Recession could follow TO foreign buyers tax: Lamb

Recession could follow TO foreign buyers tax: Lamb

High-profile Toronto developer Brad Lamb is warning a foreign home buyers tax could cause a Canada-wide recession, but a professor advocating for the tax says Lamb is just “fear-mongering” to save his bottom line. Lamb’s campaign against the tax began earlier this week in a 1,300-word Facebook post.

CBC – BuzzBuzzNews – Newinhomes.com

Landmark B.C. court ruling could shake RE industry

A B.C. Supreme Court ruling will send shock waves through the arm of the Canadian real-estate market powered by foreign capital, say immigration lawyers. The ruling targets a weakness in Canadian laws that often leads foreign owners of real estate in cites like Metro Vancouver and Toronto to wrongly claim they are “residents of Canada for tax purposes.”

Calgary Herald – Business In Vancouver

Fortress pokes holes in rising home price theories

Lack of supply, urban containment policies and long wait times for approvals are more responsible for high home prices in the Greater Toronto Area than land hoarding and foreign speculators, according to Fortress Real Developments’ comprehensive new Market Manuscript report. 

Property Biz Canada

CPPIB’s Liberty Living sells student housing portfolio

UK private equity real estate investor Henley has bought three student housing assets from Liberty Living. The firm said it paid $84 million Cdn for the portfolio from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board-owned sector specialist. The combined properties, in Preston, Sheffield and Stoke, include 1,519 student rooms.

IPE Real Estate – Property Week

Ottawa not finished addressing hot housing markets

Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau says he recognizes supply issues are at least partly responsible for fast-rising housing prices in booming cities such as Toronto and Vancouver, and is not ruling out further targeted reforms to cool Canada’s real estate market. However, he said the federal government must be mindful that whatever it does affects the entire country.

Financial Post – Financial Post – Reuters

Surging TO home sales fuel calls for new measures

Sales of single-family detached houses commanding prices of at least $1 million have almost doubled this year in the Greater Toronto Area, as economists raise the spectre of a real estate bubble. The GTA saw 2,876 sales of detached properties of $1 million or more in January and February, a new study by Sotheby’s International Realty Canada shows.

Globe and Mail – CTV – Marketwired

Are laneway homes the answer for Toronto?

If Toronto is going to solve its affordable housing crisis, we’re going to have to get creative. As new condo developments soar and owners cram basement apartments into their houses, a new movement uniting community members, developers, architects and city councillors is unlocking one answer that’s been right under our noses – or rather, behind our houses.

NOW Magazine – Globe and Mail – Newinhomes.com

Dutch architect shares his fix for Toronto housing

When architect Marco VanderMaas needs inspiration for solutions to Toronto’s housing crunch, he thinks about his own childhood in the Netherlands, where he grew up in a unit on top of his parent’s store. What Toronto needs, he said is more housing like that: homes that you “don’t really notice” because they blend into the neighbourhoods.

CBC – Globe and Mail

Vancouver rent reasonable for financial centre: Report

Renting an apartment in Vancouver is notoriously difficult and expensive, but a new report tries to make the case the rent for a one-bedroom apartment is actually not bad in one of the world’s top financial centres. The study was conducted by U.S.-based apartment listing service RentCafé.

Business In Vancouver – Vancouver Sun

Foreign buyers’ interest in Vancouver levelling off

Seven months after B.C. introduced a tax on foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver, their interest in the region’s real estate market seems to be levelling off. Last month, foreign nationals accounted for about $93 million in residential sales in the region, or a little more than three per cent of all transactions.

Vancouver Sun

Vancouver council set to debate housing strategy

Vancouver City Council were set to begin debating a self-proclaimed “reset” of the city’s housing strategy today that aims to tackle the problems with affordability and supply. On Tuesday morning city council was to receive a report from Kathleen Llewellyn-Thomas, general manager of community services, outlining the emerging directions in the Housing Vancouver 2040 strategy.   

CBC – CBC – Vancouver Sun – Business In Vancouver

Census suggests people fleeing Vancouver

Vancouver is a great and glorious waterfront city, the greenest and most densely populated in Canada. The gateway to the Pacific Rim, and among the most livable cities in the world, we are told. So how come so many people are leaving, driving the city’s population growth rate down 30 per cent in the past five years?

Western Investor – Winnipeg Free Press – Vancouver Province

‘Urban Aboriginal village’ proposed for Prince George

An “urban village” with an emphasis on Indigenous culture and values is proposed for the VLA neighbourhood in Prince George, B.C. The complex, run by the Aboriginal Housing Society of Prince George, would have a combination of houses and apartments, as well as elder and child care, educational and support services and space for spiritual and cultural practices.

CBC

Developers ignoring the middle class

The real estate industry knows there’s huge demand for less expensive homes. However, developers — and the industry at large — make much bigger profits building luxury homes for wealthy people than affordable homes for the rest of us. It’s why so few new developments are targeted towards average incomes.

