite a slowing in the second half, average resale prices will deliver an overall increase in 2011, and continue to rise, albeit at a more modest pace, in 2012.

Wine Guru

iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, free

Even if you wouldn’t know a Chablis from a Chardonnay, thanks to this made-in-B.C. app you can fool friends and impress dinner guests when it comes to choosing a wine to go with your meal. Dubbed the pocket sommelier, the Wine Guru matches your menu to a choice of three wines — basing it on the type of cuisine, the ingredients and the price you want to pay, starting from $10-to-$30 bottles of wine up to $50+ and the money-is-no-object “I don’t care” option. You can add your own wine notes and keep track of favourites. There’s a link to finding the wine nearby but that feature isn’t up and running yet.

360 Panorama

$1.99, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad 2

I downloaded this when it was free on a promo this past week but even at $1.99, 360 Panorama is an excellent bargain when it comes to photo apps. My film-student nephew gave it a high rating for capturing location shots. I could see this as a handy tool for real estate agents. It’s a great way to wow friends when you’re vacationing at some exotic locale and there are lots of other occasions when capturing a 360-degree panorama is just more useful than a regular photo. This newest version of 360 Panorama stitches the photos in real time, giving you a grid to follow as it automatically snaps the photo, so even the klutziest photographer can instantly create a decent-looking panorama. You can post your panoramas to Facebook, tweet them, put them in a photo album or even email them.

Glassboard

iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Android

There is no shortage of public sharing sites, but the Glassboard app is one of those that narrows your news feed to just a select group (they call them boards — you get to chair your own boards) you’d like to share photos, videos and messages with. You only be on a board by invitation, or you can sign up to create your own board and invite people to join. There’s no online listing to indicate you’re running this members-only meeting place.

Prezi Viewer

iPad, free

If you’re not already using Prezi, the cloud-based online presentation software, you need to try it out and, with it, the newly updated Prezi Viewer for your iPad. While you can’t create or edit prezi preentations with the app (it would be nice to see that in an update) you can use the Prezi Viewer to show off the ones you have created online.

gshaw@vancouversun.com

Housing in Canada became harder to afford in the second quarter, with Vancouver's pricey market playing a major role in the deterioration, according to a report by Royal Bank of Canada on Monday.

It was the second straight quarter in which the bank's quarterly Housing Trends and Affordability Index dropped. The cost of housing rose nationally across all the housing types the index tracks in the second quarter.

The index measures the proportion of pretax household income needed to service the cost of owning a home. A rise in the measure indicates a loss of affordability.

For a detached bungalow, the measure rose 1.7 percentage points to 43.3 percent. For a standard condominium, it edged up 0.8 percentage points to 29.2 percent, and for a standard two-storey home it climbed 1.8 percentage points to 49.3 percent.

Vancouver, which has long seen exceptional growth in home prices compared with other Canadian cities, directly accounted for up to one-third of the deterioration in affordability on the national score, the RBC report said.

"Vancouver's housing market is without a doubt the most stressed in Canada and is facing the highest risk of a downturn," said chief economist Craig Wright.

Other local housing markets were reasonably affordable or at worst, slightly unaffordable, the report showed.

Housing sector observers generally see the overall pace of housing activity, from starts to resales, slowing in the coming months, partly due to tighter mortgage regulations introduced earlier in the year and as pent-up demand gets absorbed.

LONDON — Are you familiar with the brabble of cockyolly birds in the growlery?

Probably not, but now this forgotten terminology has been revived in a limited edition facsimile of the 1911 Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD), published to mark the centenary of the linguistic treasure trove.

The reprint appears alongside a new 12th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (COED), which contains more than 240,000 words, phrases and definitions, including 400 completely new entries.

Clad in an art deco cover, the 1911 limited-edition dictionary offers a glimpse into a world where a “jet” was a stream of water, and the words “cockyolly bird”, “growlery”, and “brabble” referred to a nursery phrase for a bird, a private room or den, and a noisy quarrel.

