Court approves Anthem’s condo purchase

Court approves Anthem’s condo purchase

Owners of a 114-unit condominium project in North Vancouver have become among the first in B.C. to secure court approval to sell their entire complex to a developer. The BC Supreme Court approved Anthem Properties’ $51 million bid for the 6.5-acre Seymour Estates project on Lytton Street in North Vancouver district in December. The transaction closed in late January.

Business In Vancouver

Aimco fighting back and suing Airbnb

Landlords have long been wary of Airbnb, which lets individuals rent out spare space in their homes to guests, but one landlord is now going further, and taking the company to court. Apartment Investment and Management Company (Aimco) has filed lawsuits in both California and Florida seeking monetary damages and court orders preventing Airbnb from listing its units.

Business Inside – TechCrunch – Fortune – BCBusiness

Milborne enjoys record year amidst Toronto condo boom

Milborne Group, the largest new condominium broker in Canada, has helped sell more than 100,000 units valued at more than $25 billion in more than 700 developments over the past 40 years. CEO Hunter Milborne obviously has a good handle of the Canadian condo business, and he just entered a strategic partnership with Pordes Residential to serve Florida.

Property Biz Canada

‘Trapped wealth’ driving TO’s speculative dilemma

Toronto’s housing boom is unrelenting. Prices surged more than 20 per cent over the past year, the fastest pace in three decades, “I don’t think anybody is cheering,” said BMO’s Doug Porter, who used the dreaded “bubble” word last week to describe the market. “I don’t see who benefits other than real estate agents. It’s trapped wealth.”

Bloomberg – Financial Post – Financial Post – Toronto Star

McMaster buys nine houses for planned student residence

McMaster University has bought a cluster of nine houses adjacent to the campus with plans to build a multi-storey student residence with room for 800 beds. The university bought the parcel from Scholar Properties, investors who’ve been buying up properties in the leafy, residential neighbourhood in recent years.

CBC

Van. landlords struggle with sky-high property taxes

Metro Vancouver landlords, facing soaring assessments and property taxes, may be forced to develop their sites or sell out, according to experts. A study by Altus Group of BC Assessments for 2017 revealed rental apartment buildings have seen valuations increase up to 60 per cent to 70 per cent. 

Western Investor

Regional variances continue to skew W. Canada condo market

Vancouver continues to dominate the multi-family housing market in Western Canada, with a benchmark condominium price far above that of other major cities in the region. In The Goodman Report’s 2016 Greater Vancouver Rental Apartment Review, a 40 per cent year-over-year increase in total dollar volume of apartment transaction was reported. 

Western Investor – Globe and Mail

Vancouver condo for sale after 23 empty years

A condo in Vancouver that has sat empty for more than 20 years is for sale. One of the penthouse suites at 2438 Heather Street, just off of West Broadway, is selling for $868,000. No one has lived there since it was built in 1994, not even the owner, who happens to be the building’s developer. 

Huffington Post

Stalled Edmonton condo project finally underway

After being abandoned three years ago, a derelict construction site in Glenora intended as a luxury condominium project is finally getting back on track under new owners. InHouse, the infill housing arm of Beaverbrook Communities, took over the Glenora Skyline project last year after the previous owners ran into money problems.

CBC

Vancouver rent reaches record high: PadMapper

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver remains the highest in the country, and it increased another 1.6 per cent in February, reaching the highest level on record. Vancouverites are, on average, paying $1,900 for a one-bedroom unit, according to PadMapper. The increase comes in spite of a drop in average home prices across the city.

Business In Vancouver

Real estate agency hopes housing auctions take off in B.C.

A B.C. real estate group is holding a rare public auction for property, looking to sell a two-bedroom unit in New Westminster. Harcourts Canada will hold the auction, its first in Canada, on March 2. CEO Harden Duncan says housing auctions provide full transparency, unlike the current method where potential buyers are left blind to other bids.