TheTyee.ca

Renters now rule half of U.S. cities

Detroit was once known as a city where a working-class family could afford to own a home. Now it’s a city of renters. Just 49 per cent of Motor City households were homeowners in 2015, down from 55 per cent in 2009 and the lowest percentage in more than 50 years. Detroit isn’t alone.

Bloomberg – Bloomberg

RENX Columnists

The need to make tax rebates for vacancies fairer for everyone

There is a perception among some municipal officials that commercial property owners, by and large, would rather have a tax rebate than a paying tenant.

Read more

Market Conditions

Speculators super-heating Toronto market

Speculators are buying up residential real estate all around the Greater Toronto Area and possibly pushing house prices into bubble territory. Investors could be responsible for as large as 25 to 30 per cent of all sales in the GTA, according to a Realosophy Realty report Freeholds on Fire: How Investors are Driving Up House Prices in the Greater Toronto Area.

Globe and Mail – Toronto Star – CBC

Toronto real estate poised for ‘soft landing’: TD

The Toronto housing market isn’t likely headed for a crash, TD Economics suggests. “We still believe that fundamentals will ultimately underpin a soft landing in Toronto’s home prices,” reads a special report from TD Bank’s economics department, titled Toronto Housing: The Heat is on, Buyers Caught up in the Action.

BuzzBuzzNews – Globe and Mail – Huffington Post

Supply of newly built GTA homes hits historic low

There were only 324 new construction detached homes for sale in the Toronto area at the end of last month. Ten years ago, there were 12,064 newly built detached houses available. The numbers come from a monthly report by the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), which says they are the latest indicators of a growing housing crisis.

Toronto Star – BuzzBuzzNews – Canada Newswire

U.S. home sales hit seven-month high

New U.S. single-family home sales jumped to a seven-month high in February, suggesting the housing market recovery was gaining momentum despite higher prices and rising mortgage rates.

Other data on Thursday showed an unexpected increase in the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week. Still, the labor market continues to tighten, which together with the strength in housing, should underpin economic growth.

Reuters – Forbes – Winnipeg Free Press

Creating value ensures future returns in seniors care

“Frailty in old age is a risk we will all face,” said Anne Tumlinson, founder of Anne Tumlinson Innovations LLC. “Half of adults that are age 65-plus will need a high level of care at some point.”  At NIC Spring Investment Forum, Tumlinson said families seek relief from a coordination role. “We are at the headwind of change.”

GlobeSt.com – GlobeSt.com – Senior Housing News

Renovation, Repair and Maintenance

Former Victoria motel site closer to rental conversion

The owner of is moving forward on long-standing plans to convert a Victoria property to a rental apartment building from its existing motel use. A rezoning application from Vancouver-based FC Douglas Properties was submitted to the City of Victoria last month. If council approves a rezoning, residents would be able to live in the units as tenants.

Victoria Times Colonist

Taxes and Utilities

N.B. property tax appeals surge 59 per cent

The number of people appealing their property tax bills accelerated sharply last week following a string of controversies over inaccurate tax notices and government admissions that it miscalculated a large number of assessments. Service New Brunswick says it received 2,335 requests for an assessment review between March 10 and March 17.

CBC – CBC – CBC

Ontario Realtors step closer to Tax Fairness

Ontario Realtors are one step closer to being able to form personal real estate corporations (PRECs) under Bill 104, the Tax Fairness for Realtors Act, 2017. The Bill passed second reading and is moving onto the final stage of debate before a final vote determines if it becomes law.

Marketwired

Sask. property owners to pay more education tax

Thanks to measures contained in the provincial budget, many people who pay education property taxes could see a “substantial” increase, the Saskatchewan School Boards Association says. The Saskatchewan government has set mill rates that will result in $67 million more in property tax revenue — a 10 per cent increase.

CBC – Regina Leader-Post – REMonline.com

GMREB unimpressed by budget’s tax measures

The Greater Montréal Real Estate Board (GMREB) wanted to see in the federal budget more concrete commitments regarding tax measures relating to housing, in particular to improve the Home Buyers’ Plan (HBP). “There is no clear commitment from the government regarding the HBP,” said Daniel Dagenais, president of the GMREB Board of Directors.

Canada Newswire

Construction

Taxing new home construction ‘draconian’: Sask. builders

Saskatchewan construction companies and contractors must collect provincial sales tax on new contracts starting April 1. The move targets builders’ labour and overhead costs. “We’re hugely disappointed,” said Christiane Guérette, the CEO of the Saskatoon & Region Home Builders’ Association (SRHBA).

CBC

Student housing developers struggle with tight spaces

Student housing communities are competing to provide the flashiest amenities to attract residents even though they are now being built on tiny urban sites. “It’s kind of an amenity war,” says Greg Faulkner, president of Dallas-based Humphreys & Partners Architects. To win that war, developers need to pick the amenities very carefully.

