Home Capital faces heated competition, cooler markets

Home Capital faces heated competition, cooler markets

Mortgage company Home Capital Group Inc. (HCG-T) has officially branded its post-crisis era “Home 2.0,” but some employees just call it “the comeback.” Fifteen months after Yousry Bissada took over as chief executive officer, it’s still a work in progress. The most visible scars from a crisis that pushed Home Capital to the brink of insolvency last year are beginning to fade.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Why aren’t we building more suburbs?

OPINION: Canada’s National Dream, the modern edition, began in 1953. That was the year Don Mills, the country’s first large-scale, fully planned suburb, began selling affordable, ranch-style homes north of Toronto. People are still flocking to the suburbs. After more than half a century, isn’t it time to finally admit Canadians would simply rather live in the burbs and figure out how to make that happen?

Globe and Mail

Devimco to build condos atop Montreal’s historic Sportif MAA

Devimco Immobilier will spend $150 million to build a 31-storey condominium building atop the historic Club Sportif MAA (formerly the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association) in downtown Montreal and to restore the 137-year-old sports club’s Peel Street facilities. The real estate developer has purchased air rights to build 306 condo units above the 2,800-member club’s four-storey building. The agreement includes $20 million to reconstruct the sports club.

Property Biz Canada

Will taxing profits from condo pre-sales cause projects to fold?

It seems like just yesterday the Vancouver condominium pre-sale market attracted hordes of buyers. Condo prices were climbing rapidly, and the desirability and curb appeal of a brand-new unit looked too good to pass up. Desperate buyers would camp out the night before a new development’s pre-sales opened. In some cases, they would pay people to sit in line and hold their spot, in the hope of securing a property.

BC Business

Toronto condo prices rising more quickly than house prices

Condo prices in Toronto are rising at a higher rate than the price of houses, a new study found. According to a report by real estate company Zoocasa, condo prices across the city are up 12 per cent year-over-year, outstripping the rate of increase for house prices, which went up by just one per cent. A condo unit went for an average of $615,582 last month.

Toronto Star – Newinhomes.com – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

University Studios student condos opens in Oshawa

Podium Developments and Building Capital recently celebrated the opening of 308 trademarked SmartStudios in their University Studios mixed-use student condominium in Oshawa. “University Studios was conceived through our existing knowledge of the specific location and competition around the campus at UOIT and Durham College in Oshawa,” said Podium managing director Bernard Luttmer.

Property Biz Canada

Podium builds student housing from Ontario to Florida

Podium Developments has completed 16 urban infill projects in Ontario and it’s busier than ever with several more on the go at various stages. Podium was originally based in Kingston, but has since moved to Toronto and undertaken developments in the Greater Toronto Area, Kingston, Barrie and Guelph. It’s also now involved in Miami.

Property Biz Canada

What another four years of John Tory means for Toronto RE

Let’s take a look at what another four years of Mayor John Tory means for Toronto. First, we should look back at what he’s already done. He started the Open Door program which allows for property tax deferrals, development charge waivers, and fast-tracked approvals for affordable housing. Through this program, the city has opened up 18 city sites for development. During his last term, 3,700 affordable rental housing units were approved.

Newinhomes.com

Vancouver developers will need to change their ways: Mayor

Kennedy Stewart, Vancouver’s new mayor, has promised to build 85,000 housing units over the next 10 years — a more ambitious take on the existing plan to build 72,000 units for a mix of income levels. Stewart promises 25,000 of the homes in his plan will be affordable rental or social housing. Vancouver built just 822 purpose-built rental units in 2017 but needs to increase that to 2,000 a year to meet the current plan’s target.

Toronto Star – CBC – Globe and Mail

Vancouver housing downturn will last another four years: Analyst

A maverick real estate analyst who predicted Metro Vancouver’s housing crash a year ago says the current slump will stretch out for another four years. In Western Investor’s October 2017 edition, Dane Eitel of Vancouver’s Eitel Insights forecast 2018 sales of detached houses in Metro Vancouver would collapse and the average detached-house price would fall from the $1.8 million peak in May 2017 to $1.6 million by 2018’s third quarter.

Business In Vancouver – Business In Vancouver – Business In Vancouver

Chinese interest in Metro Vancouver soars again

Following a steep drop-off in Metro Vancouver homes searches by potential buyers in China, interest spiked again in 2018’s third quarter, according to data mined for Glacier Media by China’s biggest international real estate website Juwai.com. The number of inquiries on Metro Vancouver real estate between July and September exceeded even the height reached in Q1 2017, the international property portal reported in response to an inquiry by Glacier Media.

Western Investor

Calgary embraces mid-rise innovation – sort of

Alkarim Devani thought a lot about how to bring life to the street-level area surrounding his new mid-rise infill project, Courtyard 33, in Calgary’s upmarket Marda Loop neighbourhood. With Devani, Winnipeg-based firm 5468796 Architecture designed the six-storey, 63-unit, multi-use walk-up to focus on an inner courtyard, which he refers to as a “neighbourhood living room.”

Globe and Mail

Regina developers: Don’t shrink our garages

The City of Regina has has been busy running what its planning chief calls a “focus group” on zoning. Diana Hawryluk, executive director of planning and development, said the department sent out a 700-page document to developers, realtors, architects, community associations and others. It’s a draft rewrite of the city’s zoning bylaw, which governs everything from building height to whether you can run a salon out of your home.

