Ivanhoe, Veritas invest in San Fran apartments

Ivanhoe, Veritas invest in San Fran apartments

Ivanhoe Cambridge, the largest foreign investor in U.S. commercial real estate last year, bought 16 San Francisco apartment buildings for about $200 million, adding to its business there with partner Veritas Investments. The duo now own 45 properties in the city, many with retail in the buildings. Veritas and Ivanhoe are planning to make additional purchases in the area.

Bloomberg

Montreal sees first increase in sales in five years

Montreal housing sales may not be booming like Canada’s other largest cities, but they did rise by five per cent last year — the first time the city has seen an increase since 2010 and a trend the Quebec Federation of Real Estate Boards expects to continue through 2016. 

Financial Post – Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire

Alberta braces for most painful year since crisis

Alberta’s real estate market is bracing for its worst year since the global financial crisis as hopes dim that an economic recovery can stave off a broad housing correction. Calgary home prices dropped 1.7 per cent in December from a month earlier and have fallen 2.6 per cent in a year, Teranet-National Bank Home Price Index figures show.

Globe and Mail – CBC News – Calgary Herald – Calgary Herald

Layoff insurance to cover Canadian homeowners

With a nod to Alberta’s faltering economy, an Edmonton business is offering layoff insurance to cover up to six months of mortgage payments for homeowners who lose their jobs. “Unfortunately it’s a product suitable for the times,” Gord McCallum, president of the First Foundation group of companies, said Thursday.

Edmonton Journal

A history of housing-market anxieties

Harry Bierbrier says he needed a little help before he could jump into the pricey housing market. “My in-laws put the down payment on the house,” says the Montreal pharmacist. The mortgage left him “slaving to beat the payments.” Bierbrier’s house cost $30,000, and it was 1952.

Financial Post

Canadians eager to sell U.S. properties

It’s time to cash in for many Canadians who bought property from 2008 to 2011 in the United States, says Diane Olson, an Arizona real estate agent and former Winnipegger. “My clients, when they call me, they’re ready to sell. It’s just too good of an opportunity to pass up,” she said.

CBC News

U.S. targeting potential money launderers

Since the 2008 financial crisis, wealthy buyers swooping in and paying cash — sometimes anonymously — have become the bane of traditional home buyers in the U.S. Now, the Treasury Department says it wants to know if some of those luxury buyers are laundering money through their purchases.

National Post – Bloomberg – Fortune – CityLab

Seniors housing upturn draws big investors

Pension funds and well-heeled private investors are coming back into the B.C. retirement housing sector as vacancy rates fall to single-digits for the first time in years. The fresh emphasis, however, is on high-end, high-density residences aimed squarely at affluent retirees in the Lower Mainland.

Business In Vancouver

B.C. developer proposes no-down-payment condos

A B.C. developer wants to sell condos in Metro Vancouver’s red hot real estate market to first-time buyers who don’t have the cash for a down payment. Townline is proposing buyers on limited incomes could be allowed to purchase a unit in its Port Moody development for eight per cent less than the appraised market value.

CBC News – Global News

Average GTA home price has tripled since 1996

The average selling price of a home in the Greater Toronto Area has more than tripled since 1996, and RE/MAX, a major North American realty franchise, sees no end in sight. “Moving forward, there is no reason to expect the upward trend to end,” Ken McLachlan, a RE/MAX Hallmark Ltd. broker-owner, said in a statement.

Buzzbuzzhome.com – Vancouver Sun – Globe and Mail

Aura: Toronto’s most visible and invisible building

A friend calls the Aura condo building “Toronto’s new CN Tower.” The tallest residential building in Canada for now, it’s the new landmark in town. Aura’s slanted roofline cuts like a knife through the middle of the city. It’s visible from far away and peeking in-between buildings when closer to it.

Toronto Star

U.S. multi-family trends on the radar

In preparation for the multi-family quarterly feature in Real Estate Forum magazine, we sat down with many multi-family experts from around the country. This particular question on multi-family asked sources what trends they are forecasting for 2016 that should be on our radar. Read the below Q&A commentary to make sure they are on yours:

Globest.com – Globest.com Part 1 – Globest.com Part 2 – Globest.com Part 3

Multi-family investment sets record In 2015

Ending 2015 with the strongest quarter for multi-family investment sales on record, investors poured $150.6 billion into U.S. apartment properties in 2015, shattering the total set the previous year by about 16 per cent, according to preliminary apartment sales data for the year compiled by CoStar.