National Real Estate Investors

Affordable Housing

Affordability measures coming in Ontario budget

Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa confirmed Monday he plans to include housing affordability measures in his upcoming budget. Premier Kathleen Wynne has said her government is working on a “comprehensive set of plans,” to deal with rising home prices in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), as well as rising rental rates.

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

Budget’s housing strategy too little to fix crisis: BCBC

Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president and chief policy officer for the Business Council of British Columbia, says he’s not sure a new National Housing Strategy sketched out in the 2017 Budget will do much to address Vancouver’s particular concerns with housing affordability. “That’s $1 billion a year for 11 years,” Finlayson said. “B.C. might get $110 million of that per year . . .”

Business In Vancouver

Huntington Bank commits to Ohio affordable housing

Columbus-based Huntington Bank recently announced its intention to invest $150 million in affordable housing across Ohio between 2017 and 2018. This additional allocation brings the bank’s cumulative investment, in partnership with Ohio Capital Corp. for Housing, to $513 million over the past seven years. 

MultiHousing News

Small houses

Tiny homes for Big Valley

An Alberta village of 350 plans to get cozier by building a neighbourhood exclusively of tiny homes. Big Valley, 220 kilometres south of Edmonton, intends to build a subdivision containing 22 undersized lots measuring 30 feet by 80 feet. A normal size lot in the village is about 50 feet by 120.

CBC

British capital approves tiny apartments

Hundreds of tiny studio flats, many smaller than a budget hotel room, are to be squeezed into an 11-storey block in north London as its developer takes advantage of the British government’s relaxation of planning regulations. Plans for Barnet House reveal 96 per cent of the 254 proposed flats will be smaller than the national minimum space standards.

The Guardian

U of A lab looks to inspire Alberta micro-condo development

The University of Alberta is opening up a 230-square-foot condo inside its industrial design studio to solicit feedback about how such spaces could fit into the lives of Albertans. The Micro Habitation Lab features a folding bed, while the bathroom wall can be moved to create more living space and tables can be extended or tucked away.

CBC

Cities, Towns and Urban Issues

OMB not to blame for intensification: Opinion

The provincial government is conducting an in-depth review of the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), the independent arbitration body that provides a public forum for appeals on local land-use planning matters. The OMB, an important part of the checks and balances that make our land-use planning process, fair, transparent and accountable, is also an organization people love to vilify.

Toronto Star

Seattle housing market mirroring Vancouver’s

In Seattle, experts are divided about whether or not the city’s housing market is being driven by foreign buyers – the same argument as in Vancouver. Today, the effect of foreign buying is indisputable. In Seattle, there’s the question of whether the city is seeing a spillover effect from the B.C. government’s 15 per cent foreign-buyer tax.

Globe and Mail

TO landlords using evictions, hikes to circumvent rent control: Tenants

Just after the school year began in September, York University teaching assistant Niloofar Golkar and her roommates got word they would have to leave because their landlord intended to move into their Toronto townhouse. It is legal grounds for an eviction. But, a few weeks ago, Golkar saw a sign out front saying it was for lease again.

Globe and Mail

‘Overcrowded’ McMaster-area home has 12 bedrooms

At the end of a quiet cul-de-sac near McMaster University, a nondescript tan house sits on the edge of a ravine. It’s zoned as a single-family home. But it has 12 bedrooms. Inside, a long, white hallway holds bedroom door after bedroom door, identified by gold numbers, each with its own lock.

CBC – CBC

Buying and Selling

B.C. first-time home program attracts more than 1,000 applicants

The B.C. Liberal government has received more than 1,000 applications from first-time home buyers who have been lured by new incentives under a program designed to improve housing affordability. Critics, however, say the program is adding fuel to an already heated market for condos, notably in the Vancouver region.

Globe and Mail – CBC

Court approves first condominium sale under Bill 40

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Barry Davies on Monday approved the first sale of a condominium complex in which owners went through a new provincial process that makes buildings easier to sell. A numbered company will buy the Vancouver site for $21.5 million, which is more than twice the building’s 2016 assessed value.

Business In Vancouver

Buy a condo with the push of a button

You can now purchase a new unit from the comfort of your own bedroom. Canadian brokerage and real estate marketplace, Casalova, has teamed up with Dream Maker Developments to be the first in Canada to offer a digital purchase option for pre-construction condos. Unit sales for the pre-built development open online April 3.

Canada Newswire

Struggling Saskatoon landlord hopes to sell apartments

The owner of a Saskatoon-based construction company says he doesn’t expect to recover the $74,503 he is owed by a major landlord that is now entering its fourth month of creditor protection and trying to sell more than a third of its apartments in the city. The 45-company group is represented in Saskatchewan by Block 1 Management Ltd.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Compass wants to build real estate’s answer to Pinterest

As the NYC real estate industry declares war on listings aggregator StreetEasy, brokerage unicorn Compass is unveiling a new consumer-facing feature that gives apartment hunters an alternative to the popular listings website. In effect, Compass wants to build the Pinterest of real estate. Collections allows consumers to create their own version of the Pinterest pin board for properties.

The Real Deal

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