Alberta condo developers now must meet firm move-in dates

Alberta condo developers now must meet firm move-in dates

Condo developers in Alberta will have to set firm move-in dates for buyers and be prepared to refund deposits if they miss those deadlines under new condo regulations unveiled Thursday by the NDP government. Service Alberta Minister Stephanie McLean announced the changes Thursday in Calgary, saying they will be good for both condo buyers and those who build and sell them.

CBC – Calgary Herald – Sherwood Park News

UDI CEO ‘disappointed’ by Vancouver’s presale condo plan

Over the Thanksgiving long weekend, the head of B.C.’s real estate development industry association was not happy. Urban Development Institute CEO Anne McMullin was expressing her displeasure to Kevin Quinlan, chief of staff for Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, in response to the previous day’s announcement about the idea of giving local buyers first priority on condo pre-sales.

Vancouver Sun – Globe and Mail

Legalized marijuana big concern for multi-res owners

Even if provincial governments ban tenants from growing marijuana plants in their homes – in the face of proposed federal government legislation that will make it legal to do so – marijuana legalization in Canada will create a host of other problems, say associations representing multi-res owners.

Property Biz Canada – Ottawa Citizen

CRA seeks information to identify B.C. condo-flippers

The Canada Revenue Agency is casting a wide net in its investigation of condo presales, with court documents indicating the agency will seek “any and all correspondence, including emails,” between all parties involved in the transactions, including developers, buyers and agents. The agency in July obtained two court orders related to large condo projects in Vancouver and in September, applied for two more.

Globe and Mail

Rohit Group homebuilders move into Calgary, Regina

An Edmonton-based homebuilder, which recently launched operations in Calgary, is planning to double the number of homes it builds each year and become the “Costco” of real estate as it expands into the commercial market. Rohit Gupta, president of the Rohit Group of Companies, expects to be producing about 750 to 850 housing units a year by the end of 2019.

Property Biz Canada

Victoria, Vancouver have fastest-growing one-bedroom rents

The average Vancouver one-bedroom apartment rented for $2,120 in October, up five per cent compared with September, according to PadMapper’s latest data. Vancouver remains the most expensive city in the country for both one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. The monthly jump for one-bedroom units was second only to that seen in Victoria, where rents grew 5.2% to $1,210.

Business In Vancouver – Vancouver Sun – CTV – MetroNews Canada

Toronto needs far more new rental apartments: Report

The Toronto area needs 8,000 new rental units a year — more than four times the number it built last year — to restore the region to a healthy vacancy rate. It also needs to wean itself from a growing reliance on the private condos that represent about a third of rentals in the city, says a report published by the Ryerson City Building Institute and Evergreen.

Toronto Star

New condo developments roll on despite TO housing downturn

Architect Richard Wengle puts aside the architectural renderings in front of him to gaze upward at a deep twilight sky. He is standing beneath the cupola that tops the great room of his own Forest Hill home. “We bring a lot of people here,” Wengle says. “They see what volume and space and light feels like.”

Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Newinhomes.com

Kitchener developers rush to avoid millions in fees

The Downtown Kitchener Development Charge Exemption states “All lands within the Downtown Core Boundary are exempt from both City of Kitchener and Regional development charges, including the Regional development charges for waste and transit.” This incentive ends in February 2019 and Jennifer Young in Kitchener’s building department, expects the city to be “swamped” with applications. 

Newinhomes.com

Ottawa councillor says developers ‘circumventing’ process

An Ottawa municipal councillor is accusing the city of allowing developers to circumvent normal approval process to add extra density to new developments. During a city planning meeting last week, Coun. Jeff Leiper called on his council colleagues to reject an application from Peloso Construction for zoning changes that would allow the developer to add a fourth unit to two buildings.

