GTA will face tough decisions amid intensification: Carras

GTA will face tough decisions amid intensification: Carras

If you’re in the market for a new home and think you’ll get a better deal if you just wait for prices to come down, you may want to think again. Demand for new condominiums by consumers and residential land investments by developers both are at near record-high levels, as evidenced in recent second-quarter GTA market reports from the Altus Group.

Toronto Star – Globe and Mail – Mortgage Broker News

New mortgage rules shrinking size of insured housing market: CMHC

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the crown corporation that is the largest mortgage default insurer in the country, is paying Ottawa a $240 million dividend. Despite the payment, CMHC said Tuesday federal regulatory changes brought into the market in Q4 2016 decreased the size of the insured mortgage market.

Financial Post – Globe and Mail – Toronto Star – Canada Newswire

Westdale, Urbanfund buy Dartmouth apartment complex

Westdale Construction Limited  and Urbanfund Corp. (UFC-X) have agreed to purchase the 1,354-unit Highfield Park multi-family residential portfolio in Dartmouth, N.S. Westdale will have an 80-per cent share and Urbanfund will have a 20-per cent stake in the newly incorporated Highfield Park Residential Inc., which will acquire the portfolio for $113 million from Oxford Properties.

Property Biz Canada

Does Toronto truly have a vacant-condo problem?

Eric Lascelles, the head economist of RBC’s asset management division, is shedding light on Toronto’s unoccupied condo units as the city mulls a vacant-home tax like Vancouver’s. “Given anecdotes about speculators, foreign buyers and the fraction of condos perpetually dark even as day turns to dusk, one worries about this segment of the market in the event of a serious correction,” writes Lascelles.

BuzzBuzzNews

New eviction rules in effect to protect Ontario tenants

New tenant protections come into effect today that place more requirements on landlords evicting them. When a landlord evicts a tenant to use the unit themselves or for a family member, they have to now give the tenant one month’s rent as compensation. Alternatively, the landlord could offer the tenant another acceptable rental unit.

CTV – Toronto Star – Canada Newswire

Margaret Atwood joins Toronto condo controversy

Pundits say they’re taken aback both by Margaret Atwood’s public opposition to a modest condo development planned for her upscale Toronto neighbourhood and the vehement social media backlash that followed. Atwood drew the ire of both Twitter users and columnists when reports revealed she had written a letter pushing back against an eight-storey, 16-unit condo building slated for construction near her home.

Maclean’s – Toronto Star – National Post – Globe and Mail

Robert Campeau’s TO house for sale for $35M

Late real estate developer Robert Campeau’s home hit the market again Tuesday and, while it has the most expensive price tag in Canada of currently publicly listed properties, the agent who will be marketing it worldwide doesn’t think the province’s foreign buyer tax will impact a sale. The house at 68 The Bridle Path is listed for $35 million.

Financial Post – Toronto Star

Education key in relationships with landlords: Cannabis growers

The gentle hum of whirring fans and the unmistakable smell of fresh cannabis drift through a garage at the back of a house on a quiet Calgary street. It’s legal but the woman behind the small grow-op is keeping things under wraps. She’s new here, on a month-to-month lease and — like many licensed home growers — she’s worried about the consequences of her landlord finding out.

CBC

Port pays off for rental properties in Prince Rupert

“One of the most promising areas in the whole of Canada is Prince Rupert,” declared B.C. billionaire Jimmy Pattison as the northern seaport prepared to welcome its first container ship in October 2007. A decade later, the population remains just 12,687, but the rental market has strengthened considerably. Vacancies have dropped from 15 per cent on an inventory of 629 units to 4.9 per cent on 825 units.

Business In Vancouver

CRA probing Vancouver condo-flipping

The federal government is taking the property developers behind the Marine Gateway project on Marine Drive in Vancouver and the Residences at West on southeast False Creek to court, probing for information on buyers who flipped their pre-sale contracts before construction was completed to verify compliance with the Income Tax Act. 