CoStar Group – Globest.com

The risks of living the high-rise life

Just as Canadian cities grow staggeringly vertical comes a new study suggesting sky-high living in high-rise buildings increases the chances of not surviving a cardiac arrest. The study of nearly 8,000 adults shows the higher the floor, the lower the odds of surviving an “out-of-hospital” cardiac arrest.

Montreal Gazette

The future of home design and construction

We can’t help but think about what 2016 holds for the new home industry, but let’s take a look even further down the road to the not-so-distant future to see what home design and construction will be like in a few years (or decades). Remember those old ’50s videos about what the home of the future might look like?

Newinhomes.com

RENX Columnists

Traditional media and the law of singular focus

Examine results from all the traditional media and you’ll find a pattern. Things just aren’t working the way they used to. So how do we make better use of traditional media?

Read more

Conference Board may be overly optimistic

Traditionally, the general economic activity affecting Saskatchewan’s commercial real estate industry is impacted by three main outputs: agriculture, energy and potash. The Conference Board of Canada has forecast two per cent GDP growth in 2016.

Read more

Market Conditions

Canadian home prices to slow: Royal LePage

Price gains for residential real estate are likely to slow this year across Canada as economic turmoil abroad and low oil prices at home give some buyers pause, according to brokerage Royal LePage. The average Canadian home price probably will rise 4.1 percent in 2016, Royal LePage said in a report released Wednesday. (PLEASE SEE CHART In TOP SECTION).

Montreal Gazette

Regina, Saskatoon see biggest drop in new home prices

Regina and Saskatoon had the dubious distinction of posting the two largest declines in new home prices among 21 Canadian cities in November, according to the new housing price index (NHPI) released Thursday by Statistics Canada. Regina had a 1.6 per cent year-over-year price declines, while Saskatoon was second at 1.4 per cent.

Regina Leader-Post – Globe and Mail

Will B of C cut key rate Wednesday?

A year to the day after being surprised by a sudden rate cut, investors and mortgage holders will be anxiously waiting for the Bank of Canada’s next decision on interest rates. A little after 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz will reveal the bank’s latest decision on interest rates

CBC News – Bloomberg – Bloomberg – Financial Post

Still steam in Canadian housing boom?

Two forecasts Wednesday suggested the Canadian housing market may still have a little more room to grow but the pace of price increases will slow in 2016. Fitch Ratings suggests prices across the country will grow by 2.5 per cent this year but the ratings agency also is concerned about downside risk in the housing market.

Financial Post

U.S. real estate overvalued: Analyst

Nearly a decade after the peak of the American real estate bubble, there’s no shortage of fear we’ll repeat the whole nightmare again. For years, economy watchers have fretted over the run up in student loan debt, while more recently the collapse in junk bond prices had analysts drawing parallels to the sub-prime mortgage market in 2008.

Fortune – Bloomberg – Multifamily Executive – Multifamily Executive

Latest reports:

* St. John’s, CBC News

* Nova Scotia, Re/Max Nova, Halifax ChronicleHerald 

* Ottawa, Ottawa Real Estate Board, Ottawa Citizen

* Winnipeg, Winnipeg Realtors Association (WRA), Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg Free Press

* Regina, Association of Regina Realtors, Regina Leader-Post

* Calgary, Calgary Real Estate Board, Calgary Herald, Calgary Herald, Calgary Herald

* Fort McMurray, Canadian Real Estate Association, Calgary Herald

* Vancouver repeat home sales, Teranet’s home price index (HPI), Business In Vancouver

* Victoria, Victoria Times Colonist

* U.S. home builder confidence, National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index, Winnipeg Free Press

RENX Market Summaries

Mortgage and Finance

U.S. apartment buyers re-evaluating their underwriting

TruAmerica Multifamily’s Bob Hart took an important lesson from the 2008–09 recession he’s beginning to apply in this frothy market. “The lesson is, ‘Don’t buy on pro forma only,’ ” Hart says. Hart says TruAmerica underwrites “fairly conservatively,” looking at growth rates of three to four per cent for primarily class-B buys.

Multifamily Executive

CIBC latest lender to hike mortgage rate

CIBC (CM-T) has become the latest among the big Canadian banks to increase some of its mortgage rates. The bank said Tuesday that it had raised its special offer, three-year fixed rate by 10 basis points to 2.59 per cent. Meanwhile, its special offer, four-year fixed rate has also gone up by 10 basis points, to 2.84 per cent.

Financial Post

One-year fixed mortgage your best bet

It has become a lot tougher to make sense of mortgage rates in the past few weeks. With Canada in the midst of economic misfortune (the decimation of its oil industry), inflation expectations are falling. That usually leads to a drop in mortgage rates. But in today’s bizarro world, the usual is not happening.

Globe and Mail

New Developments

Calgary tower proposed sent back to drawing board

Residents of high-rise downtown buildings fighting a proposed apartment tower next door will not see a blank concrete wall out their windows when the 12-storey development is completed. An appeal board wants to see amended plans that enhance the windowless east and west facade of the proposed 66-unit building in Calgary’s Downtown West End.

Calgary Herald

Taxes and Utilities

B.C. Hydro removing thousands of smart meters

B.C. Hydro needs to remove more than 88,000 smart meters that are either faulty or may not meet Measurement Canada standards, public records show. The Crown corporation also wants to replace 8,200 analog meters and introduce nearly 5,000 new meters that work in rural areas with poor wireless connections. The total bill will be at least $20 million.

Vancouver Province

Legal Issues

Top-selling Vancouver realtor’s licence cancelled

A top-selling Vancouver realtor who allegedly failed to cease his activities while under a one-year licence suspension for lies and deceptive practices has had his licence cancelled after The Province investigated his case and forwarded evidence to the Real Estate Council of B.C. The council had suspended Yu-Hsiang (Lester) Lin’s licence in September 2015.

Vancouver Province

Affordable Housing

B.C. premier takes aim at high housing costs

Premier Christy Clark says British Columbia’s high housing costs are on the government’s radar as it prepares to table its budget next month. Clark says housing relief options are one of the top issues for her government, but she didn’t make any announcements beyond saying the issue remains under consideration.

Vancouver Sun – Business In Vancouver

B.C. takes ‘hard look’ at non-resident tax

The B.C. government is examining a proposal for an “affordable housing fund” generated by a tax targeted at non-resident investors and speculators, Premier Christy Clark said Tuesday. The concept by a group of university business school academics could help loosen the tight rental market by encouraging owners of vacant homes to rent them out, Clark said.

Vancouver Sun – Montreal Gazette – Vancouver Sun – Vancouver Sun

Stars align for affordable housing in Toronto

The stars are in perfect alignment for comprehensive action on affordable housing. Prior to the recent federal election, both the City of Toronto and the province of Ontario were poised to embrace affordable housing as a fundamental building block of a healthy society. At the time, the only missing star in the galaxy was at the federal level.

Globe and Mail

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

Plan in the works to redesign King Street

Picture spring 2017, just over a year from now: the snow thaws and people emerge from their winter doldrums to enjoy some warmth in the sun on a whole new downtown King St. in Toronto One where snarled car traffic no longer fills the street, one where better streetcar service runs in dedicated lanes, bikes wheel along beside the roadway.

Toronto Star

Saskatoon still a ‘quilt of neighbourhoods’

Which Saskatoon neighbourhood boasts the highest home prices, highest rate of home ownership, highest incomes and lowest population? Hint: It’s also the city’s least ethnically diverse community, and its residents embraced the opportunity to vote in 2012’s municipal election.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Buying and Selling

Today is the best day to buy a home

If you’re on the hunt for your dream home, research shows today could be your lucky day. Toronto Brokerage TheRedPin.com crunched the numbers and determined buyers looking to buy the right home at the best price are most likely to succeed early in the new year, with today reigning as the day to deal on real estate purchases.

Marketwired – Globe and Mail

Point2 Homes’ traffic numbers soared in 2015

Sustaining a solid upward trend throughout 2015, real estate listings portal Point2 Homes attracted a total of 27.2 million visits to its website, a 60 per cent growth compared to 2014. Of these visits, 16.4 million were unique visitors. The portal recorded 152,332,516 page views over the last 12 months, which amount to approximately 18,000 listings browsed every hour.

Canada Newswire

Big Fat Deal: South Granville homage to the ’80s

Address: 6908 Wiltshire Street, Vancouver
Price: $9,880,000
MLS: V1118748
The skinny: Eight-bedroom, seven-bathroom, 5,698-square-foot property on a 9,500-square-foot lot in tony South Granville.
The bling: It’s tricky when you have pots of money: expectations can be so high.

BC Business

Other