B.C. court ruling foreshadows flood of litigation: Lawyer

B.C. court ruling foreshadows flood of litigation: Lawyer

A student who owned a multi-million dollar Vancouver home has won a B.C. Supreme Court judgment forcing the sale of up to four Vancouver properties, in a complex case that foreshadows a flood of sales and litigation in Vancouver’s wild market, a real estate lawyer says. In 2016 Angela An-Chi Chang sued a person who allegedly failed to complete their purchase of Chang’s home.

Vancouver Sun – Business In Vancouver

B.C. landlords collecting too much info: Privacy commissioner

B.C.’s Information and Privacy Commissioner is recommending a limit on the amount of personal information required on rental applications. Where personal info is required, the specific purpose should clearly stated, the commissioner said in a report released Thursday. The report contains a number of recommendations, including credit checks be required only when a prospective tenant cannot provide sufficient references about previous tenancies or satisfactory employment and income verification.

Global News – CBC – Globe and Mail – Vancouver Sun

B.C. gives broad exemptions to speculation tax

The B.C. government has made a number of changes to its proposed speculation tax which will reduce both the number of people paying the tax and the amount they’ll pay. The tax was to be 0.5 per cent of a vacant property’s assessed value this year and two per cent in 2019. The tax would no longer apply to properties in the Gulf Islands, Parksville, Qualicum Beach or rural Fraser Valley. 

CBC – Vancouver Sun – CTV – Victoria Times Colonist

Uninsured mortgages soar to eight-year high

Canada’s uninsured mortgage market reached an eight-year high in January as government steps to reduce taxpayer exposure to the housing market gain traction, according to data from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Mortgages that don’t require homeowner insurance surged 19 per cent from a year ago, accounting for about 53 per cent of the $1.13 trillion of home loans at Canada’s federally regulated banks.

Bloomberg – Financial Post – Globe Newswire

Toronto developers court families with multi-bedroom units

Toronto’s high-rise condo developers are increasingly realizing they can play a role in meeting the needs of buyers looking for “missing middle” housing – and are starting to plan buildings that are no longer dominated by one-bedroom or studio units. In recent decades, city planners have urged developers to set aside only 10 per cent of a building’s units for multi-bedroom uses.

Globe and Mail

Trinity-Spadina residents brace for more condos

The iconic slaughterhouse that gave Toronto its nickname Hogtown shuttered years ago, but the Trinity-Spadina landmark site may soon boast condos.  About 100 people gathered Thursday to discuss a proposal that would see six buildings built on the land that once housed the abattoir and Quality Meat Packers. Gone will be the stench of meat and the dreary factories, and in its place might come sky-high glass skyscrapers.

CBC

Hamilton will fight Television City condo towers

It will be Brad Lamb versus Hamilton city council this year as the two square off at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) over the planned Television City condo towers. Council’s planning committee voted Tuesday to oppose Lamb’s project at the OMB. The high-profile Toronto developer wants to build two condo towers — one 30 storeys, one 40 — at the CHCH headquarters in downtown Hamilton.

CBC – Hamilton Spectator – Property Biz Canada

Fukushima-scale nuclear accident would devastate Pickering

A Fukushima-scale meltdown at the Pickering nuclear power plant would exact a devastating human and economic toll on the province, causing 26,000 cases of cancer — nearly half of them fatal — and the evacuation of 154,000 homes in York and Durham regions and east Toronto.

Some areas would be uninhabitable for 100 years.

Toronto Star

Smart cities initiative marries municipalities to big data

It’s been nearly a decade since the City of Helsinki turned on its valves to open data, publicly releasing information on everything from regional carbon emissions to the distribution of business permits. In the words of the Finnish capital’s deputy mayor, Helsinki wants to become a “test bed” for collaborators who can use this data to innovate, create efficiencies in city management or simply challenge the status quo.

Business In Vancouver

Anger grows over Canucks owner’s proposed homes

Vancouver Sun

Kelowna dumps plan for 1,000 housing units near landfill

The City of Kelowna has nixed plans for a large-scale development near the city’s landfill citing the possibility of future “nuisances” faced by residents including noise, dust and smell. Diamond Mountain was planned as a community of 1,000 single-and multi-family homes, as well as parks and trails, located on an 88-acre site south of the Glenmore Landfill. In a 5-2 vote, council rejected plans to move ahead with the development.

CBC

Ontario’s cottage market riding out listings drought

Every spring, buyers and sellers leave their winter burrows and begin to assess how much they really need their perfect country getaway. Agents who work the lakefront lots and rural backroads say that after a wild 2017 that saw a frenzied pace of transactions, sellers this year appear shy and, so far, the volume of cottages available for sale is about half what they saw last year.

Globe and Mail

Toking would be allowed in few Manitoba places

Legalized cannabis users in Manitoba will be largely prohibited from consuming pot anywhere but in their own homes if a new bill introduced by the provincial government is passed into law. Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen introduced the bill proposing strict guidelines for recreational cannabis use is expected to be legalized later this year.

CBC – CBC

Apartments outperform U.S. CRE: NMHC research

Apartments outperform other commercial real estate property types, on both a risk-adjusted and unadjusted basis, regardless of holding period, geographic region, metro size, and growth rate according to new research from the National Multifamily Housing Council Research Foundation. 

