Builders can’t keep up with demand for Montreal condos

Builders can’t keep up with demand for Montreal condos

Despite a record-setting number of new condo projects under construction in Montreal, eager buyers are snapping up condos so quickly builders are struggling to keep up with demand. In the Montreal area, 77 per cent of units in condo projects under construction have already been sold, up six per cent from last year. In the downtown area, the number jumps to 85 per cent — a 12 per cent increase over last year.

Montreal Gazette – Montreal Gazette

B.C. raises strata short-term rental fines to $1,000 per day

Homeowners groups in British Columbia will soon be able to fine owners or residents up to $1,000 a day for defying the corporation’s bylaws on short-term rentals. The B.C. government says the regulations for the so-called strata corporations will be changed as of Nov. 30 to help the associations address short-term rentals, such as those arranged through Airbnb and other vacation websites.

Financial Post – CBC – Vancouver Province

Alignvest Student Housing REIT makes first purchase

Alignvest Student Housing REIT has made its first acquisition as it sets out to consolidate what its managing partner calls a highly fragmented Canadian purpose-built student accommodation real estate sector. Alignvest managing partner Sanjil Shah said most purpose-built student accommodations in Canada are owned by local developers and investors. He added major Canadian institutional investors have put money into the sector mainly in other countries.

Property Biz Canada

Minto buys Ottawa’s Manor Village in receivership sale

Minto Capital Management has purchased and will immediately begin upgrading a 111-unit townhouse complex in Ottawa that has been the subject of headlines in local media during the past year. Minto announced this week it is the new owner of Manor Village, which had been listed by JLL in a receivership process. The property is located west of the city’s inner core.

Property Biz Canada

Ottawa finally evolving into dynamic city

It’s time to stand up and declare: Ottawa has arrived. The city has always been more interesting than its critics contend, gifted with pleasant neighbourhoods and an abundance of green space. It’s also one of the few genuinely bilingual parts of Canada, where French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians co-exist more-or-less happily.

Globe and Mail

Daniels unveils Toronto’s Artworks Tower

Regent Park in Toronto is undergoing one of the most ambitious and incredible revitalizations in the history of the city and Daniels Corporation is playing a leading role. The latest high-rise condo in the community was just announced – Artworks Tower will rise 33 storeys and feature one- to three-bedroom units, starting from the high $300,000s, and will be located at Dundas and River.

Newinhomes.com – Property Biz Canada

York Region struggling to build for the future: BILD

When it comes to building communities, time is of the essence. People who are coming to live in the GTA need a healthy supply of homes and offices supported by reliable infrastructure, and they need it now — not years from now. Yet, too often, communities cannot build or update crucial infrastructure fast enough to accommodate growth because they face onerous regulatory hurdles.

Toronto Star

Winnipeg builder offers prefab, net-zero energy homes

Eric Bjornson wants to be the IKEA of home construction. The Winnipeg-based, environmentally friendly homebuilder has garnered a reputation in the province for designing and constructing custom, net-zero energy, single-detached homes. Now he has a big — and ambitious — idea that comes in a relatively small package. If it’s successful, he hopes to change how the industry builds.

Sustainable Biz Canada

LRT will help downtown Edmonton lease rates: Experts

A U.S.-based report forecasts that buildings near LRT can bring in lease rates as much as 65 per cent more than buildings that are car-dependent. Transwestern, in a Building Design and Construction report, said an analysis of 15 major metro areas saw that dramatic difference in average rent — with figures ranging from $43.48 per square foot where transit is the best means to get to work, compared to $26.01 where employees drive.

Global News

U of A to close Michener Park family residences

The University of Alberta will close its only residence for students who parent because of escalating maintenance costs and decreasing demand. Built in the 1960s as a family residence, the condition of Michener Park has slowly deteriorated over time to the point where the university has actually closed some of the units because they are no longer habitable.

Edmonton Journal

Burnaby makes move to preserve rental housing

The City of Burnaby has made a move to preserve some of its rental housing supply in the Metrotown area. On Thursday, council moved to send back two major redevelopment proposals in the area to include more rental housing. The city has slated the Metrotown area for transit-centred densification as part of an official community plan that council approved last summer.

CBC

Seniors-millennial home sharing model is born

Canada’s rents are rising while the vacancy rate shrinks, yet the country has one coveted real estate asset collecting dust: empty bedrooms, and millions of them. A growing number of the country’s seniors are living in homes too big, while young Canadians squeeze into apartments too expensive. Here’s one solution: share the living space already built, to mutual benefit.