Ottawa Business Journal – CBC

OSFI sets tougher rules for mortgage lending

Ottawa plans to move forward with regulations that would make it tougher for Canadians to qualify for uninsured loans, affecting consumers with down payments of 20 per cent or more. In final guidelines published Tuesday, the Office of Superintendent of Financial Institutions even tweaked its original proposal forcing borrowers to also qualify based on a potentially higher Bank of Canada five-year posted rate.

Financial Post – Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Financial Post

A look at how other cities use outdoor space

Toronto is changing and so are ideas of what a park looks like and what it’s for – not just a moment in nature or a game of soccer but food, art and building community in a diverse and dense city. Already public spaces are appearing in unconventional places. Later this year, the Bentway, underneath the Gardiner Expressway, will open to the public.

Globe and Mail – CBC

Vancouver home sales down 17%: BCREA

More than a year after the implementation of the foreign-buyer tax in August 2016, the total number of homes sold year-to-date in September is down 17.2% compared with last year, according to British Columbia Real Estate Association data. A total of 28,631 homes were sold in the first nine months of 2017, compared with 34,598 units in the same period last year.

Business In Vancouver – Business In Vancouver – Vancouver Sun

Micro-apartment can pop up in any city in just one day

SLIDESHOW: The thought of living in an apartment with the footprint of a parking space may seem improbable and uncomfortable, but the chic Tikku micro-apartment shows us that it can be done. In response to pressures of the housing crises, Finnish architect Marco Casagrande of Casagrande Laboratory designed and built a prefabricated mobile micro-apartment that can pop up in as little as a day.

Inhabitat

U.S. rents growing the most in former housing crash cities

Apartment rents continue to grow more slowly than before. The cities where rents grew the most in 2016 are still top cities for rent growth this year, but their lead is getting smaller. “A year ago there was a pretty big spread between Houston, which had rent growth of about 1 percent, and Sacramento, which was much larger –nearly 12 per cent,” says Axiometrics senior vice-president Jay Denton.

National Real Estate Investor – National Real Estate Investor – National Real Estate Investor – CNBC

Market Conditions

Montreal house prices reach a new high

House prices in the Montreal region have reached a new high, according to two reports released on Thursday. The aggregate price of houses and condos rose to $384,055 during the three-month period that ended on Sept. 30, according to the Royal LePage House Price Survey.

Montreal Gazette – CBC – Toronto Star – Winnipeg Free Press

Canada ‘ripe’ for severe housing correction: Fund investor

Canada’s housing market is “ripe for a pretty severe correction” with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce the most vulnerable, according to Steve Eisman, a fund manager at Neuberger Berman Group LLC. While Canada’s subprime mortgage market is much smaller than in the U.S., real estate prices in the country have risen more, said Eisman, who was featured in Michael Lewis’s book “The Big Short.”

Bloomberg

TD predicts Canada housing market rebound in mid-2018

The number of homes sold in September climbed for the second month in a row after a slowdown earlier this year that was led by a cooling in the Toronto market.  TD Bank senior economist Michael Dolega said unlike the gain in August, that was driven by Toronto, the increase for September was more widespread.

Financial Post – CBC – Newinhomes.com

‘The worst is still to come’: Teranet

Falling home prices in Toronto in September dragged down the Teranet–National Bank national composite house price index as it posted its first monthly decline since January 2016. The national index, which includes 11 cities, fell 0.8 per cent compared with the previous month, the largest monthly decline since September 2010.

Toronto Star

The U.K. housing market’s perfect storm

The rate of home ownership is plummeting, and the average age at which people become owner-occupiers is rising. In London and other property hotspots, the rents are unaffordable for those working at the sharp end of the service sector. Homelessness is on the up. William Beveridge identified housing as a postwar challenge for Britain in 1942 when he named squalor as one of the “giant evils.” 

The Guardian – The Guardian

Mortgage and Finance

Vancouver Townhouse realtor examines mortgage sizes

According to an annual survey from Demographia, Vancouver is the third most unaffordable housing market in the world, just after Hong Kong and Sydney, Australia. But what exactly does that look like? That’s what Townhouse realtor Ariane Benjamin examines in her new blog post. For the first quarter of 2017, the average size of a new mortgage in Vancouver was $517,415.

