Tough economy hurts Edmonton landlords

Tough economy hurts Edmonton landlords

Bargain hunters in Edmonton’s rental housing market may find incentives to lure them because of the tough economy. “I’m going to be honest with you, 2016 is going to be a tough year,” said Bob Dhillon, president of Mainstreet Equity (MEQ-T), a company that owns nearly 4,000 units in Edmonton, many of them around the downtown arena district.

Edmonton Journal – Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Canmore attracting American interest

As Calgary’s real estate market struggles, Canmore is seeing growing interest from American buyers — causing concern about the potential impact on locals. Real estate agents are fielding more calls from south of the border and a few sales have closed. “The exchange rate was definitely of interest to us,” said Cecilia Padilla, a buyer from Texas.

CBC News – Globe and Mail – Toronto Star

CRE leaders advise government on refugee housing

Members of the real estate industry met with government representatives last month to discuss challenges regarding the settlement of Syrian refugees in Canada. “The meeting was hosted by The Mosaic Institute,” said BOMA Canada president and chief executive officer Benjamin Shinewald.

BOMA Canada News – Montreal Gazette

Oil price collapse could cost CMHC

Low oil prices could cost the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. $7 billion a year in lost profits, though president and CEO Evan Siddall said Monday the oil price collapse will not drain its capital to unsustainable levels. Siddall said CMHC has stress-tested the effects of sustained US$35 per barrel oil prices.

Financial Post – Ottawa Citizen

CMHC hits roadblocks in review of foreign owners

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is focusing efforts to collect data on foreign real estate investors by studying temporary residents, including international students studying in Canada, as well as Canadian citizens who live abroad. But it has run into resistance in its attempt to ask real estate agents, developers and lawyers to voluntarily provide information.

Globe and Mail

Poking holes in Vancouver’s housing vacancy study

How could it be so many Vancouver houses appear to be empty, without neighbours waving hello, or mowing their lawns, or holding block parties, or giving out candy at Halloween? How could so many people be wrong? The response to the city-commissioned study on empty housing was predictably immediate.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail – Financial Post – Vancouver Sun

Unlicensed wholesalers making illegal cash offers

Vancouver’s real estate market has been very good to Amanda. She’s not a licensed realtor, but buying and selling property is her full-time job. She started about eight years ago as an unlicensed “wholesaler” in Vancouver. She would approach homeowners and make unsolicited offers for private cash deals. Amanda made a 10 per cent fee on each purchase.

Calgary Herald – Global News – Globe and Mail

Immigrants help drive Metro Vancouver market: Study

Immigrants have a major impact on fast-rising house prices in Metro Vancouver and Toronto, according to the author of a new study. In a unique research project, UBC geographer Daniel Hiebert discovered ethnic Chinese and South Asians become homeowners at a much higher rate than other immigrants and the general population.

Vancouver Sun – BC Business

How to solve Vancouver’s real estate crisis

Vancouver architect Richard Henriquez has a solution for Canada’s least affordable city. Get vertical. Build higher, without limits. Ignore the fussy horizontalists, people who “go crazy” when any new tower is proposed for Vancouver’s downtown. Built on a natural peninsula surrounded by water, the downtown area already resembles a man-made forest, at least when viewed from a distance.

National Post – Vancouver Sun – Global News

February busiest month for home sales since June 2007

An uptick in home sales in February was enough to push activity to its highest level in more than eight years on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). Compared to January, existing home sales tracked through MLS systems fedged up 0.8 per cent for the busiest month for sales activity since June 2007.

Buzzbuzzhome.com – Reuters – Financial Post – Canada Newswire

Strong U.S. dollar deters foreign property buyers

The afterglow of Congress’ unexpected loosening of the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act in December has suddenly dimmed. Briefly, Congress increased the stake a foreign shareholder may hold in a publicly traded stock to 10 per cent without being subject to the FIRPTA tax. The measure also exempts foreign retirement and pension funds from FIRPTA.

Globest.com

Millennials supporting U.S. apartment demand growth

The real driver of U.S. apartment demand in the years after the recession was Millennials, according to Patrick Simmons, who specializes in economic and strategic research at Fannie Mae. Simmons came to that conclusion after a detailed review of 2009 and 2014 American Community Survey data, and reported his findings recently in a Fannie Mae commentary.

Commercial Property Executive – Multifamily Executive – Multifamily Executive

Challenges face tenant rep model: Studley

Competition in the tenant rep sector ratcheted up a few notches as JLL added a tenant rep team from Washington Partners Inc., while Cresa, the international network of independent tenant rep firms, announcing a bold five-year plan to double in size and named former Cushman & Wakefield Americas CEO James Underhill as its new CEO.