Globe and Mail – Toronto Star – CBC

Haida Gwaii village faces housing crisis

As more tourists flock to Haida Gwaii, off the northern coast of British Columbia, the remote archipelago’s largest village is facing an unusual problem. Despite a declining population, Queen Charlotte village is experiencing a housing crisis, Mayor Greg Martin said. “Housing is tight, we’re pretty close to zero vacancy,” he said. “Ironically, over the last 20 years we’ve had a reduction in population.”

CBC

Buying a house to get easier for self-employed Canadians

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is making changes intended to make it easier for the self-employed to qualify for a mortgage. The national housing agency says it’s giving lenders more guidance and flexibility to help self-employed borrowers. Self-employed Canadians may have a harder time qualifying for a mortgage as their incomes may vary or be less predictable.

Money Sense – Canada Newswire – Newinhomes.com

RECO berates agents over lockbox abuse

For years, real estate agents have used lockboxes with the keys to their clients’ homes as a time-saving device: Can’t be there in person to let a buyer’s agent into a house? Give them the lockbox code. But according to a blistering memo from the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO), many in the industry have gotten entirely too blasé about the practice.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Market Conditions

What a (cooling) heat map tells us about Canada’s housing market

Things suddenly look less dire for Canada’s housing market. These are early days, of course, and the Vancouver area is still in flux, but recent reports suggest Canadians should count their blessings but cross their fingers for something sustainable after government and regulatory moves aimed at preventing burst bubbles.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Wealthy homeowners fuel luxury design market

Vancouver’s interior design sector thrives on homeowners who want their abodes to reflect an image. The design could denote contemporary luxury, environmental awareness, or simply affluence, and getting it right usually means working with a team to pick everything from the bathroom tiles to the kitchen stove.

Business In Vancouver

Multi-family investors need to get more strategic

U.S. multi-family investors continue to be eager to purchase value-add apartment assets. The challenge is to find the right property. “Many of the easy deals already have been done,” says Greg Willett, chief economist for Richardson, Texas-based RealPage Inc., a provider of property management software and services.

National Real Estate Investor

U.S. housing starts hit nine-month low

U.S. home building fell to a nine-month low in June and permits declined for a third straight month, dealing a blow to the housing market as it struggles with a dearth of properties available for sale. Higher lumber prices and shortages of land and labour are constraining home building. The housing market is lagging overall economic growth.

Reuters

Mortgage and Finance

Van. homebuyers face unintended consequences of rules

In Metro Vancouver, where the gap between incomes and home values makes the region an unaffordable outlier in North America, buyers are especially prone to get hit with unintended consequences of so-called mortgage stress testing. The test was introduced this year by Canada’s banking regulator to keep homebuyers from taking on risky levels of debt. But the result is reduced buying power that changes what first-time homebuyers can purchase.

Vancouver Sun

New Developments

Condos take shape at Edmonton’s old Charles Camsell hospital

Brian Seitinger has been in construction his entire life. There must have been days over the last 14 years he’s felt he’s been working on the Charles Camsell Hospital renovation for most of his life, too. Seitinger is the owner of T.C. Biggs Construction and the project manager of the Camsell project. The decommissioned hospital, which developer Gene Dub purchased from the province in 2004, has been their nemesis project.

Edmonton Journal

Seniors Housing

Vancouver seniors housing costly

With greater age comes greater rents, and that should spawn a new way of thinking for all those who crack jokes when the city defines an affordable one-bedroom rent at $1,730 (east side) or $1,903 (west side). According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC), a one-bedroom independent-living unit for seniors in the city averages $4,903 a month, up 18% from last year.

Business In Vancouver

Affordable Housing

‘Affordable’ housing may need to be redefined: Tory

Mayor John Tory says he’s open to the city redefining what is considered “affordable” housing amid criticism that hundreds of new units approved each year are only a dream for people struggling to make ends meet. “The definition of affordability depends who you’re asking,” Tory acknowledged Tuesday. “As Toronto gets more expensive, it may be that we have to take a look at that.”

Toronto Star – Newinhomes.com – Toronto Star

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

Privately owned public spaces in Vancouver spread

Late one night on the Canada Day long weekend, Eddy Elmer was sitting at his usual spot at the Harbourside Park Towers fountain in downtown Vancouver. However, on that night, a security guard approached him and asked if he lived in the adjacent towers. When he responded he didn’t, the security guard told him he didn’t belong there and he needed to move along. 

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Buying and Selling

Priciest Whistler property headed to auction

The priciest property for sale in Whistler is headed to auction. Now anyone can get it! Anyone, that is, with untold millions lying around. Previously listed for $25.9 million, the forested estate located at 2016 Nita Lane will sell to the highest bidder following a three-day auction from Aug. 7-10.

Vancouver Sun

Other

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