Canada’s MBS market may cool on new rules

Canada’s MBS market may cool on new rules

Efforts to cool Canadian home prices could trickle down to the C$440 billion ($335 billion) market for debt backed by insured residential mortgages. Stricter rules for banks lending to home buyers and higher requirements for mortgage insurance could reduce mortgage origination in Canada and in turn lower sales of mortgage-backed securities.

Bloomberg

Canada’s banks brace for mortgage overhaul

The Canadian government is responding to widespread concerns about the country’s housing market by introducing sweeping policy changes that will upend the way banks grant mortgages and assess the risks. Lenders will have to run stress tests on all new insured mortgages to ensure that borrowers can meet their debt obligations even if interest rates rise.

Globe and Mail

Volume and value of Vancouver apartment sales rise

Greater Vancouver’s multi-family sector is still in overdrive, as investors have pushed up sales volumes and values significantly from the same period a year ago. “We are doing so many proposals for clients now who never would have previously considered selling,” said Mark Goodman, principal with The Goodman Report and HQ Commercial.

Property Biz Canada

Four major changes to Canada’s housing rules

The Liberal government has announced sweeping changes aimed at ensuring Canadians aren’t taking on bigger mortgages than they can afford in an era of historically low interest rates. The changes are also meant to address concerns related to foreign buyers who buy and flip Canadian homes.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail – Financial Post

Home sales plunge nearly 33% in Metro Vancouver

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver says home sales in Metro Vancouver plunged by nearly 33 per cent in September over last year, as uncertainty continues in the housing market. The board said the number of sales dipped below the 10-year monthly sales average last month for the first time since May 2014.

Vancouver Sun – Toronto Star – Globe and Mail – Financial Post

Time to build purpose built rental units?

Condominium construction has dominated the residential development space for a number of years now. This was primarily due to the demand for the condominium product and due to the fact that the demand almost ensured that an entire condominium project would be pre-sold prior to the construction commencing.

Read more

Vancouver considers new restrictions to curb Airbnb effect

Vancouver has joined a growing list of cities around the world grappling with both the new sharing economy and housing crises, proposing new restrictions for short-term rentals through platforms such as Airbnb. New rules would restrict rentals to homes that owners or renters live in most of the time and only rent out occasionally.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail – Business in Vancouver

	Multi-residential Property Biz Canada in 2017
	In 2017, or sooner, RENX is going to publish a second weekly edition of Property Biz Canada focused primarily on the multi-residential sector in Canada. This is a great new advertising opportunity to reach professionals in this sector of the industry. Contact sales@renx.ca, 1-855-569-6300

 

Tenant turned Airbnb proprietor becomes landlord’s nightmare

After buying a 625-square-foot condo on King St. W. as an investment property, Vivian Mah hired a realtor to find a “Triple AAA professional tenant” who would pay the rent on time. “I wanted to make sure it was someone decent who would take care of my property,” said Mah, who is an urban planner. Elizabeth Tremblay seemed to fit the bill.

Toronto Star

Dunrobin offers a model for community solar in Canada

A large-scale project in rural west Ottawa is quickly becoming a model for community solar. The roof of a large storage facility near the village of Dunrobin features an installation of 1140 solar panels capable of generating 250 kilowatts.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Millennials wary of manufactured affordability

How would you like to buy a two-bedroom detached house in Surrey for $22,900? How about a nice detached home in Langley, with two bedrooms in an open plan with vaulted ceilings, close to schools, for $34,900? It sounds like fantasy real estate, but it is true, even as the average detached house price in the Fraser Valley nudges $900,000 and the typical condominium apartment sells for $248,000.

Business in Vancouver

Vancouver’s first temporary modular housing project

Calgary-based Horizon North has been chosen to build Vancouver’s first temporary modular housing project at 1500 Main St. The 1,382 square metre (14,875 square feet) building will feature 40 single-occupancy suites with self-contained bathrooms and kitchens, individual climate control, and private living space.

Vancouver Sun

Canadians, Aussies and Kiwis trapped in boom, bust cycle

Canada is not alone in having its central bank backed into a corner, forced to warn about the dangers of high debt and hot housing markets, while powerless to change interest rates as a commodity bust weighs on the economy.  Economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch have now grouped together Canada, Australia and New Zealand as part of a trio heading for “an unwinding.”

