Battle brewing over Vancouver micro-suites

Battle brewing over Vancouver micro-suites

A “tiny” battle has flared up in Vancouver about the advisability of permitting micro-suites: are they too small; do they put people down? Developers want to build them, but Vancouver planners say no. “Vancouver’s restrictions on minimum building sizes are quite sad because so many people want these things,” said Jon Stovell, president of Reliance Properties.

Vancouver Sun – Property Biz Canada

Entertainment district dominates TO condo market

The party is set to carry on in Toronto’s entertainment district. That neighbourhood will continue to dominate the downtown condo market again this year with 24 projects under development near King St. West between Spadina Ave. and Simcoe St. There are 4,431 condos for sale there at an average price of $919 per square foot according to a survey by BuzzBuzzHome.

Toronto Star – Globe and Mail – Toronto Star

Miami developers woo underserviced Canadian condo buyers

Toronto condominium marketer Hunter Milborne recently bought a condo at The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Sunny Isles Beach in Miami, which led to a strategic partnership that will now enable his company to cast a wider net. 

Property Biz Canada

VERSUS is ready for Calgary residents

Calgarians have a new option for rental living in the Beltline: VERSUS. ONE Properties and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) partnered to build VERSUS, a mixed-use property with ground level retail, second floor office space, third floor amenity areas and two residential towers reaching to 17 and 34 storeys to house 444 residential units.

Property Biz Canada

High-end rental towers on the rise

Gary Spira has spent his life living in houses in or around Toronto’s tony Forest Hill Village. Six months ago, Spira banked the cash from the sale of his house and moved into a two-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot unit on the 27th floor of the neighbourhood’s brand new rental tower. He’s not alone, according to condo research firm Urbanation Inc. 

National Post

Genstar drops request for residents to pay improvement fees

A development company seeking $1.6 million from a group of residents in Winnipeg’s Old Kildonan neighbourhood to help pay for new roads, sewers and sidewalks they don’t want has dropped its request. Genstar Development Company owns land where the Amber Gates development is being built and is in need of new infrastructure such as roads and sewer and water lines.

CBC – Winnipeg Free Press

First-time homebuyer loans triggering Van. bidding wars

The low-interest loan program introduced by the B.C. government to help first-time home buyers get into the market appears to be having a big impact on entry-level condos. While government intervention put a chill on prices this summer, it looks like the new loan initiative is heating up prices again.

CTV – Better Dwelling – Vancouver Province – Globe and Mail

Gatineau paying people to buy homes

The City of Gatineau is offering grants to families and first-time home-buyers to get them to buy property and live in downtown Hull, in another bid to revitalize the downtown core. Gatineau is offering a $5,000 grant, but property owners with a child under the age of 18 can receive an extra $2,500.

CBC

Home Capital faces class-action risk

Home Capital Group Inc. (HCG-T) will likely be able to manage any financial sanctions stemming from an enforcement notice it received from Canada’s largest securities regulator, but the threat of a class-action lawsuit is “potentially more meaningful,” a National Bank analyst says.

Financia Post – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

N.S. group wants tax cap program to include apartment buildings

A group of Nova Scotia investment property owners wants some relief from rising tax assessments. A cap on tax assessments has been place in the province since 2005 to prevent sharp spikes in individual tax bills, but the cap only applies to single-family homes, condominiums and trailers. It does not apply to the apartment sector.

CBC

Condo act updates aim to improve protection

The Alberta government is poised to announce the first phase of amendments to the Condominium Property Act. New legislation was passed in 2014 to bring in stricter regulations to protect consumers and make developers more accountable. In all, 50 amendments have been proposed with the first phase likely covering about 20 per cent of these changes.

Calgary Herald

Soaring Toronto housing sparks interest in co-owning

Toronto is not your average housing market and Lesli Gaynor is not your typical realtor. It’s her background in policy writing and social work that informs her efforts to facilitate different co-ownership arrangements through her own company, GoCo Solutions. Last Wednesday, she has organized a seminar featuring legal and financial experts on the subject.

Toronto Star – Globe and Mail

Number of Vancouver empty, underused homes soars

Homes left vacant or not used as primary residences in Metro Vancouver now account for 6.5 per cent of the region’s housing stock, adding fuel to concerns real estate speculators are hollowing out neighbourhoods and driving up prices, according to a new study based on the latest census data.