Western Investor

Vancouver’s ‘renovictions’ largely driven by vacate clause

Instead of enjoying the tail end of another Vancouver summer, the residents of 2336 York Ave. are looking for for a new place to live. They’re the latest to face a wave of “renovictions” sweeping the city, a term applied to the practice of landlords removing tenants due to planned renovations, then bumping up the rent when the work is complete.

Business In Vancouver

	U.S. hurricanes’ impact on real estate
	The following section of the RENX newsletter is dedicated to news about Hurricanes Harvey and Irma n the U.S. and its impact on real estate.

 

Harvey’s floodwaters mix a foul brew

Harvey’s filthy floodwaters pose significant dangers to human safety and the environment even after water levels drop far enough Southeast Texas residents no longer fear for their lives, according to experts. Houston already was notorious for sewer overflows following rainstorms. Now the system, with 40 waste water treatment plants across the far-flung metropolis, faces an unprecedented challenge.

Toronto Star – CBC – Reuters – The Guardian

If disaster strikes, TO would be stuck: Opinion

Come the apocalypse, most Torontonians know exactly what they’d do: just hop in the car and head north for the cottage. Dream on. That fantasy would come to a screeching halt on the Don Valley Parkway somewhere well before the Bloor Viaduct. As Harvey has made painfully clear in recent days, when disaster strikes a big city, there’s no way out. Residents become prisoners.

Toronto Star

Hurricane Irma barrels toward Caribbean, southern U.S.

Hurricane Irma, a powerful Category 4 storm, plowed toward the Caribbean and the southern United States on Tuesday as islands in its path braced for possible life-threatening winds, storm surges and flooding. Hurricane warnings and watches were in effect for parts of the Leeward Islands, the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, in preparation for a storm that was intensifying.

Globe and Mail – Toronto Star – Reuters – The Guardian

Canadians face challenges selling U.S. real estate

Canadians selling U.S. real estate face a number of challenges, most notably finding someone with special training. Given the high U.S. dollar, many Canadians are now looking to dispose of their U.S. property, but not many advisors have developed the expertise necessary to help with these sales. Your escrow agent, the real estate agent and the accountant may offer conflicting advice.

Mondaq – Financial Post

Chinese jokingly warned about Canada’s vicious wildlife

A Hong Kong marketing firm is sharing a post that Canadian real estate is dangerous, and why you should opt for a condo.Overseas Estates Limited, a firm specializing in Toronto and Vancouver condo pre-sales, shared some pretty hilarious info on the benefits of buying a condo.

Business Insider – Better Dwelling

Advantages of townhome living in condo communities

An often under-considered low-rise housing type is the condo townhome that’s part of a larger condominium community. When people think of low-rise housing, they think single detached homes. When people think of condos, they usually think of high-rises. Owning a condo townhome integrated into a condo community actually offers many desirable advantages.

Newinhomes.com

U.S. apartment completions shift downward

Completions of new apartment builds have slowed this year, and so have annual rent gains, according to the August Yardi Matrix report, issued Thursday. Multi-family operators eked out an average $1 increase in rents this month, bringing the national average across 121 markets to $1,352 and maintaining a streak of monthly rent gains during 2017.

GlobeSt.com – National Real Estate Investor

RENX Columnists

Too hot or too cold – MPAC struggles to find the Goldilocks zone

I don’t want to sound like sour grapes here, but there needs to be a better time to be asking a property owner for a once-a-year income and expense return. I’ve written many times about how important it is for owners of commercial, industrial and multi-residential properties to ensure any information they submit to Ontario’s Municipal Property Assessment Corp. (MPAC) be as timely and accurate as possible.

Read more

Market Conditions

BCREA forecasts 11 per cent drop in Vancouver housing sales

The number of home sales across Greater Vancouver fell 5.2 per cent in 2016, and a further 11.4% drop is anticipated for the total of this year, according to the British Columbia Real Estate Association’s latest forecast. Last year, 40,880 units sold in the region, and this year, the number of units is forecast to drop to 36,200. A further 0.6% drop is forecast for 2018.