Financial Post – Globe and Mail

If you hate condos, you should hope that more get built

A lot of people don’t like condominium apartments, they would never live in them, and they don’t like that they have sprouted up like weeds in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Montreal. People complain about shoddy construction, the painful experience of underground parking, slow elevators, and noisy neighbours.

Read more

U.S. Fed looks at easing up on condo developers

In response to changing conditions in the condominium market, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) this past week proposed new regulations governing the approval process for condominium developments.  FHA is seeking to widen the range of thresholds required for FHA approval including the minimum owner-occupants in approved condo developments.

CoStar Group

Chinese city bans sale of 65 square-foot flats after uproar

Authorities in Shenzhen, a city in China’s Guangdong Province, have invalidated the sale of a series of tiny 6 square-metre flats (approximately 65 square feet) costing 880,000 yuan (around $175,000 Canadian) each, saying the properties violated existing laws and regulations.

Business in Vancouver

Market Conditions

Construction jobs to soar in Toronto by 2031: Report

Over the next 15 years, the Toronto area will need almost double the number of construction workers it currently has in order to accommodate new infrastructure projects along with an aging workforce says a new report by the Toronto Region Board of Trade. The GTA will see an estimated jump of about 147,000 construction-related jobs by 2031.

Toronto Star

Tackling the housing crisis in Canada’s cities: Mayor John Tory

Canada is facing a serious housing crisis. Home prices are soaring out of reach in many cities. One in five renters spends more than half their income on housing. Emergency shelter occupancy rates are pushing 90 per cent.
And 1.5 million Canadians can’t find safe, decent housing they can afford.

Globe and Mail

Richmond condos specialist comments on BC’s new property transfer tax

Responding to news of British Columbia’s legislature passing a 15 percent property transfer tax that exclusively targets foreign buyers, real estate agent Eric Lin expressed deep concern that the move would have dramatic negative consequences for immigrant families trying to establish a livelihood in the area.

MarketWired

Foreign-buyers tax too little, too late, Vancouver mayor says

The B.C. government waited too long to crack down on soaring home prices in Vancouver, and middle-class families can now no longer afford a detached house in the city, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson says. The federal and provincial governments ignored the problem, which also affects the Toronto market, until Canada’s banks began to voice concern this year, he said.

Globe and Mail

New Developments

Councillor trashes condo signs littering sidewalks

They are just one of the downsides to growing the city up, but Councillor Josh Matlow is so fed up with those A-frame sidewalk signs advertising condos, he folds them up and stacks them beside the nearest garbage bin. He says that sometimes other pedestrians, fed up with jostling for sidewalk space, cheer him on. 

Toronto Star

Monster home back to square one after judge’s ruling

A dilapidated, partly constructed 6,600 square foot Brampton monster home is still towering over houses a quarter the size. Ahmed Elbasiouni now has 90 days from the date of the order by Justice Kofi Barnes of the Ontario Superior Court to pick between one of three options.

Toronto Star

Renovation, Repair and Maintenance

Renovation boom with homeowners aided by stay-at-home children

It’s hard to downsize when your adult children are still living at home, a situation proving to be a key factor in the booming renovation market. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said in a report that young adults staying home longer have persuaded parents in the 55-64 cohort to pour more money into their aging homes.

Financial Post

Taxes and Utilities

Keep your records at least six years when you sell a duplex

How to calculate capital gains and how long to keep paperwork after a duplex sale were among the topics raised in a recent reader question. Here’s what she wanted to know. Q: “I bought a duplex in Ville Saint-Laurent 22 years ago and was fortunate to always have good tenants.

Montreal Gazette

Buying and Selling

Don Kottick hopes industry can “raise the bar”

The real estate business and Hotel California have something in common. You can never leave either of them, says seasoned executive and Real Estate Institute of Canada (REIC) president Don Kottick. Like most of us, Kottick did manage to escape the 1970s. He was never able to abandon the real estate business though. And for that he’s now grateful.

REM Online

Other

	RENX has surpassed 9,380 Twitter followers
	Follower University District is Calgary’s newest urban community in the northwest. Mindfully made. Human-focused. Sustainable. Thoughtfully designed.
	Follow RENXca, the most comprehensive news feed on Twitter for Canadian real estate professionals.