TREVOR BARNETT

Greater Vancouver's superb quality of life - it's scenic beauty, moderate climate and high level of services - make it the third best place to live in the world and the best place in Canada.

That's according to a new quality of life survey by Mercer Human Resource consulting, which measured 39 indicators including health, education, climate and availability and quality of houses in 215 cities. Only Zurich and Geneva ranked higher.

A shortage of buildable land and product, coupled with demand has lead to higher home price appreciation.

Is this making Vancouver unaffordable? Right now, the benchmark price of detached home in Greater

Re-Published from The Province Newspaper

Ashley Ford, The Province

Published: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 Another month and another blazing housing-start performance across the Lower Mainland.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.'s latest numbers show Fraser Valley starts jumping an astonishing 71 per cent from March a year ago to 833 starts from 485.

Vancouver's performance was also impressive with a 30-per-cent increase over a year ago to 2,016 units.

The performance from all urban areas in B.C. was also impressive with starts increasing 27 per cent to 7,934 units.

"Despite a limited supply of land and skilled trades, home builders