Regina Leader-Post

Canada’s housing market remains highly vulnerable: CMHC

Real estate prices may be showing signs of easing but Canada’s housing market remains “highly vulnerable,” according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The federal agency says stricter mortgage rules, rising interest rates and smaller growth in inflation-adjusted disposable income has led to less demand for housing and a decline in prices. Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and Hamilton are still considered to have a “high degree of overall vulnerability.”

CTV – Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Calgary Herald

A more open bidding process can benefit everyone: OREA

In the majority of real estate transactions, interested buyers are notified about competing bids but are asked to submit an offer not knowing the contents of those bids. Through this method in a hot housing market, buyers often can blindly offer more than what they initially planned to spend in hopes of beating their competitor, and sellers often come out on top.

Cape Breton Post

Market Conditions

U.S. new home sales fell in September

Sales of new homes in the U.S. fell for the fourth month in a row in September. Purchases of newly built single—family homes-a relatively narrow slice of all U.S. home sales—fell 5.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 553,000 in September, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a smaller 0.6% drop.

Toronto Star

Mortgage and Finance

Instant mortgages are coming soon – what could go wrong?

Bank executives boast they’re in the technology business. Artificial intelligence is another holy grail, as banks try to cut costs and fend off fintech rivals that offer quicker access to credit. Mobile apps and cutting-edge technology certainly increase the cool quotient for banks, but they also present an ominous frontier of risk at a time of rising interest rates, high household debt and increasing mortgage fraud.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

New Developments

Victoria rental sector bereft of incentives

Back in 1990, on their first real date, Ash and Monique Knightley spent the day clearing trees that had fallen across the fence of his Metchosin acreage.  The Knightleys now own and manage a six-plex in Rockland and, with Monique’s parents, an Esquimalt building containing 19 apartments and six small retail spaces. Ash and his father-in-law did much of the renos on both properties, with the Knightleys’ two boys providing the grunt labour.

Victoria Times Colonist

Market residential building proposed for Cambie Street site

A six-storey market residential building is being proposed for 485 West 35th Ave. at Cambie Street near Queen Elizabeth Park. A rezoning application, submitted under the Cambie Corridor Plan, includes plans for 17 units, 21 parking and 28 bicycle spaces. Eight of the units would be one-bedrooms, four would be two bedrooms and five would be three and four bedrooms.

Western Investor

Port Credit’s latest condo expected to be complete in 2021

Port Credit will soon see another condominium by the shore. TANU, which stands for Tranquil, Amenity Rich, Naturally Crafted, and Urban Village, is the latest project by Edenshaw Developments. It features a 15-storey building consisting of 204 condominium units including six townhomes and six penthouse suites. The first suites will be available for purchase by the end of the year, with completion set for 2021.

Mississauga News

172-unit apartment development pitched for north Nanaimo

More than 170 rental units could be coming to Nanaimo, B.C.. The City of Nanaimo has received a development permit from Highstreet Ventures Inc. proposing the construction of 172-unit multi-family rental development near Long Lake. According to city documents, a Kelowna-based company intends to construct four buildings – one four-storey building, two three-storey buildings and one two-storey amenity building – at 4800 Cedar Ridge Pl., near the Grand Hotel.

Nanaimo News Bulletin

Boyuan announces three new development projects in China

Boyuan Construction Group, Inc., (BOY-T) Monday announced it has commenced construction on three new residential projects with combined contract values of US$54.9 million. “While developments may have slowed in China’s top-tier cities, we remain well positioned to capitalize on development opportunities in smaller cities that are close to the major centres,” said Cai Liang Shou, Chairman and CEO of Boyuan Construction Group.

Canada Newswire

Natural Disasters

Post-Tornado reconstruction goes slowly in Dunrobin

Five weeks after tornadoes ransacked parts of the capital region, victims are left to ponder their fate and why it seems to take so long to return to normal. “We’re used to working 12-hour days,” says Julie Delahunt, co-owner of Dunrobin Meat and Grocery and the adjoining beer and liquor store. “Now I’m going stir-crazy working out of home on inventory.”

Ottawa Citizen

Condominium Management

GTA condo boards grapple with cannabis rules

Cannabis is legal in Canada now, but that hasn’t stopped condominium boards across the GTA from continuing to try to ban residents from ever smoking up in the apartments they own or rent. Beginning in the months before legalization on Oct. 17, there were dozens of reports of condo companies and rental managers across the country passing new rules against smoking inside private homes in multiresidential buildings.

Globe and Mail

Affordable Housing

Victoria should buy land for affordable housing: Councillor

Victoria should start buying property for non-market housing, says Coun. Ben Isitt. Isitt said he will introduce a motion early in November calling on the city to establish a system of buying properties for social housing, with provincial and federal investment.  “Acquiring land, obviously, has a cost, but the land value is often a fraction of the capital costs of constructing new housing,” he said.

Victoria Times Colonist

Fighting for affordable housing in Montreal

The humble plex has become a hot commodity in Montreal, but there’s a dark side to the boom. Community housing advocates fear fast-rising prices are reducing the supply of affordable homes in neighbourhoods already in dire need. As director of the non-profit Brique par brique (briqueparbrique.com), community organizer Faiz Abhuani has seen for himself how cruel the plex market can be.

Montreal Gazette

Other

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