CBC – Vancouver Province

How would Vancouver’s housing bubble burst? Look to China

No question is more on the minds of Metro Vancouver homeowners and renters than how and when the region’s housing bubble could burst. After stratospheric escalation, a punctured bubble would be disaster for hundreds of thousands of over-mortgaged homeowners. Yet it could bring relief to those desperate to get into housing.

Vancouver Sun – Vancouver Sun

If you’re a young couple, Toronto Island wants you

If you’re a young couple, Toronto Island wants you. Councillor Pam McConnell is concerned about the island’s aging and declining population. “There’s a demographic change going on,” she said. “The tradition of the island has always been families, but now we’re seeing more seniors.”

Toronto Star

Entire Canadian towns for sale

Town buy-and-sell has become a niche market in Canada, and is certainly one of the stranger trends in a country that has gone real estate crazy. A former settlement in B.C. is currently listed at $1.2 million; another north of Montreal is up for $2.8 million, and others are privately owned in the Prairies.

Maclean’s

Dubai building rotating skyscraper

Skyscrapers are sprouting in Dubai like wild mushrooms – the latest project being the Dynamic Tower Hotel that will be the world’s first rotating skyscraper. Residents will be able to spin their apartments and control the speed as well. Scheduled for a grand opening in 2020, the Dynamic Tower hotel has been planned since 2008 by Israeli-Italian architect David Fisher.

Indiatimes.com – Independent.co.uk – Dailymail.co.uk

RENX Columnists

On ‘dealing with’ clients

Have you every commented in passing that you must “deal with a client”? This casual turn of phrase carries weight.

Read more

Market Conditions

Canadian housing prices unsustainable: Fitch

The booming Canadian housing market is coming under scrutiny in another report, this time from Fitch Ratings which said Thursday the country’s residential housing is overvalued and at heightened risk of a correction. As prices continue to rise, Fitch says it is unsustainable in the long-term and not supported by fundamentals.

Financial Post – Financial Post – Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Ottawa house price gain trails only Vancouver, TO

The benchmark price for single-family homes in Ottawa increased 4.8 per cent year-over-year in January to $373,000. That trails only the 24.4 per cent and 15.9 per cent gains posted in greater Toronto and Vancouver, respectively, over the same period, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Ottawa Citizen

Checking out Calgary’s multi-family market

More apartments, duplexes, and townhomes were sold through Calgary’s resale home market in January than the same month in 2016. The biggest increase in sales came from townhomes, improving 30 per cent to 129 transactions from 99 year over year, says the Calgary Real Estate Board. Townhome sales were paced by an area CREB defines as south Calgary, recording 29 deals.

Calgary Herald

Manhattan condo market stalling

Buyers are becoming reluctant to pay sky-high asking prices in Manhattan, which has an oversupply of swanky new condominiums. Toll Brothers, a national luxury homebuilder with a pricey “City Living” condominium brand, is offering to pay buyers’ taxes on two new developments in two of Manhattan’s hottest neighbourhoods, Chelsea and the West Village.

CNBC

Could Detroit soon have too many new apartments?

After several years of apartment scarcity in and around downtown Detroit, supply is starting to catch up with demand, prompting some building owners to offer rent deals and to shorten waiting lists. Hundreds of new market-rate rentals have opened in the city’s downtown and Midtown since last fall with hundreds more planned to open this spring.

Detroit Free Press

Mortgage and Finance

Retirees find financial freedom in renting

William Jack woke up in the middle of the night last month as often happens. This time, though, he rolled over and went back to sleep. That’s when he knew that after more than two years of turmoil, he was finally home. The fact the roof over his head belongs to someone else added to his peace of mind. 

Toronto Star

Foreclosures can occur with reverse mortgages

Reverse mortgages are advertised as a way to draw money out of your home for retirement, an alternative to selling the home or taking out a loan, such as a home equity line of credit. With property prices so high, accessing some of the money wrapped up in the value of your home sounds enticing.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail

New Developments

A design hothouse in the Alberta foothills

A 750-square foot home in the foothills of Alberta is attracting international attention as an exemplary piece of architecture. The Rock House was designed by Seattle-based James Cutler of Cutler Anderson Architects as the design benchmark in a unique new community, Carraig Ridge, located between Cochrane and Canmore.