CoStar Group

CRE vets launch site for single-family investing

The first dedicated online marketplace for investing in leased single-family rental homes has been created. Roofstock is a new way to buy and sell investment properties. It provides analytical tools and diligence information to help investors evaluate properties before buying. The process includes electronic document delivery and e-signatures, allowing transactions to close rapidly and securely.

Globest.com – National Real Estate Investor

Off-campus housing becomes more luxurious

Two resort-style pools, with deckside cabanas. A beach volleyball court, professional-grade barbecues, and around-the-clock staff. Sounds like a good place for a college student to spend spring break — if she didn’t already live there. Purpose-built student housing such as the Stadium Centre apartments has become increasingly upscale over the past decade, driven by rising enrollments and an infusion of new capital.

Bloomberg

RENX Columnists

Urban centres will be boomerful

As with most things in life, the numbers matter. And in this case the numbers are staggering. In the United States, 10,000 Boomers every single day will reach retirement between now and 2030.

Read more

Choosing a crowdfunded real estate portal

One of the fastest-growing investment vehicles over the last few years have been crowdfunding. Entrepreneurs have recognized the potential of crowdfunding and its ease of accessibility to investors through a variety of social media networks and platforms.

Read more

Market Conditions

Insane expectations driving Canadian market

If you assume the average house price in Canada will continue to appreciate at its current pace — which, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association, drove the average price to $470,297 in January, up 17 per cent from a year earlier — the typical abode in Canada will hit the $21-million mark in about 24 years (not accounting for inflation).

Maclean’s – Globe and Mail – Vancouver Sun – Globe and Mail

Home prices to surge in B.C., Ontario: CREA

Canada’s realtors now expect 2016 to mirror 2015, which means strong sales in British Columbia, an ever-deeper slump in Alberta, and Ontario held “in check.” In a new forecast today, the Canadian Real Estate Association projected B.C. will lead the country with a sales increase of 11.8 per cent, while Alberta lags with a drop of 18.7 per cent.

Globe and Mail – Financial Post – Canada Newswire

Latest reports:

* Ottawa, PMA Brethour Realty Group, Ottawa Citizen

* GTA housing starts, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Newinhomes.com

* Chilliwack, B.C., Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board (CADREB), Chilliwack Times

* British Columbia, British Columbia Real Estate Association, Winnipeg Free Press, Vancouver Sun, Business In Vancouver

* Canadian home prices, Teranet-National Bank Home Price Index, Globe and Mail, CBC News, Reuters

* Canadian new home prices,  Statistics Canada, Reuters

* New York, Bloomberg, Time Out New York

* U.S. homebuilder sentiment, National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index, Winnipeg Free Press

Canada’s top cities to buy real estate

In the last five years, real estate prices in Thunder Bay, a Northern Ontario city of just over 100,000, have appreciated faster than in any other Canadian city. While it may seem a stretch for a family to pick up and move to Thunder Bay, just because it ranks No. 1, investors looking for an income property certainly might be curious.

MoneySense – MoneySense

Vancouver housing starts at 25-year high

Vancouver-area housing starts jumped dramatically in February, reaching the highest monthly levels in more than two decades. A report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said the seasonally adjusted annual rate for housing starts in the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area rose last month to 24,244 units, up from 20,825 in January.

CBC News – Financial Post – Regina Leader-Post – Victoria Times Colonist

RENX Market Summaries

Mortgage and Finance

Down payments keep millennials on other side of ownership fence

Shannon Gillespie and her boyfriend, Paul Locking, both nearing 25, find themselves in the enviable position of getting ready to move into their first home, a townhouse in North Vancouver, B.C. Both savers, they lived at home during their post-secondary studies. They also had financial help from their grandparents. Without it, they have no doubt that they’d be renting.

Globe and Mail – Global News

Multi-family mortgage debt grew in 2015

The level of U.S. commercial/multi-family mortgage debt outstanding increased to $2.83 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2015, an increase of $59.7 billion, or 2.2 per cent, over the third quarter, according to data collected by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). On a year-over-year basis, the amount of mortgage debt outstanding at the end of 2015 was $184.5 billion higher than at the end of 2014.

MultifamilyBiz

How to exit market without exiting your house

Let’s say you’re looking to get out of the housing market and pocket your wealth. One option is obviously to sell, but then you have to either buy another place or rent. What if you could just lease back your own property? It’s an unfamiliar concept in the residential housing market but a fairly common one in the commercial property sector.