Globe and Mail – Calgary Herald

Thousands of unoccupied dwellings in Victoria

The 2016 census confirmed Victoria has thousands of unoccupied dwellings. Out of 49,212 dwellings, 3,540, or 7.9 per cent, were found to be unoccupied in Statistics Canada’s survey. Unoccupied housing has been a concern for Victoria council, with some members suggesting an extra tax be levied on such properties. 

Victoria Times Colonist

Outlook for U.S. apartment sector looks strong

Since the election, “uncertainty” has been a buzzword among economists. “I hear people talk about ‘uncertainty,’ but when I boil it down to how it will affect the multi-family market, I don’t see any huge change,” says John Sebree, director in the national multi housing group of brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap.

National Real Estate Investor

RENX Columnists

A fairer way to implement property assessments?

Last week, I took part in a stakeholders meeting with Ontario’s Municipal Property Assessment Corp. (MPAC) on how the process of determining, implementing and appealing a property’s assessment might be improved.

Read more

Market Conditions

Dalhousie hopes free land can combat population decline

Dalhousie saw one of the largest population decreases in northern New Brunswick over the past five years, according to the 2016 census, but the town hopes its offer of free property to new businesses will help turn things around.

CBC

How long can Calgary’s housing market hang on?

Since losing his job in the oil patch in April 2015, Patrick Merz, 58,  has survived on his severance package, savings and the occasional contract job. But with few prospects for steady employment on the horizon in recession-weary Alberta, Merz is now looking to pull up stakes once again and leave the city for better opportunities in British Columbia.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail

Home prices soar in Toronto, Hamilton, Victoria

Home prices are rising at the fastest pace in the history of at least one measure. Even Vancouver managed to score a rise in January from December, according to the Teranet-National Bank home price index. On a national basis, prices rose 0.5 per cent from December, matching the fastest pace ever scored for a January in the index’s 18-year history.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

England’s housing market broken: White paper

England’s housing market is broken, the government has admitted, with home ownership a “distant dream” for young families, as it unveiled a white paper promising a fresh wave of home building. The communities secretary, Sajid Javid, told the House of Commons average house prices had jumped to 7.5 times average incomes and rents in many places swallowed more than half of take-home pay.

The Guardian

Americans moving at record-low rates

Between 2015 and 2016, 11.2 per cent of the U.S. population moved, according to the recently released results of the Census Bureau’s 2016 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. That’s the lowest one-year mover rate ever reported by the bureau, which began tracking migration in 1948.

Multi-Housing News

Mortgage and Finance

‘The housing bubble has burst’: Economist

Those booming housing markets may make some homeowners rich and provide a short-term boost to the economy, but a Canadian economist is warning about the long-term impact on the country. David Madani, of Capital Economics, said a further deterioration in housing affordability will cost the economy over time.

Financial Post – BuzzBuzzNews

Régie du logement resumes publishing rent increase estimates

Quebec’s Régie du logement has quietly resumed publishing its rent increase estimate index after being blasted by tenants’ rights groups, who argued the index is an essential tool for those who need to know whether a rent increase is excessive.

Montreal Gazette

New Developments

Sweet rental properties for seniors

Aging baby boomers looking to downsize and rest, be warned: The Sumach development in Toronto’s Regent Park is anything but a rest home. “Baby boomers want a different approach to their retirement and we’ve been listening a lot to what they say to us,” says Maxime Camerlain, vice-president of Chartwell Retirement Residences (CSH.UN-T).

Globe and Mail – Property Biz Canada

UFO condo begins boarding occupants

Starting this week, Earthlings and other species with the right credit rating will start moving into Winnipeg’s UFO-like condo which hovers next to the Disraeli Freeway. The unusual circular structure known as 62M Condos sits on 12-metre concrete columns, giving occupants an out-of-this-world view of downtown, the North End and the Disraeli.

CBC – Property Biz Canada

Florida packing plant to be replaced with student housing

The A.S. Herlong & Co. packing plant, one of the busiest places in Florida when citrus was king, will soon be packed in to the dustbin of history. Beacon College, which owns the massive white landmark building, needs the space for student housing. The college hired architects to see if it the building could be repurposed.

Daily Commercial News

Renovation, Repair and Maintenance

Windsor’s condominium conversion craze may be over

Windsor’s decade-long condo conversion craze may be over. The city’s Planning, Heritage and Economic Development Standing Committee voted Monday night for new applications to be subject to provisions in the official plan adopted in 2007 that allow conversions only when the local vacancy rate is above three per cent.

