Seattle offers lessons in helping renters

Seattle offers lessons in helping renters

Seattle rents have shot upwards in the last few years, as the economy has boomed and new people have flooded to the city to work at Amazon, Microsoft and a plethora of other tech companies. In the once-popular and student-dominated area of lower Capitol Hill, rents had jumped to about $1,500 (U.S.) for a one-bedroom apartment by last September.

Globe and Mail

Airbnb offers cash for new hosts in Vancouver

With more than 4,200 registered listings in the Vancouver area, Airbnb has been blamed for constricting an already squeaky-tight rental market. But the company is still on the hunt for new hosts — and is now offering $250 cash incentives for people listing their property for rent on its website for the first time.

Vancouver Sun – The Chronicle Herald – Business in Vancouver

Lindvest’s Sonic condos spring from Toronto LRT

Traffic delays caused by construction of Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit (LRT) system have been a headache for drivers, but it will become a godsend for residents and businesses along the corridor once it’s finally completed in the next three or four years. Lindvest is banking on a boom around Eglinton Avenue and Don Mills Road and will begin construction of its Sonic Condominiums project there early next year.

Property Biz Canada

Home buyers’ group must cover its legal costs in Urbancorp case

A group of home buyers left in limbo after the collapse of Toronto developer Urbancorp received another setback after a judge ruled they would have to swallow the cost of their legal bills in the homebuilder’s’ insolvency proceedings. Law firm Dickinson Wright went to court last week on behalf of 40 people who put deposits on homes to be built in four of Urbancorp’s developments.

Globe and Mail – Toronto Star

CMHC-insured mortgage arrears in Alberta rising

Canada’s mortgage insurance agency is reporting a 52 per cent increase in the number of insured home loans in arrears in Alberta, as low oil prices weaken the provincial economy. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says in its second-quarter report that payments on 1,487 mortgages in Alberta were three months or more overdue as of June 30 — up from 978 at the same time in 2015.

Financial Post – Marketwired

Editorial: Residential real estate takes a dive

It may be coincidental that sales of detached homes in Metro Vancouver dropped by as much as 86 per cent from Aug. 1 to Aug. 15 over the year-earlier period at the same time as the foreign buyers tax came into effect. After all, how many times have we heard that correlation does not imply causation? The B.C. government says it is too soon to conclude how the real estate market has responded to the 15-per-cent tax introduced Aug. 2.

Vancouver Sun – Vancouver Sun – Ottawa Citizen – Business in Vancouver

Surging bets on Canadian home-price decline dent confidence

Canadians may finally be getting skittish about real estate. The share of survey respondents who expect a decline in local housing prices jumped by 8.5 percentage points, the most since weekly polling began three years ago for the Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index. The increase to 20.5 percent from 12 percent dragged the broader sentiment index down from 2016 highs.

Bloomberg – Financial Post

British Columbia to see new real estate head this fall

B.C. plans to hire a new superintendent to oversee the real estate industry and complete an overhaul of the provincial body that regulates it by early this fall. The Finance Ministry has stopped accepting job applications and has begun interviewing candidates to replace former superintendent Carolyn Rogers, who has accepted a job in Ottawa at the federal bank watchdog.

Globe and Mail

Rental units returning to popularity in Ottawa

There’s a new kid on Ottawa’s housing block – well, maybe a returning kid is more accurate. The purpose-built rental apartment — long supplanted by condos, many of which were purchased and rented out, is striding across town from Orleans to Kanata as both condo and new-home construction remain sluggish and builders look for other revenue streams.

Ottawa Citizen

Best real estate apps and tools when buying a home

Buying a home can be a daunting task. Yes, it’s exciting to become a homeowner but the decision to take this step in life often comes with some heavy price tags. Thank goodness technology is here to help! To make it easier here’s a snapshot of the free mobile apps and free online calculators that can help you achieve your goal of homeownership.

Money Sense

Mixed reality technology brings home design into a new dimension

Virtual reality has been creating a buzz in the architecture and design world for a while now. The idea of being able to build, manipulate, share and explore a to-scale virtual creation makes a lot of sense. But it has one downfall: Virtual reality excludes reality and architecture has to ultimately work in the real world.

Globe and Mail

Smarter homes make it incredibly easy to spend money

Imagine never having to shop for laundry detergent or coffee beans. Your washing machine or coffee maker would note that you were running low on supplies and automatically reorder them — a high-tech feat that would make even the Jetsons feel at home. Fortunately, these innovations are now available.

Financial Post

Husband plotted the demolition mansion, wife alleges

It was a sprawling modernist home designed by a quietly famous architect. And now it’s gone, a casualty of an alleged plot against a Vancouver woman by her estranged husband. The 10,000-sq. ft. house at 6289 Carnarvon St., Vancouver was demolished last summer without the permission or knowledge of its owner, Jin Fang Li claims that her ex, Sheng Yun Dong destroyed the home.

