What’s needed to fix the real estate industry

What’s needed to fix the real estate industry

The association that represents real estate agents in Ontario says more needs to be done to protect consumers and punish agents found to have engaged in unethical behaviour.  Tim Hudak, CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association, spoke out in response to a CBC Marketplace hidden camera investigation that documented real estate agents breaking the rules.

CBC – CBC Marketplace Report – Mortgage Broker News – Globe and Mail

Toronto condo site sells at the ‘right price’

Greybrook Realty Partners Inc. had big plans for its four-acre parcel of land on Toronto’s waterfront at 215 Lake Shore Boulevard East but an offer from Chinese real estate Greenland Group (Canada) turned out to be too good to turn down. Greenland Group paid the developer more than $166-million for its four-acre share of the property.

Property Biz Canada

Luxury home sales climb across Canada: RE/MAX

Sales of homes priced over $1 million were up year-over-year in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Victoria and Oakville in the first nine months of 2016. In the GTA and Vancouver, Canada’s largest high-end housing markets, sales of $3 million-plus homes saw significant increases, of 86 per cent in the GTA and 41 per cent in Vancouver.

Canada Newswire

Foreigners still love US real estate

The United States is still a top destination for foreign real estate buyers despite increasing government scrutiny over the past year. However, rising prices in the U.S. real estate market have government officials worried about dirty money being funneled into luxury real estate.

The Epoch Times

Vancouver penthouse up for sale, Canada’s most expensive listing

The most expensive home for sale in Canada is a condo in Coal Harbour. The $58,888,000 penthouse at Three Harbour Green on Thurlow Street is right at the waterfront and has 360-degree views of the city, ocean and mountains. It’s just over 8,000 square feet with four bedrooms and five bathrooms, plus two rooftop terraces and a balcony totalling 4,840 square feet.

Global News

Sotheby’s hopes Chinese partnership will boost Vancouver sales

The president of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada says the B.C. government’s tax on foreign buyers has put a damper on the housing market in the Vancouver region, but Sotheby’s is optimistic about a new partnership with a leading online property-listing service that targets purchasers in China.

Globe and Mail

Million Dollar Shack couple’s story resonates with Vancouver buyers

When a Bay Area couple decided to document their unaffordable housing experience on YouTube, they didn’t expect their mini-documentary to become the lightning rod for the crisis. Last year, Michelle Joyce and Steve Fyffe released the 23-minute self-funded video called Million Dollar Shack, which has received almost 276,000 views.

Globe and Mail

Condos are the glass menageries of Toronto: Mallick

Inside Toronto’s glass towers nuzzled up against each other, owners have no privacy. They’re Edward Hopper’s nighthawks. This might be because they’re exhibitionists — the same way earnest young architects love Brutalist cement barns because they’re a blank backdrop for one’s own gloriousness — or because they didn’t think things through.

Toronto Star

Toronto’s grudge against apartments: Micallef

Toronto has a grudge against apartments, a sentiment expressed in various ways. A few weeks ago, a group in Parkdale held a public meeting on development in their community and invited speakers from other neighbourhoods to share knowledge. The byzantine planning process is difficult to negotiate, so sharing knowledge is critical to being effective.

Toronto Star

Apartment towers pitched to replace Holyrood townhouses

The Valley Line LRT construction in Edmonton has spurred a new plan to put up apartments on the aging Holyrood Gardens townhouse site near the Bonnie Doon traffic circle. Regency Developments is considering building row houses, high-rises and medium-density (six to eight storey) apartments on the property.

Edmonton journal

Whistler to address ‘serious’ rental housing crunch

Working on the world-class ski slopes of Whistler is a dream come true for many people but finding a place to live in the resort town is nothing short of a nightmare. A new Mayor’s Task Force on Housing and Affordability is poised to make recommendations to address a problem.

CBC – Globe and Mail

Vancouver home sales fell 38.8% last month

Home sales plunged 38.8 per cent last month compared with October 2015, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver says. The board said 2,233 properties were sold in October of this year, down from the 3,646 home sales recorded in the same month last year.

Calgary Herald – Financial Post

Mississauga is dealing with high home prices too

Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie says her city is well equipped to keep housing prices affordable as sky-high prices seen in Toronto’s red-hot real estate market spread into the suburbs. Crombie said prices for a detached home have increased 20 per cent from last year, with the average now well above the $900,000 mark.

CBC

Canadian housing starts, permits slip in cooling market

Canadian housing starts slowed in October as the once-hot British Columbia market braked sharply. Groundbreaking on new homes fell to 192,928 units in October, roughly in line with expectations from a revised seasonally adjusted annual rate of 219,363 units in September, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp said.

Globe and Mail

Home prices in Toronto suburbs on fire

The dream of a detached home in Canada’s largest city has created “intense” competition for cheaper houses in the suburbs where price gains are now outstripping similar properties in the city. The Toronto Real Estate Board’s October results, released Thursday, showed the suburban market just keeps getting hotter and detached homes are leading the way.

Financial Post

RENX Columnists

The healing circle comes to Ontario’s Assessment Review Board

It’s possible that the single largest source of conflict between taxpayers and government is assessment for property taxes. Challenging a property assessment that you consider unfair has traditionally been a confrontational process, but it doesn’t have to be. Nor should it.

Read more

Market Conditions

The U.S. top 19 cost-burdened metros

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines a “housing-cost burdened” household as one that’s spending more than 30% of its income on rent.  The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University estimates that nearly half of all U.S. renters across all income levels are housing-cost burdened.

Multifamily Executive

The Newfoundland Northern Peninsula population decline

Hayward Elliott is 80 and hobbled by creaky knees, but that doesn’t slow the soft-spoken man and his tool belt. Holding a hammer in one hand and a strip of lumber in the other, he puts the finishing touches on some exterior repairs to the Anglican church in Cook’s Harbour, a depleted and decaying fishing community on Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula.

CBC

Mortgage and Finance

	RENX 2017 media kit now available
	A blended ad program, take-over advertising, writing services and a second weekly edition of Property Biz Canada in 2017. Advertising that reaches thousands of professionals in the commercial real estate industry every business day. Contact sales@renx.ca, 1-855-569-6300

 

New Developments

Illegal protest against condos in Montreal

They were a small cluster of masked adults, waiting in a dark corner of the park. Gradually more and more arrived, till there were about 100, some in full Halloween costume. Finally someone unfurled a long banner covered with anti-gentrification slogans then the crowd headed toward the heart of Montreal’s Hochelaga district for an illegal demonstration.

Globe and Mail

Buying and Selling

How to avoid pitfalls like double-ended deals

Double-ended real estate deals aren’t the only dangerous menace lurking in the murky waters of Canada’s red hot real estate markets. Because even when realtors are only working one side of the sale, it can be hard for a buyer or a seller to know if they’ve found the right person to really look out for them.

CBC

Other

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