Business In Vancouver – BCBusiness – Global News

Vancouver property still a great investment

In the spring of 2012, Dustan Woodhouse, then a 40-year-old Vancouver mortgage broker, broke the cardinal rule of saving for retirement: he liquidated his retirement fund, took the tax hit and plowed the rest into the local real estate market. “People told me I was crazy,” says Woodhouse, 45, whose plan is to buy and have paid off 10 such investments by his late 60s.

Financial Post

Seasonal Homes

Sleeper markets to awaken recreational investors in B.C.

Reduced ferry fares are expected to help awaken one of B.C.’s sleeper recreational real estate markets, though recent price hikes may have already alerted some investors. “It will make a difference,” said Teresa Sladey of Royal LePage Sussex in Madeira Park, noting the majority of buyers of recreational property in the Pender Harbour area of the Coast are from Metro Vancouver.

Western Investor

Legal Issues

Ontario condo builder charged with 160 counts of illegal vending

A Kingston condominium builder has been charged by Tarion with 160 counts of illegal vending. Tarion has the power to lay charges on behalf of the Ontario government against companies that do not register with it. Admirals Walk Residences Inc. and Sandro Sordi, an officer/director of the company, have each been charged with 80 counts of selling homes without being registered with Tarion.

Kingston Whig-Standard – Gobal News

Illegal basement suites: Two potential risks

According to a recent survey conducted by Square One Insurance Services, 11 per cent of house owners across Ontario, B.C. and Alberta rent out some portion of their property to non-family. However, there’s a problem: 17 per cent of these units are considered illegal – and if discovered, owners could face financial consequences on two fronts.

Mondaq – Canada Newswire

Affordable Housing

The prohibitive cost of living in Metro Vancouver

How can people afford to live in Vancouver? That question came to mind as I struggled to catch up with the latest torrent of media stories on the Lower Mainland’s seemingly inexhaustible housing boom. Metro Vancouver has long been the most expensive place in the country to purchase (or rent) a home. Indeed, relative to the incomes of area residents, it ranks among the priciest markets in the world.

Business In Vancouver

Edmonton housing agency triples density of affordable housing

An Edmonton housing agency tripled the density of its affordable housing project without one resident turning up to oppose it at public hearing Monday. It’s a good sign for what city officials hope will become a template for new affordable housing across the city, eventually giving homes to the more than 5,000 families now on waiting lists.

Edmonton Journal

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

New TO branch illustrates evolving function of libraries

The newly redesigned and rebuilt Albion library branch in Toronto’s Rexdale isn’t just an improvement to the neighbourhood. It is the neighbourhood. Across the wide street is the nondescript Albion Centre mall, less a space for community, but for faceless commerce. And the surrounding area is designed for cars. But many working-class local residents and new Canadians don’t have one.

Globe and Mail

TO condo boom has schools ready to ‘burst at the seams’

Serina Manek has been living in Leslieville for seven years and has watched it go from a rough-around-the-edges area in Toronto’s east end to one of the city’s most desirable neighbourhoods. The demand for Leslieville was always building, she says, but when the condos started going up, the boom of young families started to have an effect on the neighbourhood dynamic and, ultimately, the schools.

CBC

Vancouverites must create connections to cope with crises

As the resident of a small apartment building in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, Lindsay Knowler lives among strangers she hopes would unite in an emergency. The crisis could be as small as a skunk on the property. It could be as large as a catastrophic earthquake that could leave residents on their own for days before emergency services could help.

Globe and Mail

Buying and Selling

Backing out of a deal isn’t black and white: Lawyer

After soaring for years, house prices in the Greater Toronto Area and beyond are now falling back to earth. And that’s left some buyers who bought when prices were at their highest looking to get out of their deals. But many of these buyers are finding walking away from a bad deal is not as simple as they may think.

CTV

Other

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