Airbnb in multifamily: friend or foe?

Airbnb in multifamily: friend or foe?

A couple of weeks ago, Airbnb announced its Friendly Building program. By applying to join, multifamily owners can control which units are eligible for short-term rentals as well as terms such as lengths of stay, number of nights, etc., and the landlord will earn 5 to 15 percent of the tenant’s revenue on any rentals.

MultiFamily Insider – Globe and Mail

Condos crack down on Airbnb

Condo managers are already cracking down on Airbnb rentals prior to the expected regulation in Toronto.

The city is currently reviewing the impact short-term rentals such as Airbnb have on Toronto real estate, with an eye on regulating that increasingly lucrative investment option.

Canadian Real Estate Magazine

Partnership for Vancouver mixed-use rental property

A partnership between the non-profit Odd Fellows Low Rental Housing Society, Terra Special Projects, GBL Architects, the City of Vancouverand Hungerford Properties will result in a mixed-use new development with 44 seniors housing suites, 117 affordable rental apartments and ground floor commercial units. “This is a very complementary set of attributes that each partner brings to the table,” said Hungerford partner Michael Hungerford.

Property Biz Canada

Calgary landlords scramble to reduce rents

Bridget Eastgaard and her husband saved $375 a month simply by asking their landlord for a reduction. Renters throughout the city are asking that same question, and many are finding steep discounts as Calgary’s residential vacancy rate is forecast to reach its highest level in more than 25 years.

Calgary Herald

Tenant survey bolsters call for landlord licensing

Cockroaches and bedbugs, poor ventilation and mold, faulty elevators and lack of heat in the winter. These are among the most common problems faced by Toronto tenants, according to a new survey being released Tuesday by ACORN Toronto, which represents about 20,000 low- and moderate-income residents across the city.

Toronto Star

Canada’s real estate sector poised for continued growth

Despite the perennial speculations of a housing market crash, there is room for growth in the Canadian real estate market as investors are moving East and towards more mixed-use developments according to Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2017, jointly released by PwC Canada and the Urban Land Institute (ULI).

Canada Newswire

Canadians have the third-largest homes in World: PwC

Canadians still have the third-largest homes, based on square footage, among 15 jurisdictions — but an influx of new immigrants could begin to shift attitudes according to accounting and consulting firm PwC. Only Australians and Americans have bigger abodes than Canadians.

Financial Post

Vancouver area’s empty-home rates doubled since 2001

The proportion of Metro Vancouver homes left vacant or not used as a primary residence has almost doubled since 2001, a time when the region’s residential real estate sector increasingly became a magnet for both local and foreign investors. Census data over a 30 year period shows the percentage of these homes in and around Vancouver hovered around 3 or 4 per cent until 2006.

Globe and Mail

Study touts condos and apartments for first-time buyers

Don’t worry about the backyard because there won’t be one. First-time buyers need to face the economic reality that prices for single-family detached houses in the Vancouver region and Greater Toronto Area will remain well above local incomes over the long term, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the Urban Land Institute.

Globe and Mail

Millennial home buyers will pay price to avoid commute

A recent survey from TD Canada Trust reveals that millennials are willing to spend more money on a home in order to live closer to work. But that isn’t the only factor for home buyers aged 18 through 34, most of whom are entering the real-estate market for the first time.

Globe and Mail

Canada’s housing bubble makes America’s look tiny

It’s been just over a decade since the U.S. housing market peaked, and rarely a day goes by without stories exploring the hot real estate market in Canada. Whether it’s warnings about elevated levels of household debt, government regulations to cool prices or the influx of foreign money, residential real estate generates sustained discussion and debate. 

McLeans

buildAbility leads net zero home charge in Canada

Ontario’s buildAbility Corporation has luck on its side — that would be Candice Luck. The 30-year-old is the company’s Director of Strategy & Programs, and recently won a 2017 Clean50 award for her work in net zero energy housing innovation and adoption. Luck acted as the project leader on an initiative worth more than $4-million and designed to double the number of net zero energy homes built in Canada.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Hotel tackles Vancouver’s housing challenges, promotes Aboriginal art

Dave Eddy isn’t one to shy away from the unconventional — even if not everyone is equally enthused. So it came as no surprise when in 2014 the CEO of Vancouver Native Housing Society (VNHS), a non-profit Aboriginal housing provider in Vancouver, launched Canada’s first boutique Aboriginal hotel, Skwachàys Lodge, a social enterprise designed to tackle the city’s housing challenges.

