Developers building more condos than ever in Canada

Developers building more condos than ever in Canada

Canadian real estate developers are on a tear, starting construction on a record number of multiple-unit projects. A November surge in everything from semi-detached homes to condos has brought the number of housing starts over the past 12 months to the highest on record in data going back to 1959, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

Financial Post

Greater Montreal sets November record for condo sales

The Greater Montreal Real Estate Board says the region set a November record for condominium sales, which helped fuel a 12 per cent increase in overall residential transactions compared with the same month last year. The number of condo sales across the region surged 23 per cent year-over-year as the suburbs north and south of the Island of Montreal rose by 53 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively.

Globe and Mail – Financial Post – Canada Newswire

Réseau Sélection launches multi-generational mega project

District Union, a $900-million multi-residential mega project in Terrebonne, near Montreal, has been launched by a subsidiary of retirement home developer Réseau Sélection. The multi-generational project will add 3,500 to 4,000 housing units aimed at people from all walks of life in its projected timeline of seven to 10 years.

Property Biz Canada

Rachel Julien condos overlook Montreal entertainment district

A luxury $125-million condominium project in Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles entertainment district is attracting empty nesters and international buyers seeking a pied-à-terre with its promise they won’t “miss any of the show.” Phase II of Rachel Julien’s Laurent & Clark  project has kicked off with 175 condos in a 25-storey glass tower. It joins Phase I, a 159 unit, 21-storey tower that launched last May and is 95 per cent sold.

Property Biz Canada

EstWest condos part of downtown Montreal development

East meeting west is proving a winning formula for Devimco Immobilier’s condominium project in its Square Children’s mixed-use development. The developer has sold more than 95 per cent of the 307 condos in EstWest’s Est tower on the former site of the Montreal Children’s Hospital in downtown Montreal. As a result, it will move up sales of the second phase, the 320-unit West tower.

Property Biz Canada

Laurentian Bank CEO problems largely involve misflagged loans

Laurentian Bank’s chief executive says the problems discovered with some of its mortgage portfolios sold to unidentified purchasers largely involved loans which were “misflagged” and it has not found any evidence of wilful wrongdoing. Chief executive Francois Desjardins told the Business News Network on Wednesday said the “misflagged” loans were not the type that the purchaser wanted and due to a problem with the bank’s process.

Financial Post – Globe and Mail – MarketWired

Here’s how developers retain a brand image

Better Dwelling

Katasa proposes Ottawa nine-storey mixed-use project

A Gatineau-based developer is diving into the red-hot Ottawa rental market with a plan for a nine-storey apartment building in the heart of Chinatown. Katasa Group, which owns and operates a number of seniors’ homes, long-term care facilities and apartments on the Quebec side of the river, wants to construct a mixed-use building featuring 112 apartment units in Ottawa.

Ottawa Business Journal

Cressey buys controlling stake in strata that failed to wind up

The saga surrounding a Vancouver condominium building, where owners opposed to selling the site won in B.C. Supreme Court to stop a proposed strata wind-up attempt, has taken a surprise turn. Cressey Development Group finalized agreements to buy 29 of 36 units due to a B.C. law that stipulated if 80% of owners in a building agree they want to sell the site, they are able to proceed to court.

Business In Vancouver

Timber condos to start at $3 million

Lowly Douglas fir from the Kootenays and rockstar architect Shigeru Ban of Japan created a wood luxury condo tower at Coal Harbour, where the starting price for the 20 units is a stratospheric average of $3 million. The project is the first in Canada for Pritzker Prize-winning Ban and is the tallest hybrid timber structure in the world.

BIV

Income inequality reshaping Metro Vancouver

The maps are dramatic, and show a remarkable trend under way: A landslide of wealth is flowing eastward across Vancouver, pushing low-income groups to the fringes of the city and into the suburbs. Burnaby, Richmond and Surrey – places that used to symbolize a comfortable, middle class existence – now show the highest concentrations of low-income households.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

CREA proposes tax-free RRSP loans to help kids buy homes

The federal government should allow parents who want to help their offspring with the purchase of a home to tap into their retirement savings, says the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). Extending the Home Buyers’ Plan to allow for “intergenerational RRSP loans” would ease the financial burden that many young Canadians face when trying to purchase a home for the first time, wrote CREA.