Financial Post

Average U.S. rate on 30-year mortgage rises

Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates rose this week for only the second time this year. It was the second straight weekly increase for long-term loan rates, which had declined since the start of the year amid global economic anxiety and market turbulence. Rates still remain at historically low levels at the start of the spring home buying season.

Winnipeg Free Press

New Developments

Developers expand single build-for-rent market

AHV Communities‘ recent acquisition of a 92-lot site near Austin, the first project in a $100-million commitment to build single-family rental communities in major Sunbelt markets in 2016, underscores a rising trend by residential developers: construction of single-family homes tracts targeted specifically at renters.

CoStar Group

Condo sales set to launch at Arts Court

Since the city approved a plan for the redevelopment of Arts Court in 2013, we’ve heard about the expanded Ottawa Art Gallery, much-needed space for the University of Ottawa and a high-end hotel coming to the site. But there’s been almost nothing about the chunk of condos that will sit on top of it all. That’s about to change.

Ottawa Citizen

Renovation, Repair and Maintenance

Major renovations aren’t moneymakers: Study

Putting a lot of money into fixing up your home before you sell isn’t a guarantee you’ll recoup your investment. According to Remodeling magazine’s 2015 Cost vs Value Report, the average home-improvement project recoups just over 60 per cent of its cost. We tend to think a new kitchen or a new bathroom is a slam dunk for making money at resale, but it ain’t necessarily so.

Newinhomes.com

Taxes and Utilities

Winnipeg School Division approves tax hike

Taxpayers in the Winnipeg School Division area may see a 5.89 per cent increase in their property taxes after the division finalized its final 2016-17 budget Monday night. The increase equals $74 a year for an average residential home valued at $203,900, said a news release from the school division.

CBC News – Winnipeg Free Press

Hydro-Quebec to hike electricity rates

Quebec residents will see their hydro bills go up by 0.7 per cent April 1. The jump is less than the 1.7 per cent Hydro-Québec had asked for. In a 270-page decision, Quebec’s Régie de l’énergie, which regulates energy prices, said the public utility had overestimated some of its projected costs, in particular, salaries, professional services and costs for its technology branch.

Montreal Gazette – CBC News

Unhooked Ottawa homeowners to face stormwater fee

Property owners on private well and septic services will pay for stormwater management if council approves changes to how the City of Ottawa collects revenue for water and sewers, prompting councillors to brace for a backlash. City staff will hold seven community consultation sessions over three weeks on proposed changes to funding water, sewer and stormwater services. 

Ottawa Citizen – Ottawa Citizen

Natural Disasters

Five killed by floods in Louisiana, Mississippi

The death toll from storms in Southern U.S. states rose to five as storm-weary residents of Louisiana and Mississippi watched for more flooding on Monday from drenching rains that inundated homes, washed out roads and prompted thousands of rescues. Flood waters across Louisiana were blamed for resulting in four deaths and one person drowned in a flooded area in Oklahoma last week. 

Globe and Mail – CTV News

Legal Issues

Developer sues over alleged copying of condo design

The developer of an upscale Vancouver condo is suing the developer of a similar residential building in Abbotsford, alleging architectural and design documents were deliberately copied. Mosaic East 35th Limited Partnership says Boulevard Group Residences Limited Partnership also deliberately engaged in false and misleading advertising and failed to comply with demands to cease their “unlawful conduct.”

Vancouver Province

Tenants awarded $30,000 over vulgar posters

In what is being described as a precedent-setting ruling, the Human Rights Tribunal has awarded $30,000 to a number of tenants at a Scarborough co-operative who say they were targeted by vulgar posters nearly four years ago. The culprit who put up the flyers has never been formally identified.

Toronto Star

Property seizures often governments cash grabs: Report

Maggie Reilly has been fighting the Province of Ontario in court for the last seven years, after the government seized two of her rental properties in Orillia, following accusations she was receiving drug money as rent from some of her tenants. “We were shocked. I’ve been a good citizen all my life. I’ve never broken the law,” she told the Star. 

Toronto Star

Affordable Housing

Toronto keen to get new affordable housing powers

Toronto is eager to seize proposed provincial powers to require builders to include affordable housing units in all new residential projects, Mayor John Tory said Monday. With Toronto’s affordable housing crisis growing ever deeper, the days of waiting for developers to act voluntarily are over, he said.

Toronto Star – National Post – Canada Newswire – Toronto Sun

Young families priced out of rental markets in two-thirds of U.K.