Vancouver Sun

US home prices rise in June at slowest pace in 10 months

U.S. home prices rose modestly in June, pushed up by strong sales and a limited supply of available properties. The Standard & Poor’s CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, released Tuesday, increased 5.1 per cent in June compared with a year ago. That’s down from a 5.3 per cent annual gain in May and is the slowest year-over-year pace since last August.

Montreal Gazette – Bloomberg

Tensions grow in U.S. as homeless seek refuge in national parks

Gerald Babbitt lives in these woods, in a pop-up trailer on cinder blocks that he bought for US$250. His toilet is a bucket, and when he and his wife need to refill their water jugs, they drive their creaky green Jeep a mile down the mountain and into town. Most people are kind, but the other day someone called them “homeless vagrant beggars,” Babbitt said.

National Post

RENX Columnists

Is the driverless car bringing a shakeup to real estate?

Self-driving, driverless, autonomous – call it what you will, but a car on the road without a driver behind the wheel has long left the realm of science fiction.

Read more

Interview with Don Forsgren on boomers

For my latest book, The Stackable Boomer, we asked Chief Executive Officer and President of Intracorp Projects Ltd. for his thoughts on baby boomers relocating from the suburbs to multi-family housing in urban centres.

Read more

Market Conditions

Average Canadian starting salaries to rise 3.1 per cent in 2017

Newly released 2017 Salary Guides from Robert Half show that national average starting salaries for Canadian professional occupations are expected to increase 3.1 per cent next year. The technology field leads with a projected 3.2 per cent increase in pay, followed by salaries for finance and accounting roles, which are expected to rise by 3.1 per cent.

Canada Newswire

Toronto condo realtor reports demand is outweighing supply

Casey Ragan, Toronto’s Condo Authority and owner of www.thecondolife.com, notes that Toronto’s condo market shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. The condo and loft market in Toronto have been going strong for several years, and 2016 is shaping up to be the most active year yet.

Marketwired

Toronto condominium purchasers anxious to close deals

The recent move to slow down Vancouver’s housing market by imposing a new 15% foreign buyers tax has further spurred Toronto condominium sales according to Franco Dinatale Toronto condo specialist for Right at Home Realty Brokerage Inc. and the Toronto Condo Team (www.TorontoCondoTeam.ca).

Marketwired

Limited single family home listings driving Toronto home market

Long-time Toronto realtor Alex Moloney of Right at Home Realty Brokerage Inc.’s Toronto House Team claims that a dwindling inventory of single family home listing is helping to push prices in Toronto’s frenzied housing market past record highs.  In July, the average price for a detached resale home in the city of Toronto rose a staggering 20.7 percent from last year, with an average selling price of just over $1.2 million.

Marketwired

Canada’s housing market nears ‘extreme bubble,’ warns analyst

The Canadian real estate market is on the verge of a massive bubble, warns a former Lehman Brothers executive, citing a struggling Canadian economy and high debt to income ratios. Jared Dillian, a financial analyst based in the U.S., said in an interview with Mauldin Economics that Canada was approaching “extreme bubble territory” as evidenced by increasing home prices.

Global News

RENX Market Summaries

	REITs & REOCs – Second-quarter 2016 report
	RENX has prepared a table with a convenient list of the companies and a summary of links to their second-quarter 2016 results. Have we missed any?

Canadian REITs & REOCs – Second-quarter 2016 report

REITs and REOCs – Financial Reports

Urbanfund reports financial results for six months ended June 30, 2016

Urbanfund Corp. (UFC-X)  reported income before income taxes of $2,016,509 on revenue of $1,241,055 compared to income before income taxes of $135,125 on revenue of $1,188,353 for the corresponding period in 2015. This increase is primarily attributable to rentals at, and fair value adjustment of, the Company’s 65% interest in a residential building with 40 units located at 48 Weber Street, Kitchener, Ontario.

Marketwired

Buying and Selling

Traffic on real estate portal Point2 Homes smashes previous records

More and more domestic and international house hunters are using Point2 Homes as their go-to real estate marketplace. The number of visits has beaten record after record, July alone having smashed all of them, with an increase of 39% year-over-year.

Canada Newswire

B.C. realtor suspended for accepting referrals from unlicensed brokerage website

A B.C. realtor has been suspended after it was found he had conducted more than a dozen sales referred to him by an unlicensed Chinese-language website that offered Lower Mainland listings to foreign buyers. Xiao Ming (Alban) Wang’s real estate license was suspended for a year.

Vancouver Sun

Other

	RENX has surpassed 9,245 Twitter followers
	Follower moovyngb – Techie property investor, always looking for the next good idea.
	Follow RENXca, the most comprehensive news feed on Twitter for Canadian real estate professionals.