Real Estate Council to probe alleged flipping

Real Estate Council to probe alleged flipping

The Real Estate Council of B.C. says it’s appointing an independent advisory group to investigate allegations of shadow flipping in Vancouver’s hot housing market. “We realize that this is an urgent matter and expect to announce the members of the multi-stakeholder advisory group within the coming two weeks,” council spokeswoman Marilee Peters said in a statement.

CBC News – Globe and Mail – CTV News

Vancouver housing a ‘U.S. dollar play’

Vancouver’s eye-popping housing market is seemingly defying gravity, with sales in January rising nearly 32 per cent — the second-busiest January on record. The state of the market makes sense if you look at the market as a U.S. dollar play, say economists Derek Holt and Dov Zigler of Scotiabank (BNS-T).

Financial Post

The Oliver brings luxury apartments back to Edmonton

The Oliver, Edmonton’s first luxury, purpose-built concrete rental property in more than a decade, will begin welcoming residents this month. Planet Organic Market recently joined Canadian Western Bank as the building’s podium-level retail tenants to complement the neighbourhood’s nearby amenities, including shopping, transit and recreational facilities.

Property Biz Canada

B.C. budget to address Vancouver market

The B.C. budget of Feb. 16 will include a double-barrelled response to Metro Vancouver’s superheated real estate market, Finance Minister Mike de Jong says: “The conversation has tended to be about pricing. If all we do is help increase the number of people getting into the market without increasing supply, we’ll probably have the opposite effect and drive up prices.”

Globe and Mail – Vancouver Sun – Business In Vancouver – Vancouver Sun

Is Victoria the next Vancouver?

Experts say low interest rates, relatively cheaper prices and a glut of buyers are fuelling Greater Victoria’s suddenly searing-hot real estate market. “Suddenly you’re seeing people from Vancouver thinking, ‘I can sell my house in Vancouver, move to Victoria and there’s a lot of equity that I can use to fund my retirement,’” said economist Dr. Mark Colgate.

CTV News

Will 2016 be the Year of the Condo?

Condominium units have long been viewed as the poor cousins of single-family houses in Vancouver. But 2016 could well be the Year of the Condo. Realtor Patrick Weeks foresees only moderate growth this year in Vancouver’s detached housing sector. But he predicts “certain segments of condos going up substantially, as (single-family house) prices become out of reach for many buyers.” 

Vancouver Sun

Canadian builders shift from condos to rentals

Amid fears of a bubble in condominium prices in Canada’s largest cities, developers say they are shifting from building condos to high-rise rental apartments, as institutional investors look for assets with steady cash flow. Builders say demand from pension funds and REITs for rental income to diversify their portfolios has them shifting gears.

Reuters

Surburban Toronto home prices soaring

Toronto’s housing market is kicking off 2016 in fine form, but the areas surrounding the city are chalking up even more impressive gains. Sales in the Greater Toronto Area rose 8.2 per cent in January from a year earlier, to 4,672. Average prices climbed 14.1 per cent, while the MLS home price index showed an increase of 11.2 per cent.

Globe and Mail – CTV News – Toronto Star

Two plans for LeBreton Flats housing

When the National Capital Commission set out its vision for Ottawa’s LeBreton Flats, it said it wanted to see the vacant lands developed “for primarily non-residential animating uses.” Even so, residential uses are significant in the two proposals submitted by the Devcore Canderel DLS Group and the RendezVous LeBreton Group.

Ottawa Citizen

The sad, sorry state of Montreal’s Golden Square Mile

In Montreal’s Golden Square Mile – the downtown district that evokes the glory days when the city was Canada’s undisputed metropolis, propelled by generations of successful entrepreneurs of Scottish origin – a beautiful Victorian mansion sits on a work site that has been under way since 2011, its sagging façade propped up by support beams.

Globe and Mail

Design-it-yourself condos coming to Winnipeg

A second innovative new condominium development that’s based on a design/build concept imported from Germany will break ground this spring on Wellington Crescent in Winnipeg. The 12-unit development is based on a co-op-style, build-your-own-condo concept architect intern Andre Silva learned a few years ago while interning in Berlin.

Winnipeg Free Press

U.S. investors pay premium for apartment assets: JLL

Investors are paying more for apartment properties located in the bustling downtown areas of top suburbs. Apartment buildings located in suburban downtowns close to job opportunities, amenities and transit options tend to attract Millennials and older baby boomers. Investors recognize the value of these prime suburban properties and are willing to pay.

National Real Estate Investor – Multifamily Executive – Multifamily Executive

What keeps attracting investors to multi-family?

Superior long-term, risk-adjusted returns and substantial supply-demand imbalances in many markets make multifamily a sure bet for Pathfinder Partners, senior managing director and co-founder Mitch Siegler says. The San Diego-based company that acquires value-add, opportunistic and distressed real estate has closed Pathfinder Partners Opportunity Fund V, L.P.

Globest.com – Globest.com

Higher rents spur U.S. home purchases

Higher rents are leading more Americans into the housing market, according to a Redfin survey reported by the company’s data analyst Taylor Marr. In November, 21 per cent of respondents cited high rent as their top reason for house hunting, which is up from 13% in July. It’s no surprise, given that rents have been rising rapidly while wages haven’t.

Multifamily Executive

College towns good bets for single-family rentals

A rental house located near a college campus may be a great investment — the list of places where investors earn the best yields on single-family rental houses is full of cities and towns with many college-aged residents, according to the latest analysis from data firm RealtyTrac.

National Real Estate Investor

Market Conditions

Home price divergence likely to continue in 2016

Canada’s housing market resembled a roller-coaster ride for much of 2015, as prices soared in Vancouver and Toronto and dropped in the oil-sensitive Prairies. Several new indicators this week are set to offer a glimpse into whether the drama will continue in 2016.

Globe and Mail (Subscription Required)

To rent or own in 35 U.S. cities?

So you’ve saved for a down payment and are ready to take the plunge into homeownership — should you? To help potential buyers make up their minds, popular online real estate marketplace Zillow has crunched some numbers in 35 of the biggest U.S. housing markets. Zillow compared the cost of owning and renting for each year over a three-decade period.

Buzzbuzzhome.com

Latest reports:

* Montreal, Greater Montréal Real Estate Board, Canada Newswire

* Ottawa, Ottawa Real Estate Board, Ottawa Citizen

* Ottawa housing starts,  Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp (CMHC), Ottawa Business Journal

*  London, London and St. Thomas Association of Realtors, London Free Press

* Toronto, Toronto Real Estate Board, Newinhomes.com, Financial Post, Marketwired

* Hamilton, Realtors’ Association of Hamilton-Burlington, Hamilton Spectator

* Brantford and Brant County, Brantford Regional Real Estate Association, Brantford Expositor

* Winnipeg, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp (CMHC), Winnipeg Free Press

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

* Regina housing starts, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp (CMHC), Regina Leader-Post

* Medicine Hat, Medicine Hat Real Estate Board, Medicine Hat News

* Calgary, Calgary Real Estate Board, Calgary Herald

* Calgary home foreclosures, Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, Business In Vancouver

* Vancouver, Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, Vancouver Sun, CTV News, Business In Vancouver

* Lower Mainland, Urban Analytics, Globe and Mail

* Langley, B.C., Planet Group Realty, Global News

* Whistler, B.C., Whistler Real Estate Co., Vancouver Province 

* Canadian housing starts, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp (CMHC), Buzzbuzzhome.com, Reuters, Newinhomes.com, Bloomberg

* Washington, Globest.com

* London, CityLab, Reuters

RENX Market Summaries

Mortgage and Finance

Looking to buy a first home in Toronto? Good luck

In Toronto, a couple with combined gross income of $120,000 can afford a house worth $657,563. No, wait, it’s actually $590,681. Or is it $736,450? Banks’ mortgage affordability calculators have one important thing in common. They all show first-time buyers don’t have a hope of buying a detached house in Toronto without exceptionally good incomes and mega down payments.

Globe and Mail

New Developments

Habitations Trigone, Fonds JV on rental project

Fonds immobilier de solidarité FTQ is once again teaming up with Habitations Trigone, this time on Viva-Cité, a residential rental development in the heart of Sainte-Thérèse, a suburb of Montreal. Viva-Cité Sainte-Thérèse will be built in two phases. Both will consist of a seven-storey building, the first offering 130 apartments and the second 132 units.

Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire

Renovation, Repair and Maintenance

Protesters call Vancouver house demolition ‘a travesty’

Protesters carrying signs that read “Please leave built homes standing” and “This is a travesty” met Sunday outside a Vancouver residence that sold for $6 million to protest its impending demolition. Bev Watt, a member of the Kerrisdale-Granville Homeowners’ Association, told the crowd demolishing a 20-year-old house marks a “tipping point” for the city.

Globe and Mail – Vancouver Sun – CBC News

Vancouver moves to water down heritage protection bylaw

When city hall created Vancouver’s first heritage conservation area last fall, it was, heritage enthusiasts agreed, a giant step for the preservation of the city’s dwindling historic houses. First Shaughnessy, which is the oldest part of the former Canadian Pacific Railway lands, had lost many of its pre-1940 houses to redevelopment.

Globe and Mail – Victoria Times Colonist

Renovation stress builds a range of emotions

Renovations are painful, they make you want to scream, and cause you to ask yourself why you’re bearing the brunt of all the work. And yet, you love the result and often end up repeating the whole thing. Houzz.com’s Remodeling & Relationships Survey of Canadian users found a number of issues that caused pain.

Windsor Star

Hendrix’s former London apartment restored to ’60s glory

When he was not being a string-shredding, amp-blasting guitar hero, Jimi Hendrix liked nothing better than to sit at home drinking tea and watching the British soap opera Coronation Street. The musician’s former apartment — in a London building that links Handel’s “Messiah” and “Purple Haze” — opens to the public Wednesday.

Toronto Star

Natural Disasters

Man-made climate change raised risk for English floods: Study

Man-made climate change directly influenced the historic storms that battered southern England in the winter of 2013-2014, submerging parts of the country and causing more than $900 million in damages, says a new Nature Climate Change study. The study also calculated human-induced carbon emissions caused a whopping 43 per cent increase in the risk of the once-in-a-century rainfall event.

Toronto Star

Legal Issues

Legal changes may shake up U.S. market

In mid-January, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced a new policy: a “geographic targeting order” aimed at international money laundering. Foreign real estate markets have been popular destinations for ill-gotten Chinese gains: particularly markets in North America such as Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York, and Miami. 

Equities.com – Worldcrunch

Landlord ordered to pay former tenant damages

A Montreal landlord must pay a former tenant nearly $13,000 in damages after his building was deemed a danger to the health and well-being of its residents, the Régie du logement ruled in December. Salmah Idar was desperately looking for an apartment in 2011 when she found a landlord willing to let her and her six young children move in.

Montreal Gazette

Residents aren’t renters: Mobile home park owner

Residents of Copper Sands believe an upcoming court case could impact everyone in Saskatchewan who lives in a mobile trailer home park. Copper Sands Land Corporation, which bought the park in 2014, contends residents should not be legally considered renters, citing the Residential Tenancies Act’s definition of a mobile home.

Regina Leader-Post

Corporations can prevent smoking in units

We have already discussed smoking restrictions in common elements and on exclusive-use balconies. But what about smoking in units? Can a condominium corporation prevent an occupant from smoking in his own home? The short answer is yes. In Ontario, such a prohibition would have to be enshrined in the condominium’s declaration or in a rule adopted by the corporation. 

Lexology

Construction

Building permits jump in December

The value of Canadian building permits jumped more than expected in December, driven by increased construction intentions for multi-family homes across much of the country, data from Statistics Canada showed Monday. The 11.3 per cent rise topped economists’ forecasts for a gain of 5.6 per cent, though it was not enough to completely offset the 19.9 per cent decline in November.

Reuters – CTV News

Affordable Housing

Alberta promises action on affordable housing

Alberta’s new housing minister is promising a major push around affordable housing as the NDP government seeks more cash from Ottawa to help get new units built. In Tuesday’s cabinet shuffle, Edmonton-Riverview MLA Lori Sigurdson was named minister of Seniors and Housing.

Calgary Herald – Edmonton Journal – Calgary Herald

Vancouver desperately needs affordable housing

The tech economy in Vancouver and across Canada has never looked brighter. Yet the reality, in some respects, has never been bleaker. But there’s one enormous cloud looming on the horizon — housing affordability. It’s no secret Vancouver housing is increasingly unaffordable. (The same goes for Toronto, to a slightly lesser extent.)

Financial Post

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

Two abandoned Vancouver homes share owner

The $6.2-million Point Grey home boasts unobstructed vistas of the North Shore mountains, English Bay and Vancouver’s skyline. But it’s vacant and rotting. Current owners Huai Can Ren and Xue Pei Sun also own a $3.57-million Arbutus Ridge home, records show. The home also appears to be unoccupied.

Vancouver Province

Why not have more high-rises along Highway 40?

People are funny. On one hand, you see webs of housing developments approved in patches across the West Island that will nominally exacerbate traffic problems. On the other hand, we see Kirkland residents kiboshing a proposed 800-unit housing development on the former Merck Frosst site on the north side of the Trans-Canada Highway.

Montreal Gazette

Buying and Selling

Big Fat Deal: Decks, decks and more decks in West Vancouver

Address: 6955 Isleview Road, Whytecliff, West Vancouver
Price: $15,800,000
MLS: R2030158
The skinny: Four-bedroom, six-bathroom, 5,606-square-foot waterfront property on an approximately 14,700-square-foot lot.
The bling: Someone in this place believes that your home is your canvas — or, if you can afford it, the canvas of artists who can make you look very smart.

BC Business

Conrad Black’s TO mansion for sale

Conrad Black’s ancestral home in Toronto’s exclusive Bridle Path enclave is for sale. The mansion, built by Black’s father, will be auctioned on March 8 by Concierge Auctions of New York in conjunction with real estate agent Barry Cohen from Re/Max Realtron Realty Inc. Cohen said the property has an estimated value of $21.8 million.

Toronto Star – Globe and Mail – Global News

Other