Having a child while living in rental accommodation has become unaffordable for young families in two-thirds of the UK. Birmingham, Edinburgh, Bristol and all of south-east England rank among areas where young couples could be financially hindered from having children because they are paying too big a share of their income to their landlord.

The Guardian – The Guardian

The affordability ‘issue’ & industry messaging

There’s a reason it’s impossible to avoid the affordability topic these days. It’s got to do with renters struggling to pay the rent. Now, we all know conventional thinking that households shouldn’t spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing. Increasingly, many approach or exceed that threshold, various studies such as this Harvard report show.

MultifamilyExecutive – MultifamilyExecutive

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

Ruskin Row home Winnipeg’s most extravagant

During Winnipeg’s great boom years leading up to the First World War, the city boasted it had nearly as many millionaires as Toronto. Men such as George Galt, Chester Stovel and James Ashdown built fine new homes for themselves during this period, but none was larger or more opulent than Alexander Davidson’s 10 Ruskin Row.

Winnipeg Free Press

Millennials deserting city, moving to suburbia

A growing share of American Millennials are buying homes, and when they do, they’re increasingly looking to the suburbs, suggests the latest annual study from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Of all 6,406 recent homebuyers surveyed, 35 per cent were Millennials, which was the largest share of any age group, and a three-percentage-point boost over 2014, according to NAR.

Buzzbuzzhome.com – Toronto Star – Globe and Mail

Well water torrent threatens Vancouver homes

An unlicensed and unqualified well driller who tapped into a pressurized aquifer in southwest Vancouver last year triggered an uncontrolled flood of water that is threatening as many as a dozen multimillion-dollar homes. For more than six months, millions of litres of water a day have been flowing out of the ground onto public property.

Vancouver Sun – Vancouver Sun

Montreal a top city for millennials

Montreal is one of the top cities in the world to live in if you are a millennial, according to a list from youthfulcities.com. The list of 55 cities takes into account things like transit, health services, environment, diversity, the music and film scenes, food, nightlife, fashion, education and affordability. New York City tops the list, followed by London and Berlin.

Montreal Gazette – CNBC

Buying and Selling

Square footage mistake cost thousands: Homeowner

When Pam Whelan purchased her Calgary home in 2007, she thought it was ideal — a good location with acreage, nice layout and reasonably priced at $800,000. She was led to believe the living space on the main floor totalled 2,500 square feet. It turned out the listing realtor had changed the square footage, increasing it by 25 per cent, to 2,580 from 2,094 square feet.

CBC News

Closing costs should be included in condo prices: Lawyer

There are calls for more protection for condominium buyers after a group of new Scarborough homeowners said they were surprised by 10s of thousands of dollars in closing costs. Some residents said they had been expecting costs of between $5,000 and $12,000. Instead, they received bills for between $20,000 and $30,000, and as high as $60,000, just days before their closing dates.

CBC News

Sizzling deal for fire-damaged Vancouver home

Just when you thought Vancouver’s housing market couldn’t get any hotter – or crazier – it did: a house badly damaged in a recent fire is on the market for a smoking $1.99 million. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom home is in Grandview East Vancouver, near bustling Commerical Drive. It sits on a more than 6,000 square-foot property.

CTV News

Big Fat Deal: An Asian-inspired oasis

Address: 2868 West 44th Avenue
Price: $8,680,000
MLS: R2041458
The skinny: Four-bedroom, four-bathroom 5,638-square-foot house on a 10,800-square-foot lot in Kerrisdale.
The bling: Feeling Zen? Then take a walk over to the tranquil side with this Asian-inspired oasis designed by celebrated local architect Bing Thom. 

BCBusiness

Black sells mansion, will stay on as tenant

It appears Conrad Black will be able to stay in his ancestral Toronto home after the former media baron revealed Monday the 2.6-hectare property was sold in an arrangement that would allow him to continue living onsite as a tenant.  In February, real estate agents representing Black announced the Bridle Path property with an estimated value of $21.8 million would be sold at auction.

Ottawa Citizen – Globe and Mail

Other

A tiny solution for a condo-sized problem

Perhaps extra aware of aerodynamics, racecar driver Andrew Bordin noticed something every condo owner will recognize: that sudden gust of hallway air that turns your apartment into a wind tunnel every time you open your front door. “That’s called corridor ventilation and 95 per cent of buildings use it,” he explains.

Maclean’s

Eurodale named Renovator of the Year

Toronto-based renovation company Eurodale Developments was named Renovator of the Year at the annual Renovation and Custom Home Awards by the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD).  This is the third time since 2010 Eurodale has won the award. A complete list of winners can be found in the GTA section of www.renomark.ca.

Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire