Foreign ownership data ‘tip of the iceberg’

Foreign ownership data ‘tip of the iceberg’

The recent government data release, which was the most comprehensive study to date of foreign ownership of Canadian real estate, was just “the tip of the iceberg,” says Haig McCarrell, director of the Statistics Canada division overseeing the Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP). The new year will bring the release of more data.

Vancouver Province – Globe and Mail – Calgary Herald

Foreign ownership rises in Montreal: Report

Montreal has seen a notable increase in the number of foreign buyers this year, suggesting investors from outside Canada may be shifting their focus to Quebec’s largest city after crackdowns in Toronto and Vancouver. The non-resident share in Montreal climbed from 1.1 per cent in 2016 to 1.7 per cent in 2017, according to a report by Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC) in collaboration with Statistics Canada. 

CBC – Montreal Gazette – Winnipeg Free Press – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Non-residents own one in five Van. newly built condos

In some of Metro Vancouver’s hottest housing markets, at least one in five of the most recently built condo units are owned by people residing outside of Canada. That number was one of the early findings drawn from the most comprehensive study to date by Canadian government agencies on foreign home ownership in Canada.

Vancouver Sun

B.C. condo unit owners can’t block building sale: Court

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled a minority group of condo owners who oppose the sale of their building because they fear losing their home and community don’t have the right to block others who want to cash out for a financial windfall. It marked the first decision of its kind in British Columbia’s evolving legal landscape involving mass condo sales.

Globe and Mail

Toronto one-bedroom rents catching up to Vancouver: PadMapper

The average rent for a Vancouver one-bedroom apartment was $1,990 in December, according to PadMapper’s latest data. This is a drop of 4.3% compared with November, and although Vancouver remains the most expensive city in the country, the decrease puts the average rent for this home type within $20 for the same home type in Toronto.

Business In Vancouver

Immigration escalates Van., TO housing prices: Study

There is no doubt Canada’s high immigration rates have a major impact on housing affordability in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, according to a new study. “First and foremost, immigration policy is, essentially, also a form of housing policy,” University of B.C. geographer Dan Hiebert says in a comprehensive paper published in the winter edition of the Canadian Journal of Urban Research.

Vancouver Sun

Buying a home less affordable than at any time since 1990: RBC

Rising home ownership costs in Vancouver, Toronto and Victoria pushed overall housing affordability in Canada to its worst level since the end of 1990 in the third quarter of 2017, according to the latest Housing Trends and Affordability Report issued by RBC Economics Research. RBC’s aggregate measure for affordability in Canada rose for the ninth consecutive quarter to stand at 48.7 per cent in the third quarter. 

Canada Newswire

2017’s most shocking Toronto real estate stats

Plenty of stats were thrown around this year, as industry watchers scrambled to understand the roller-coaster that was the GTA housing market in 2017. Record-high prices and sales in the first quarter of the year were followed by a dramatic cooling over the summer months, after the implementation of the province’s Fair Housing Plan.

BuzzBuzzNews – Canada Newswire

Toronto churches born again . . . as condominiums

John Strachan was the first bishop when Toronto was putting up churches left and right. Today, it is turning many of them into condos. Across the city, developers are buying up old churches and making them over as high-end residences. The combination of two trends – rising property prices and falling church attendance – has produced a whole new real estate category: the church conversion.

Globe and Mail

Toronto’s great real-estate data debate

Zoocasa CEO Lauren Haw says it would take about 30 seconds to add the price for which a property sold on its website. But Zoocasa, a member of the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB), is reluctantly respecting the board’s position the sold data not be posted online. A federal appeals court recently extended TREB’s right to continue that prohibition, pending a further appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Toronto Star – Global News

Ottawa expanding planning advisory committee

The City of Ottawa will have a 15-member planning advisory committee, significantly expanding the membership from a previous proposal that overwhelmingly favoured city hall’s inner circle. Politicians will be joined by development experts and regular citizens on the new committee, which is being forced by the province under amendments to the Planning Act.