Building Design & Construction

Construction delays slow down U.S. multi-family

A slowdown in new construction starts, and delays in completing apartment projects already under way, is giving the multi-family market a “breather” from the surge in new units expected to hit the market this year, according to CoStar data. After a remarkable eight-year run, fundamentals in the U.S. multi-family market appeared to be softening by the end of last year. 

CoStar Group – GlobeSt.com

Market Conditions

Langley’s low affordability deterring millennials

Langley remains very much a world away from Vancouver, something Point2Homes, a division of California data management firm Yardi Systems Inc., makes clear in ranking Langley Township Canada’s “least tempting” location for millennials. Sure, unemployment is second lowest among cities surveyed and “you can drink some of the best wines in all of British Columbia,” but Point2Homes notes the crime rate is high and housing affordability even worse.

Business In Vancouver

London, Ont., in the grip of real estate fever

The snow is melting, the days are getting longer, the air is getting warmer and as we head into April, London real estate agents brace for their busy season. And like spring itself, there are certain signs this season is shaping up to be a busy one.  “The biggest sign is when you have so many buyers looking for houses,” said Michelle Wright, a London realtor with Nu Vista Premiere Real Estate. 

CBC

GTA new home market still rising: BILD

There is little relief so far this year for first-time buyers in the Toronto region looking to purchase a new construction home. The overall limited supply of newly built and pre-construction homes is particularly severe in the single-family category — detached, semi-detached and townhouses — priced for first-time buyers, according to the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD).

Toronto Star – Newinhomes.com – Canada Newswire

U.S. home sales surge, but supply remains a headache

U.S. home sales surged in February, boosted by hefty gains in the South and West regions, but a chronic shortage of houses on the market remains an obstacle heading into the spring selling season. The National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday existing home sales jumped 3.0 per cent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.54 million units last month. That ended two straight months of declines. January’s sales pace was unrevised at 5.38 million units.

Reuters – PR Newswire

New Developments

Hearing on proposed Edmonton high-rises extended to April

Edmonton city council extended Monday’s public hearing on the rezoning proposal of two tall towers in Strathcona until April 9, allowing more time to hear resident concerns. Bateman Properties and ONE Properties are proposing to build 15- and 18-storey towers at 89th Avenue at 99th Street. Currently, the area is zoned for medium-high rises — most buildings are no taller than six storeys.

CBC

Legal Issues

Decision highlights second-hand smoke as ‘legitimate’ concern

Health groups in Saskatchewan are celebrating a decision by the Office of Residential Tenancies they believe prove tenants have the right to live unaffected by second-hand smoke.  Three tenants complained to the office after the units they were living in, which belonged to Regina Housing Authority, were infiltrated by second-hand tobacco smoke from other tenants.

CBC

Ontario’s new mandatory residential tenancy agreement

In addition to being busy creating forms under the Condominium Act, Ontario has kept busy creating a new mandatory standard lease for residential unit under the Residential Tenancies Act (the legislation presently regulating the relationship between landlords and tenants in a residential setting). Starting April 30, landlords of private residential rental units, including condominium units, must use the new mandatory Residential Tenancy Agreement form for all new leases.

Lexology

Affordable Housing

B.C. communities take cautious approach on modular projects

Communities across British Columbia are considering temporary modular housing projects for homeless and low-income tenants, but some are taking a cautious approach after a similar proposal in Vancouver fuelled protests and legal challenges. B.C.’s NDP government is planning to create 2,000 supporting housing spaces across the province by setting up modular units that can be assembled quickly to address local homelessness and moved if those needs change.

Globe and Mail

Toronto, Vancouver exceptions to affordability: BMO

Canada Newswire

Coquitlam development stirs affordable housing worries

A massive redevelopment proposal in Burquitlam that is expected to provide homes for 6,000 people does not include enough subsidized and below-market rental residential units, according to a prominent Tri-City housing advocate. Sandy Burpee, the chair of the Tri-Cities Homelessness Task Group, said the 20 to 40 units of below-market rental housing are inadequate.

Business In Vancouver

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

Ancaster to implement rules to prevent ‘monster homes’

They’re often called “monster homes” — houses built on lots where smaller ones have been demolished. Now the city is implementing new rules in Ancaster to make them fit in a little better with their neighbourhoods. City councillors voted Tuesday to start a pilot project preventing people from building oversized homes in older neighbourhoods.

CBC

Buying and Selling

The best places to buy a home on one income

Greater Vancouver is the least affordable place in Canada to buy property on a single income, according to a new study conducted by Toronto-based real estate brokerage Zoocasa. The most affordable? Saint John or Greater Moncton in New Brunswick, or Trois Rivieres in Quebec.

Vancouver Sun – Hamilton Spectator

For $7M, you could buy a shack in Vancouver or . . .

In 2015 a shack in Vancouver’s West End made headlines when it sold for nearly $3 million. Just 27 months later, the rundown pile is back on the market and making headlines again, with an asking price of close to $7 million. That sounds nuts, but it’s even crazier when you compare it to what that kind of money will buy in other parts of Canada, the U.S., and elsewhere.

Maclean’s – CTV

Other

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