Toronto Star

Uninsured mortgages on Canadian real estate jump 17%

Mortgage stress tests may have a larger impact on Canadian real estate than most expect. Numbers from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) show that the Big Six banks had a major decline in the number of insured mortgages in September. While those declined, the amount of uninsured mortgage debt has experienced explosive growth.

Better Dwelling

Why the world is agog over Canadian home prices and debt: A special report

Some of the “madness” in Canada’s housing markets may have abated, but observers fear sanity may be short-lived and that many families are now in a precarious position as interest rates rise. Indeed, Vancouver’s inflated market is rebounding from its tax-induced slump, and economists believe Toronto could follow the same path.

Globe and Mail

‘Owners’ reveals best markets for U.S. home buyers

Owners.com, an innovative technology enabled real estate brokerage, released its inaugural 2017 Market Recap data study revealing the top 10 buyer and overheated metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). The top 10 buyer markets showed an average sales price of $297,794, which was $35,330 below the national average.

Marketwired – Owners.com Market Recap

RENX Columnists

What’s so clever about smart cities?

Infrastructure Canada is taking applications from municipalities across the country for its Smart Cities Challenge. CATA, the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, says Canada must seize the “opportunities to build on our leadership in urban transformation.” Toronto’s waterfront is about to get a smart cities transformation thanks to Google’s Sidewalk Labs.

Value: Weighed and Measured – Globe and Mail

Market Conditions

Six-month housing starts trend highest in years

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the pace of housing starts picked up in November, pushing the six-month trend to the highest level in nearly a decade. The Ottawa-based Crown corporation says construction of multiple-unit projects in Toronto has been a driving force behind the trend.

Financial Post – CBC – Canada Newswire – Toronto Star

Housing starts near 10-year high on Toronto condo boom

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the pace of housing starts picked up in November, with condo building in Toronto driving the trend.   Despite signs of a slowing house sales market and new rules that could make it difficult for some people to get mortgages, the six-month trend of housing starts in Canada is near a 10-year high.

CBC

Price of Metro Vancouver condos up almost 24% since last year

According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the average property price in Metro Vancouver last month rose 14 per cent from November 2016, with condominiums and attached properties making the biggest gains. The board says condominiums saw the biggest jump in prices at $648,200. That’s up 23.9 per cent since last November and one per cent compared to October.

Global News – CTV – Business In Vancouver

Ottawa enjoying record-breaking sales year

With several weeks still left in 2017, Ottawa realtors have already broken the record for the highest number of homes sold in at least nine years. Members of the Ottawa Real Estate Board sold 1,239 residential properties in November. That’s up 24.9 per cent over the same month last year and above the five-year average for November of 1,001, the local organization said Tuesday.

Ottawa Business Journal – Ottawa Citizen

Mortgage and Finance

Higher rates could spell comeback for five-year mortgages

Time to get ready for a return of the popularity of the five-year mortgage? Twenty years ago, in the mid-1990s — conventional wisdom still held where most home buyers and mortgage holders opted for five-year-closed mortgages as a hedge against the ominous threat of rising interest rates. The security of locking in a constant, predictable mortgage payment for the long term was valued.

Maclean’s

New Developments

Vancouver councillor wants to rezone West Point Grey for rentals

Vancouver’s West Point Grey is a neighbourhood known for large single-family houses on even larger lots — and for the exorbitant asking prices those properties now command. The city’s newest councillor is hoping to change that with a motion he’s bringing to council this week.

CBC

Taxes and Utilities

Airbnb warns federal government about overregulation

As municipalities across the country try to figure out their regulatory relationship with Airbnb, the short-term rental service has asked the federal government to hold off on making rules that would affect its business. Ahead of next year’s federal budget, the company has sent a letter to the House of Commons finance committee asking for the government to “refrain from overregulation” and urging Ottawa to take a “forward-looking approach on any taxation measures it may be considering.”

CBC

Edmonton property taxes jumped 70% in a decade

Property tax rates for Edmonton homeowners have increased 70 per cent in the last decade and some are saying that’s too much. The tax hikes coincided with 10 years of infrastructure catch-up, as city council boosted spending to try to fix crumbling roads and build new recreation centres as Edmonton’s population exploded.