Marketwired

Canadian mortgage rates will never hit five per cent

High borrowing rates are a relic. Canadian regulators may soon force borrowers to qualify at interest rates two percentage points above the contract rate. With many posted mortgage rates approaching and even surpassing 3.00% (depending on the term), this means borrowers will soon need to show they can afford payments based on rates of 5.00%+.

Canadian Mortgage Trends

U.S. long-term mortgage rates rise to 3.91 per cent

Long-term mortgage rates rose for a second straight week as the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate increased to 3.91 per cent, from 3.85 per cent a week ago. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the 15-year home loan, frequently used by homeowners who refinanced their mortgages, also jumped, rising to 3.21 per cent, from 3.15 per cent.

Winnipeg Free Press

New Developments

Airbnb opening its own apartment building

Since 2008, Airbnb has been helping homeowners earn some extra income by renting out their homes, bedrooms and in some cases, their couches. The company’s now trying to make timeshares cool by expanding their rental model. According to a press release, Airbnb has partnered with the Miami-based Newgard Development Group to build a 324-unit apartment building in Kissimmee, Fla.,that will feature “home sharing and flexible living.”

The Loop

Wanda partner exits $1.2B Beverly Hills condo project

Dalian Wanda Group Co. plans to proceed with a $1.2 billion luxury condominium and hotel complex in Beverly Hills, Calif., after its development partner, Athens Group, said it exited the project early. Neither Wanda nor Athens would comment on the reasons for the separation, which happened earlier this year and leaves Wanda without a development partner just as condo sales are about to begin.

Bloomberg

Natural Disasters

Renters find extra hurdles to recovery after hurricanes

A neighbour was the first to tell Paige Cane her landlord had posted an eviction notice on the door of her flooded apartment in Port Arthur, Texas. The 26-year-old was more than 480 kilometres away with no car, sleeping in a Dallas shelter for evacuees escaping Harvey’s floodwaters. The mother of four had no way to get back in the five days the eviction notice gave her to remove her belongings.

Montreal Gazette

Affordable Housing

Is increasing supply worsening Vancouver affordability?

Supply is said to be the solution to affordable housing in Metro Vancouver, with a developer group urging mass re-zoning of single-family neighbourhoods to accommodate higher-density residential. “We clearly need a regional housing strategy with more homes for more people,” said Urban Development Institute‘s Anne McMullin. “That means more high-rise apartments along rapid transit corridors and more townhomes, rowhomes (and) multi-family low-rises.”

Business In Vancouver – Vancouver Province – Vancouver Province

Small houses

Building a better Hamilton with tiny houses

Emma Cubitt has big dreams for little houses in Hamilton. The 37-year-old architect has emerged as the city’s leading advocate for small and tiny house construction on underutilized land beside laneways. It all started with her 2007 master’s thesis at the University of Waterloo — that examined the potential for laneway housing in Hamilton — and now she is designing the city’s first laneway/small-house/affordable housing project.

Hamilton Spectator

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

Toronto named North America’s safest city

Toronto is the safest city in North America and ranks in the top five among 60 other major cities globally, according to an index of city rankings compiled by The Economist. No other Canadian city made the list this year. Montreal was designated 14th-safest city in 2015. Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka remain the three safest cities overall.

Global News – Newinhomes.com – CBC – MarketWatch

Buying and Selling

Agents creating short films to help sell Toronto homes

Two kids race down a leafy street toward a red brick three-storey house. As jaunty stock music plays in the background, the children play hide and seek in the modern home: they take cover in a sculptural soaker tub, scurry down a grand staircase, survey a kitchen with impressive bottle storage. The film is actually an ad for Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie’s Riverdale house listing.

NOW Magazine

Other

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