“The 1911 dictionary is a lot smaller than the latest version and is phrased more quaintly in some places, but my overriding impression of it is how good it was,” Angus Stevenson, an editor of the 12th edition of the COED, told Reuters.

Unlike the vast, high-tech database of texts and articles used today to analyse language, the editors of the first dictionary used rather more laborious methods.

The first editors, brothers Henry and George Fowler, wrote letters to friends and experts and drew on the work done for the Oxford English Dictionary to compile the first concise version of the book from their cottage on the Channel Island of Guernsey.

“They tried hard to be as up to date as possible,” Stevenson said. “They included the entry ’aeroplane,’ even though the first flight had been made in 1903, and ’Duma’, even though the Russian parliament had only been created in 1906 — it was a very good dictionary.”

Some of the slang in the 1911 edition, including “shirty” for annoyed and “parky” for cold, is still in use today.

“Although these terms might be considered a little old fashioned, they were cutting-edge Edwardian slang, and their inclusion shows how progressive the Fowlers were in their editing,” Stevenson said.

Together, the 12 editions provide a fascinating record of the influx of new words into the English language over the past century.

“Computer” was not recognised in 1911 - in contrast to the entries found in the 2011 version, such as “cyberbullying” and “retweet”, which reflect the growing influence of the internet on the use of language.

“Social networking sites have created a real language of the net. We’ve noticed that new words come into currency much more quickly as a result of the internet, as people see friends, or friends of friends, using new words and copy them,” Stevenson said.

Varieties of English spoken around the world are also becoming less distinct as a consequence of increased global connectivity through the World Wide Web, he added.

The latest edition of the COED covers English spoken in India, as well as Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies and America.

“There used to be very little American in the dictionaries. It was a variety of English distinct from that spoken in Britain, but now the versions are merging together.” Stevenson said.

A prime example of this is “woot” — an exclamation used predominantly online to express elation, enthusiasm or triumph.

“The expression ’woot’ began in America but was picked up very quickly by people in Britain, as a result of the internet breaking down international boundaries,” Stevenson said.

“I don’t know why people can’t just say ’hurrah’ but maybe I’m being old fashioned.”

Former federal Liberal cabinet minister Robert Kaplan recently proposed that Canada increase its population to 100 million through increased immigration in order that we become more influential on the world stage. While some may find this visionary in its scope, it totally fails to take into account the realities of today's Canada. Many of our larger cities are already groaning under the weight of high immigration intake that is increasing congestion, house prices and costs to taxpayers. A recent paper by Herbert Grubel and Patrick Grady estimated that newcomers cost Canadians between $16 and $23 billion a year because of what they receive in government benefits over what they pay in taxes.

Added to this is concern over the increasing concentrations of immigrants who come from cultures and traditions that are very different from those of most Canadians. An example of this is the controversy over Muslim prayer sessions at the Valley Park middle school in Toronto, where 80 to 90 per cent of the students are Muslims. Such problems can be expected to occur more frequently even at current levels of immigration.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is quite right when he questions whether Canadians are ready to accept higher immigration levels. He recently told the Vancouver Board of Trade that we do not have the resources or ability to integrate much larger numbers of immigrants every year and pointed out that we can't flood our taxpayer-funded services or put pressure on real estate markets.

While Kenney is the most effective immigration minister we've had in a long time, and is prepared to acknowledge and deal with some of the most difficult issues, even he would appear to be off-base in his belief that most Canadians accept intake current levels.

When Canadians say they are happy about immigration in general, this should not be interpreted as meaning they are satisfied with the numbers we are bringing in, particularly if this affects them (which is the case in larger cities, where most newcomers settle). An Ekos Research survey released in November, for example, found that, while 71 per cent of respondents said they felt immigration was good for Canada, this declined to 48 per cent when asked if they thought it was good for their neighbourhood.

A recent poll by Léger Marketing found 55 per cent of Calgarians thought their city was already too large and only 39 per cent thought it had the right number of people. This means 94 per cent didn't want it to get larger - which will be increasingly difficult to achieve unless we dramatically reduce immigration, as most of the population increase will be from this source.