Ottawa Citizen

TO welcomes construction on abandoned Urbancorp properties

Construction has resumed in an east-end neighbourhood that was left sandwiched between an abandoned Urbancorp development. The double row of sleek townhomes on Vince Avenue near Dundas Street and Coxwell Avenue had been book-ended by unsightly properties featuring exposed plywood, loose concrete and wild animal dens for about two years. Former developer Urbancorp declared bankruptcy in the spring of 2016.

CBC

Foreclosures in Fort McMurray up sharply

Fort McMurray is seeing a sharp increase in property foreclosure claims, according to new numbers from Alberta Justice and Solicitor General. For the seven-month period from April 1 to Oct. 31, Fort McMurray’s courthouse has seen 105 foreclosure statements of claim. That’s almost double the number seen in the 2016-17 fiscal year, and four times what the court saw in 2015-16.

CBC

Four key real estate issues in 2017: RECO

As the year draws to a close, I can think of four key issues that occupied a lot of our attention at the Real Estate Council of Ontario: entry fees, backing out of a deal, lowball offers and multiple representation.

Toronto Star – Financial Post

Stress tests, foreign buyers and higher rates in 2018

Real estate was a major topic in the business world in 2017, and with some big changes on the horizon, the subject is likely to dominate headlines again this year. Here are five things to watch in Canadian real estate:

CBC – Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Toronto Storeys

RENX Columnists

A ‘Net Zero’ home: What does it really mean?

In Canada, our new homes are already some of the most energy efficient in the world. There has, however, been a lot of discussion about “Net Zero” as it relates to housing, homes, and what it means in terms of building code changes and timing. The answer is complex, but what we do know is that the expected plan from the federal government is to mandate that all new homes must be Net Zero energy ready by 2030.

Read more

Market Conditions

Edmonton condo market expected to heat up in 2018

Neighbourhoods in central Edmonton and the booming southwest are expected to be among the city’s hottest condominium markets in 2018, a real estate analyst says. “With Alberta’s economy looking very positive for next year — Alberta looks to lead all the provinces for real GDP (gross domestic product) growth — we’re looking for a really positive year in the multi-family market,” Annalise Boytinck of Urban Analytics said.

Edmonton Journal

Mortgage ‘stress test’ brings winter spike in Ottawa

Instead of a winter slowdown, many Ottawa real-estate agents experienced a sales spike over the past two months as homebuyers rushed to seal deals ahead of new mortgage rules that kicked in Jan. 1. The new rule puts a mortgage “stress test” on uninsured homebuyers putting more than a 20 per cent down payment on their next home.

Ottawa Business Journal

More than 11,000 U.K. homes have long stood empty

More than 11,000 homes across the U.K. have been lying empty for longer than a decade despite the housing crisis and rising homelessness, according to new research by the Liberal Democrats. The data was collected through freedom of information requests to about 275 councils, which showed 60,000 properties had been empty for two years or more, 23,000 for five years or more, and over 11,000 have stood empty for at least 10 years.

The Guardian

U.S. new home sales jump 17.5 per cent in November

Americans stepped up their purchases of new homes at the fastest pace in more than 25 years in November, with sales skyrocketing 17.5 per cent amid robust demand and a continued shortage of existing homes on the market. The Commerce Department said new home sales last month jumped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 733,000 units compared to 624,000 in October.

Ottawa Citizen – GlobeSt.com

New Developments

Hamilton condo project still in limbo

The Connolly, the 30-storey residential condo tower planned for the site of Hamilton’s partially demolished James Street Baptist Church, almost had a new owner in the fall. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice appointed Spergel Inc., an insolvency firm, in June to be the receiver of the project headed by Stanton Renaissance, a company owned by Louie Santaguida.

CBC

Proposed Ottawa apartment building scaled back

Residents of Old Ottawa South recently heard a developer will scale back plans for a six-unit apartment building after neighbours raised concerns the project had ballooned from 12 to 27 bedrooms without consultation.  Coun. David Chernushenko called the growth of the project during the build “overdevelopment by stealth.” Jordan Tannis, president of Concorde Properties, said he had followed the city’s rules and blamed the dispute on miscommunication.