Globe and Mail

Taxes and Utilities

Water treatment plants failing on reserves

Several days each week last fall, water trucks left Sudbury and drove 130 kilometres west to the Serpent River First Nation, a reserve on Lake Huron’s north shore. John Owl, the plant operator, said it ran 24 hours a day and still could not provide enough water to meet the needs of the reserve’s 350 inhabitants.

Globe and Mail

Hydro bills the focus as Queen’s Park resumes

Hydro rates were expected to dominate the agenda during the spring session of the Ontario Legislature, starting Tuesday. At the moment, nothing is resonating among Ontario voters quite like the price of electricity. The government knows it, the opposition parties know it.

CBC – Toronto Star

Natural Disasters

Largest drainage project in Sask.’s history approved

A new drainage project announced for the southeast portion of Saskatchewan will allow for better control of water flows to reduce downstream flooding. “This is about protecting the drainage projects that we have in the province, and the ability to do those types of projects into the future, and to move that water off our land,” said minister Scott Moe.

Regina Leader-Post

Legal Issues

TO homeowner fined for short-term renters

A justice of the peace has imposed a $10,000 fine on the owner of a Willowdale home who violated city bylaws by accepting short-term renters, often using web sites such as Airbnb to find them. Justice of the Peace Gerry Altobello said the defendant was “thumbing his nose at the community and the city.”

Toronto Star

Housing discrimination complaints on the rise

The number of complaints of rental discrimination is on the rise, according to data gathered by the Quebec human rights commission. Since 2011, the number of complaints increased by 35 per cent compared to the five-year period from 2006 to 2011, the commission’s annual report noted. Of the 767 complaint cases opened over 10 years, one-third were based on ethnic origin and skin colour.

CBC

Construction

Metro Vancouver still ‘under-building’: UDI

Metro Vancouver posted record housing starts in 2016, but the Urban Development Institute argues the pace of building wasn’t enough to contribute to making housing more affordable in the region. Builders started work on 27,900 new homes in 2016, 33 per cent more than in 2015, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reports.

Vancouver Sun

Optimism among U.S. homebuilders weakens

U.S. homebuilders are feeling a bit less confident this month, reflecting a dimmer outlook on sales in the months ahead and fewer would-be buyers dropping by builders’ sales offices. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Wednesday fell to 65 this month. That’s down two points from a revised reading of 67 in January.

Montreal Gazette – Reuters

Affordable Housing

City of Ottawa hopes for ‘year of housing’

City of Ottawa officials will make their pitch for a big funding boost in the upcoming federal budget to allow hundreds of new affordable or social housing units to be built locally. At a committee meeting on Thursday, city staff described how 40,000 households in Ottawa live in poverty.

CBC

Community land trusts could help Vancouver affordability

The three buildings – two towers, one lower-rise building – being hammered on and coated with insulation on the banks of the Fraser River in southeast Vancouver don’t look any different from the dozens of other buildings going up near them. On the outside, they’re not.

Globe and Mail

One-person homes fill a need in Vancouver

The City of Vancouver has unveiled yet another tool in its efforts to end homelessness and increase affordable housing options: modular housing. Last week, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was onsite to officially open 220 Terminal Ave, a three-storey, 40-unit temporary housing building renting at the $375 income assistance shelter rate.

TheTyee.ca – News1130

Feds pay for half of Vancouver’s temporary development

The federal government has chipped in $1.5 million toward a temporary 40-unit modular housing development on city-owned land near Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The city started building the $3 million social housing project months ago, despite having failed at that point to secure financial help from the provincial or federal government.

Vancouver Sun

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

L.A. looks to ban major developments

Voters in the second-largest U.S. city are considering a measure that could effectively halt major real-estate projects, the most extreme example yet of a revolt against development that is breaking out across the country. A boom in luxury development over the last five years has transformed urban America, bringing young people, restaurants, retailers and jobs back to city centres.

Wall Street Journal

Other

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