Edmonton Journal

Condominium Management

Condo Act would increase electric vehicle adoption

The Ontario government has unveiled proposed changes to the Condominium Act that would make it easier for condo owners to install electric vehicles chargers in their buildings, a move the province hopes will increase sales of electric vehicles. The proposed regulatory changes, released on Dec. 1, are a part of the government’s Climate Change Action Plan, which includes an electric and hydrogen vehicle sales target of five per cent of total car sales in 2020.

Financial Post

Affordable Housing

Church land redeveloped as homes for refugee families

Sixteen families from countries including Syria and Somalia have moved into a net-zero townhouse development on the site of Westmount Presbyterian Church in North Glenora, west Edmonton. The Presbyterian Church of Canada, which owns the site, agreed to lease the acre of land to Right at Home Housing Society, for a nominal fee.

Globe and Mail

National housing strategy a way to change face of neighbourhoods

Government programs often work in silos, but if all three levels can come together to harmonize the federal government’s national housing strategy with other programs, initiatives and long-term planning goals, there is significant opportunity to leverage our investment, inspire innovative private development and affect positive change in Canadian cities.

Winnipeg Free Press

Small houses

Mini Homes of Manitoba coming up short on delivering houses?

Three customers of Mini Homes of Manitoba say the company did not deliver the homes they ordered, and the chief of tornado-ravaged Long Plain has removed the company from being in charge of building new homes on the Manitoba First Nation.  The company once touted its compact, energy-efficient, mobile houses as a potential solution for the housing crisis on First Nations.

CBC

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

New Calgary zoo bridge opens linking Bridgeland and Inglewood

After more than two years of construction, the new 12th Street Bridge was officially opened Saturday near the Calgary Zoo, re-establishing an important commuter link between the communities of Bridgeland and Inglewood. Hundreds of Calgarians turned up to  cross the $26 million span, which replaced the previous bridge built in 1908, and includes a lane for foot and bike traffic.

CBC

Calgary council hands secondary suite applications to staff

After more than a year of bureaucratic red tape and lengthy hearings, Calgary city council is poised to hand over the onerous, time-consuming process of secondary suite approvals to administration, in hopes of creating more affordable housing options.  “We want to streamline this so that more people will be willing to apply, and we will have more affordable housing options through safer, legal suites,” said Coun. Druh Farrell.

Calgary Herald

Owners stuck with mobile homes as Peel moves to develop land

More than 200 homeowners are now awaiting a formal eviction from their mobile home park following a vote that approved a compensation package at a Peel housing board meeting Thursday morning. Marlyn Addai and a couple dozen of the mobile homeowners travelled to Region of Peel Headquarters to watch the vote.

CBC

Hamilton landowners face ouster amid tourist deluge

From their front window, Luc Lalonde and Moyez Ladhani overlook one of Hamilton’s best views, a cascading canopy of trees in the Spencer Gorge on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment. The couple bought their property in Greensville – a rural village within Hamilton city limits – in 2010 and built their dream home. The natural landscape is central to the home’s minimalist design.

Globe and Mail

Buying and Selling

Too many Ontario real estate agents: Re/Max president

The explosive growth in the number of real estate agents in Ontario has left too many people dabbling in the profession, reducing the quality of service and risking the industry’s future relevance, according to Re/Max Integra president Walter Schneider. Schneider, whose company oversees all Re/Max operations in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, said thousands of new real estate agents have become licensed in the GTA over the past decade.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Million-dollar-plus home sales soar

Winnipeg’s real estate market has seen a record-setting year in 2017, with 44 $1-million-plus, single-family homes sold, according to data provided by Century 21 Canada. That’s up from 32 the previous year, and just 16 in 2015. With three weeks left in the calendar year, real estate agents say that figure could still rise.

Winnipeg Free Press

A free way to find sale price of Alberta homes

People looking to buy a home in Ontario suddenly have access to a wealth of new information, but the same data isn’t available in Alberta — at least, not as easily. Numerous websites now offer prospective homebuyers in Toronto easy-to-access information on the actual selling price of properties that have recently changed hands, helping them tune their own offers on similar homes.

CBC

B.C. luxury property buyers turn to Mexico

Ron Rishagen was born in Trail, but he will be spending most of his retirement days near Puerto Escondido on the southwest coast of Mexico, one of many British Columbians who have discovered the luxury Vivo Resorts. A key reason is the discovery by Calgary developer Cary Mullen that Canadians can buy and own Mexico beachfront as freehold property.

Business In Vancouver

Other

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