CBC

Confederation Poet’s Ottawa property eyed for 13 homes

An Ottawa community’s hope to transform a historic estate into a Nepean park is fading with a developer’s new plan to build 13 new homes on the lush property. Theberge Homes has filed a development application for 21 Withrow Ave. William Wilfred Campbell, a Confederation Poet, bought the property in 1914 and named it Kilmorie, writing about the “scarlet and gold” woods in a 1916 poem published in the Ottawa Journal.

Ottawa Citizen

Highrise construction on Edmonton downtown site set to begin

A 24-storey apartment building will begin to rise out of the gaping hole in the ground at the corner of 95th Street and Jasper Avenue in downtown Edmonton in January. “I think that hole has sat open with a lot of questions and we’re excited to bring it out of the ground,” said Sarah Itani, business development manager with Cidex.

CBC

Legal Issues

BCCA considers what constitutes a ‘habitable area’

The allocation of a strata corporation’s expenses among owners can create friction, especially when the method of calculation is seen by some owners to be unfair, inconsistent, or inequitable. This is precisely the scenario that arose in Barrett v. The Owners, Strata Plan LMS3265,1 a case in which the B.C. Court of Appeal considered what constitutes a “habitable area” in determining unit entitlements, as well as the law on inaccurate schedules of unit entitlement.

Mondaq

West Van. realtor committed professional misconduct: Panel

One of B.C.’s top realtors deceived a client by telling him he wouldn’t be presented a full-price offer for his home unless he paid $100,000 to another realtor as a bonus, a Real Estate Council of British Columbia. disciplinary panel has ruled. West Vancouver realtor Shahin Behroyan faced seven professional misconduct allegations in the case, and was found to have committed five.

Vancouver Province – Business In Vancouver

Affordable Housing

New development a lifeline for Victoria church

Oak Bay United Church is hoping to embark on a redevelopment with up to 150 units of affordable rental housing. Rev. Michelle Slater said the development is an effort to keep the church on a solid and sustainable footing to continue serving its congregation and the greater community. All plans foresee keeping the historic brick church while sacrificing smaller adjacent buildings that are in need of repair.

Victoria Times Colonist

Vancouver market just got even tougher

Some home buyers now might have to reconsider what they can afford in Vancouver thanks to new mortgage lending rules/ Home buyers who have qualified for a mortgage at a rate of 2.9 per cent, for example, will now have to prove they could absorb a rate hike of two percentage points or the five-year average rate posted by the Bank of Canada  — whichever is higher.

CBC – Globe and Mail

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

Richmond paves green space previously used as backyards

When the sewer pipe behind Karen Smith’s Steveston home failed, the City of Richmond sent her and three dozen of her neighbours a notice stating they would immediately replace it — and then pave over about 330 square feet of each of their backyards.  Work started in November and Smith has lost about one-third of her yard, which is separated from a construction site by temporary fencing. 

CBC

Buying and Selling

Foreign buyer loses deposit after walking away from Van. deal

A woman who argued she should not have had to go through with a real estate deal after the foreign buyers’ tax added $400,000 to her costs has had her case rejected in B.C. Supreme Court. Justice Lisa Warren ruled the new 15 per cent foreign buyers’ tax did not fundamentally change the nature of the contract between the buyer and seller of the home.

Business In Vancouver

Worried parents buying homes for school-aged kids

Jennifer Johnson felt she didn’t have time to wait. The single mom of two children, she watched as house prices in her Ajax, Ont., neighbourhood soared year after year. So, in 2014, with her own house paid off, she decided to take the real estate plunge again, buying her son, Braden, then 10, a home in Ajax for $410,000. In 2015, she purchased a $430,000 home in Brooklin, Ont., for her daughter, Sydney, then 12.

Globe and Mail

Other

Restrictive contracts, bigotry lingered in post-war Toronto RE

Just a week after Allied soldiers stormed the Normandy beaches in June  1944, a Toronto labour group grabbed headlines with a proposal that seemed to catch the updraft of optimism coming from the anticipated victory in Europe. The Workers’ Education Association (WEA) announced it had developed plans for “ideal workingman’s home.” If replicated, the WEA said, it could ease the city’s housing crunch.

Toronto Star

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