High-flying Toronto condo market may hit turbulence

High-flying Toronto condo market may hit turbulence

The chill that has crept over some segments of the Toronto housing market may soon extend to one of its persistent hot spots: condominiums. Evidence of a slowdown is emerging as new rules make it tougher to get a mortgage and borrowing costs rise for the first time in almost a decade. That’s reducing the appeal of Toronto condos, whose average price now exceeds $560,000.

Bloomberg

Canadian apartment market state of the union

Derek Lobo is the CEO of SVN Rock Advisors Inc., Brokerage, a Burlington, Ont.-based commercial real estate and consulting company with an exclusive focus on the apartment sector. During an address on the state of Canada’s purpose-built apartment sector, Lobo noted that, after years of relative inactivity, apartment construction has started again. He estimates there are between 500 and 1,000 building applications across the country.

Property Biz Canada

Boardwalk wins best renovation prize for Calgary mid-rise

Boardwalk REIT was honored at the 2018 Calgary Residential Rental Association’s Awards Gala, held on June 7th, 2018, in Calgary, AB. It was the proud recipient of the 2018 Best Renovation of the Year Award for its newly enhanced Centre Pointe West community. Originally built in 1981, Centre Pointe West is a 121-unit, 10,600 square foot, concrete mid-rise in the beltline of Calgary.

Canada Newswire

Vancouver’s Reliance goes extra mile for evicted tenants

Vancouver developer and landlord Reliance Properties will provide double the financial compensation it is legally required to offer residents of a west end apartment building which must be vacated for a major renovation. The company announced its 16-storey Berkeley at English Bay must undergo extensive structural work.

Property Biz Canada

Land values beckon bulldozers in Vancouver

The three houses on East Sixth Avenue in Vancouver would have likely lasted for years: two of them appear fairly modern, but the value of the land beneath them combined with higher-density zoning doomed them. Assembled into a 14,000-square-foot land assembly, the detached houses sold in May for a combined $5.74 million for a new townhouse development.

Business in Vancouver

Vancouver may allow duplexes throughout the city

Zoning that ensures the majority of Vancouver is reserved for single-family homes could be changed as early as next month. City council will consider a motion Wednesday  which can be read here, asking staff to explore how amendments could be made “to enable duplex use in some or all” single-family neighbourhoods in Vancouver.

CBC

‘Lifetime Achievement’ honour a bit premature for Hugh Heron

Hugh Heron wasn’t totally thrilled with the nomenclature when he recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD). “I was honoured to receive it, but I wasn’t happy with the term ‘Lifetime Achievement’ because I’ve got a long life ahead of me,” Heron told RENX.

Property Biz Canada

TREB supports City Housing Committee, laneway suites

The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) applauds two recent housing decisions taken by two separate city committees which, if passed by City Council at their June 26 meeting, could have a positive impact on the housing market for all Torontonians: the creation of an all-encompassing Housing Committee, and a separate decision paving the way for permitting, regulating and setting guidelines for laneway suites.

Globe Newswire

BILD urges cities to better facilitate new housing

The Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) has launched a campaign outlining steps Ontario municipalities can take to spur homebuilding in the province. BILD CEO Dave Wilkes called Ontario’s housing shortage a “generational challenge” and urged candidates running in municipal elections this fall to advocate for more infrastructure spending, fewer government charges, less red tape and improved permitting practices.

Construct Canada

Two in three Canadians don’t trust general contractors

With construction season in full swing, a new Reno-Assistance survey conducted by Ipsos across Canada has found that two in three Canadians (64 per cent) do not trust general contractors. Confidence levels are even lower for some specialized contractors.

Canada Newswire

FCT launches new home protection solutions division

FCT has announced the launch of Home Protection Solutions (HPS), a new division that will provide prospective home buyers and sellers in Ontario with innovative services designed to ease the sales process and provide peace of mind regarding one of the largest and most meaningful transactions anyone will make in their lifetime. 