Financial Post

America’s inexpensive market rate apartments to disappear

Over the past several years, many multifamily developers have either built new high-end, luxury apartments or acquired older communities and upgraded them with top-of-the-line appliances and finishes. While these businesses are squeezing out the highest margins at the top of the market, the strategy also entails gobbling up what’s left of affordable apartments.

Multifamily Executive

Residential building can’t keep pace in Seattle

Surveying the dozens of towering cranes growing into Seattle’s skyline, one might wonder if there’s a housing boom that will eventually crash as it did in the last Seattle real estate downturn. It’s a reasonable reaction for an untrained observer, but it’s also a dangerous one for the region’s ability to plan for accommodating smart growth.

Market Watch

Market Conditions

Statistics Canada focuses on closing gaps in key housing data

Statistics Canada is focusing its attention on the factors driving demand in the country’s housing market, its chief statistician says – including the key data gap Ottawa has highlighted in information about foreign ownership. The agency plans to begin collecting data from land registries, provinces and other sources, with a feasibility study on how to gather that data scheduled to be published next year.

Globe and Mail

Foreign buyers share of sales plummets: Metro Vancouver

The rate of foreign investment in Metro Vancouver housing has fallen to 1.3 per cent since the introduction of a new tax targeting international buyers. The drop is dramatic compared with the seven-week period before the tax was introduced when foreign buyers accounted for 13.2 per cent of the residential purchases in the region.

Vancouver Sun – Globe and Mail

New mortgage rules a cold shower for the Québec

The Québec Federation of Real Estate Boards (QFREB) has just published an economic analysis in which it outlines the overall impact of the new measures announced by the federal government on the Québec housing and mortgage markets.  Whe QFREB foresees  a definite short- to mid-term slowdown of the real estate market.

Canada Newswire

Calgary home sales rise for second consecutive month

Calgary’s real estate market sales rose in October while inventory and the number of new listings fell in the city, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. Sales were up from year-ago levels for the second straight month, with 1,644 homes sold — a 15.6 per cent increase from October 2015. The year-over-year increase for September was 2.2 per cent.

Calgary Herald

Ottawa’s condo glut shows signs of easing

Ottawa’s housing market is much stronger than other cities across the country, but there remains a glut of new condos on the market. In a national housing analysis released this week, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation ranked the state of housing markets in all Canadian cities and found reasons for serious concern in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Saskatoon and Regina.

OBJ.ca

REIT results signal strong supply growth for U.S. apartments

The steady addition of new apartments over the past several years appears finally to be catching up with demand. Apartment markets softened in several major markets during the third quarter, especially for those properties at the top of the market, and the impact is starting to show up in the results reported by major multifamily REITs.

CoStar Group

Mortgage and Finance

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New Developments

New seniors housing planned for Edmonton neighbourhood

A motel being used for social housing in one of Edmonton’s older neighbourhoods is expected to come down to make way for high-rise tower geared toward seniors. Council has passed a bylaw to rezone the land on which the single-storey Patricia Motel sits to permit a $50-million,16-storey building with 300 units. Seventy units must be assisted-living.

CBC

Mayor’s executive committee to consider rooming house bylaw

When Wanda Wloch moved into her Rexdale home in 1983, it became her cozy refuge after a busy day working as a bank administrator.  At the time, the area, near Humber College Boulevard and Highway 27, was like other Toronto subdivisions filled with single-family homes lining a winding maze of streets.

Toronto Star

Taxes and Utilities

Other revenue than property-tax for SmartTrack, Tory says

Toronto Mayor John Tory says numerous possible revenue streams to build Smart Track and other transit projects will be discussed this month, after a joint report from the city and province identified a property-tax hike of at least 2.1 per cent to cover the city’s share. 

CBC

Hydro One rates vary widely across the province

Ontario electricity bills are the new weather. Everyone loves to talk about how high theirs is, how their respective utility must be the worst, most expensive in the province. But not everyone can have the highest bills in Ontario. So who really pays the most?

Financial Post

Other

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