Only five per cent of the people in Toronto and Vancouver wanted their numbers to increase. Yet Toronto is projected to grow by three million people and Vancouver by almost one million in the next two decades if current immigration levels are maintained.

That there is a gap between what our leaders think we want and what average Canadians want is not surprising. The Centre for Immigration Studies in Washington found that among opinion makers in the United States (politicians, leaders of church groups, business executives, union leaders, academics, etc.) only 18 per cent thought immigration should be reduced, compared to 55 per cent of the public. Although various reasons have been advanced for why Canada should continue with high immigration levels even if this causes problems for many Canadians, at least some fallacious arguments have been discarded.

The present government, for example, does not attempt to perpetrate the myth that immigration is a realistic way of dealing with the costs associated with the aging of our population. A more pervasive fiction, however, is that we must have large-scale immigration if we are to meet looming labour shortages and that Canada cannot prosper without a constant infusion of workers from abroad.

The fact is, most of our labour shortages can be met domestically if we make the best use of our existing workforce and educational and training facilities.

This point was made not only by the Economic Council of Canada 20 years ago, but has been reiterated and updated more recently by renowned labour economists such as Alan G. Green of Queen's University and David A. Green of the University of B.C. Green recently told a conference in Vancouver that using immigration to fill labour-force gaps carries pitfalls and that natural market responses to labour shortages, such as pay hikes, can be obstructed when immigration increases the supply of workers and thus reduces wages.

While Canada should remain an immigrant-friendly country and invite newcomers to come here in reasonable numbers, it is clear that not only would we be foolish to embark on a massive increase in population by means of immigration as suggested by Robert Kaplan, but that maintaining anywhere near current levels brings with it almost no benefit to most Canadians and, indeed, is very costly.

Martin Collacott served as Canadian ambassador in Asia and the Middle East. He is a spokesman for the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform and lives in Vancouver.

Sales of existing homes in Canada in July were little changed from June, partly because some major markets, including Toronto and Vancouver, cooled, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Tuesday.

The industry group said a total of 37,492 homes changed hands in July, down 0.1 percent from June. But it was up 12.3 percent from the same month last year.

CREA said the national average price in July rose 9.3 percent from a year earlier to $361,181 (US$368,552).

The number of new listings edged up by less than 1 percent in July from June. New listings decreased in 60 percent of local markets, but increased in many large urban centers.

Had I known about Mike Mangan's book, The Condominium Manual, when I started writing this column, it would have answered a lot of questions. As someone new to the world of strata, I found all the rules and regulations perplexing.

In fact, my experience trying to get up to speed was probably similar to that of new strata owners.

Mangan, a lawyer, is an expert in real estate law and teaches in the real estate division of UBC's Sauder School of Business. Back in the spring of 2000, he travelled the province at the behest of government, explaining to strata owners what they needed to know about the new Strata Property Act that was about to replace the old Condominium Act.

Mangan knows strata law and excels at explaining it. He's just released the third edition of The Condominium Manual. It takes into account changes the government made to the Strata Property Act in 2009, as well as significant court cases since 2004, when the previous edition was published.

Mangan explains the Strata Property Act in plain language and as simply as possible, given the complexity of the Act. The hard copy of the book is in relatively large font and organized into chapters by subject with lots of subheadings. And for the first time, the book is available online. I like this version because of its hyperlinks to relevant sections of the Strata Property Act and court decisions.

I was reminded of the importance of strata owners being informed of the law when a flurry of letters to the editor appeared in my local newspaper. They were in response to an earlier opinion piece on the shortcomings of the Strata Property Act.

One writer noted that successive strata councils in his building have flouted the law in various ways and harassed owners who objected. But he ended his letter saying, "The owners themselves are to blame at times because they, generally, fail to acknowledge the necessity of being informed of the basics of condominium bylaws."

If you're one of those uninformed owners, Mangan's book will help you understand the Strata Property Act and make sense of your own strata's bylaws. It's available in bookstores, libraries and online at www.condomanual.ca/

Suzanne Morphet reads email (but does not give advice) at condocolumn@shaw.ca