Canada Newswire

Halifax’s controversial Willow Tree Tower gets approved

Halifax Regional Council has voted to allow a 25-storey apartment building at the corner of Quinpool and Robie following a public hearing last night. To do so, council voted to make an exception to its current bylaw to allow for the height of the Willow Tree Tower.

CBC

Who’s buying Toronto’s 325 sq. ft. condos?

The studio-sized condo may be the most affordable type available and a staple of the investor market, but it’s an increasingly endangered species. Of the record 32,000 pre-construction condos brought to market in 2017, only 425, or 1.3 per cent, were studios, says Shaun Hildebrand, senior vice-president with Urbanation Ltd.

Globe and Mail

Canada’s largest condo sells for $28 million

A cryptocurrency baron has bought the largest and one of the most expensive condos in Canada, paying for it partly with digital money. Anthony Di Iorio purchased the three-story, 16,178-square-foot penthouse for $28 million at the St. Regis Residences Toronto, the former Trump International Hotel & Tower in the downtown business district.

Vancouver Sun

Multimillion-dollar waterfront mansion never finished

Forest industry mogul Peter Grant planned a palace on Lake Temiskaming. It was to feature waterfalls, an art gallery, golf course and an enormous boathouse. At 65 thousand square feet it was to be the largest house in Canada, but over a decade later it has never been finished or lived in.

CBC

Market Conditions

Quebec landlords worried about cannabis legalization

Landlords in Quebec are more worried than ever about cannabis legalization. According to a survey conducted this month by the Corporation des propriétaires immobiliers du Québec, 85 per cent of landlords are worried about the impacts that legalization will have on managing their rental properties an 11 percentage points increase since January 2017.

Montreal Gazette

A comprehensive profile of homebuyers in Greater Montreal

In its latest Housing Market Insight, entitled “Who are the homebuyers in the various sectors of Greater Montréal? A first comprehensive study on the topic,” Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) presents the very first detailed profile of homebuyers for the different sectors of Greater Montréal.

Canada Newswire

When a neighbour opens a ‘ghost hotel’

They are sometimes called “ghost hotels,” these Airbnb-style rentals in neighbourhoods all over the city — “ghost” because there’s no front desk, no staff, often just a digital handshake with a nameless, absent owner. And, as Tracy Penniston discovered, no one to turn to when trouble breaks out, or things go boo in the night.

Ottawa Citizen

Natural Disasters

Plans for Calgary flood protection berm may divide Bowness

It’s a key piece of the city’s flood mitigation puzzle — adding more than four kilometres of flood barriers in Bowness, Sunnyside, the downtown and Pearce Estate Park in Inglewood. In Bowness, the northwest community devastated by floodwaters five years ago, the proposed one-kilometre berm has the potential to divide a community that famously pulled together to clean up and rebuild after the 2013 disaster.

CBC

Affordable Housing

LMHC the ‘de facto’ provider of support for tenants

The London and Middlesex Housing Corporation is being slammed by both a lack of funding and an increasing demand for services from high-need tenants, according to a report that goes before the city’s audit committee Wednesday. The report draws on an audit by the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

CBC

Amid Canada’s housing crisis, living in a coffee shop not unusual

It is not surprising that a permanently homeless man would feel as though he could blend into this Vancouver branch of Tim Hortons, a 24-hour donut and coffee shop, at all hours. This is where Ted came every day for 10 years. Staff members and regulars alike knew his rolling suitcase, his handlebar mustache and his scowling disposition.

The Guardian

Buying and Selling

Why Chinese house hunters are drawn to Halifax

Dreams of a simple life by the sea are what drove Zhihang Zhou and his partner Ziyan Xiong to buy their first home in Halifax. They fell in love with the city while attending Saint Mary’s University and then the Nova Scotia Community College. “For people like us, this is really the perfect place,” said Xiong, “We’re definitely planning to be in the city probably forever.”

CBC

Other

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