Windsor Star

Winnipeg condo owners want problems fixed

Jennifer Dreger checks the windowsill of her master bedroom window. She’s worried water will seep down from the attic of her new Winnipeg condo again. Dreger and her husband, Wayne, moved into Park City Condominiums, a Transcona development built by A & S Homes, two years ago. 

CBC

Taxes and Utilities

Regina approves 3.99 per cent tax hike

Regina city councillors voted to approve a 3.99 per cent property tax increase on Monday night — slightly less than what had been previously proposed. The proposed budget released in January called for a 4.18 per cent increase. That would mean a homeowner with a house assessed at $300,000 would pay an extra $101.76 per year, or $8.48 per month.

CBC

Natural Disasters

California dam managers dismissed flood concern 12 years ago

Environmental activists and local government officials warned more than a decade ago about the risk of catastrophic flooding below a major Northern California dam — the very scenario that threatened to unfold over the weekend, prompting evacuation orders for nearly 200,000 people.

CTV – CBC – CBC

Legal Issues

Winnipeg condo development in receivership

The construction of Winnipeg’s high-profile downtown development dubbed “D Condo” is in the hands of a third-party manager, amid concerns raised by the project’s key lender over financial shortfalls and ongoing delays. On Friday, a Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench judge approved a request by Caisse Financial Group to have PricewaterhouseCoopers appointed as the receiver for the project.

CBC

More than 2,700 charges against MacDonald Lofts

The former owners and property managers of a low-income downtown Edmonton apartment building are facing 2,778 charges under the Public Health Act. Alberta Health Services said in a statement Monday property managers’ “lack of responsive actions created a direct and avoidable risk” to the health of tenants living in MacDonald Lofts.

CBC

ATCO faces lawsuit for explosion at Fort Mac home

An Alberta law firm launched a $10-million class-action lawsuit blaming ATCO Gas for a natural gas explosion at home during the Fort McMurray wildfire evacuation. Calgary-based Higgerty Law filed a statement of claim in the Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench Friday against ATCO Ltd. and ATCO Gas which operates as ATCO Gas and Pipeline Ltd and Northwestern Utilities Ltd.

CBC

Construction

Homebuilding picks up, especially in Ontario cities

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the pace of housing starts in January picked up from December. CMHC says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 207,408 units in January, up from 206,305 in December.

Fnancial Post

Ottawa condo builders easing back into market: CMHC

Ottawa homebuilders started the new year with a bang, driven by new condo construction, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. The national housing agency said developers broke ground on 561 new homes last month, a 63 per cent jump over January 2016 and a three-month high.

Ottawa Business Journal

Affordable Housing

SFU faces affordable student housing crunch

As Simon Fraser University continues the rapid expansion of its Surrey campus, the school faces the challenge of ensuring an adequate supply of affordable student housing in an increasingly expensive real estate market. SFU president and vice-chancellor Andrew Petter recently acknowledged the university needs help from both the public and private sectors to build student housing.

Business In Vancouver

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

Making downtown Montreal livable

The Shaughn, located south of René-Lévesque Blvd. near the foot of St-Marc St., is the first new rental apartment building to be constructed in western downtown in years. Developer Devimco is looking to attract renters seeking the condo lifestyle who don’t want to buy.

Montreal Gazette

A walking Winnipeggers will go

From his perch 12 storeys above Winnipeg’s Osborne Village, Robert Keizer is an elevator ride from anything he needs. “My grocery store, my liquor store, my favourite hangout are all just steps away,” the 27-year-old IT specialist said. Keizer, 27, doesn’t own a car. “I just don’t see the point, given where I live.”

Winnipeg Free Press

Suburban sprawl makes its way to N.L.’s Witless Bay

A new story is emerging in Witless Bay, and a handful of other small communities around St. John’s. It is one of building booms and booming populations, and the tension that rapid growth can produce between those who prefer things the way they are (or were) and those who view every new business opened and home built as progress.

Montreal Gazette

Fort Mac sees spike in water-treatment costs

The cost of providing clean drinking water to Fort McMurray has spiked after the 2016 wildfire and could rise even higher in 2017. The city’s water treatment plant is spending more on food-grade chemicals to remove burnt forest-floor ash that’s flushing into the municipality’s drinking water supply. 

CBC

Other

GTA builders clean up at N.A. marketing awards

In January several GTA builders, developers, designers and marketers were recognized south of the border at the annual National Sales and Marketing Awards. BILD members have a long history of winning at the Nationals. This year, BILD members received 44 silver and 10 gold awards in a range of building, design and marketing categories.

Toronto Star