As condo sales struggle, housing development has slowed and expanding inventories impact asking rents, NKPR brought experts from across the spectrum together to discuss projects and ways to try and kick-start sales, leasing and development in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

This is Part II of this article.

The Rebecca Residences is a 23-storey, 393-unit condo from Rosehaven Homes that is to go under construction at 71 Rebecca St. in Hamilton this fall and is slated for occupancy three years later. 

In2ition Realty is overseeing sales and marketing and vice-president of sales Vesna Sola spoke about a flexible payment structure she believes creates a more achievable path to ownership in a building where sales launched in 2023.

“There are a lot of buyers and renters in the market who have great jobs and have the income to support home ownership, they just struggle with accumulating those large, lump-sum deposits to make home ownership accessible in these traditional pre-construction models that typically require a 15 to 20 per cent deposit over 12 to 18 months,” Sola said.

Rosehaven has introduced an initiative at The Rebecca Residences where purchasers pay a deposit starting at $1,000 per month (determined by unit size) over 48 months with a balance of 10 per cent due in 2029. 

Owners who rent out their units will receive guaranteed lease rates significantly higher than current rates for the first two years after taking ownership.

“A lot of developers and builders are getting creative to get consumers back into home ownership,” said Corcoran Horizon Realty founder and CEO Cliff Rego. “And people have options now because leasing is cool again.”

Rego is seeing more existing homeowners sell and then rent for a year until they find exactly what they want to buy. 

DBS Developments’ rental apartments

While The Rebecca Residences is largely aimed at first-time buyers with its smaller units and lower prices, DBS Developments is going after a different clientele with 2Fifteen, a 20-storey, 177-suite luxury purpose-built rental apartment. It opened in late 2022 at 215 Lonsdale Rd. in Toronto’s high-end Forest Hill neighbourhood. It’s more than 90 per cent stabilized.

“Creating a new standard for rental living in Toronto was the vision of this building,” said DBS CEO Bryan Levy. “We had luxury apartment rentals that were not true luxury, but more of a standard condo-quality finish.”

In addition to the high quality of the building and its finishes, 2Fifteen also offers concierge services and curated programming to residents to give it a boutique hotel feeling. 

DBS’ other recent vintage apartments include a 35-storey, 404-unit building at 100 Eastdale Ave. and a seven-storey, 80-unit building at 94 Eastdale Ave. as part of its Bela Square complex in Toronto’s Main-Danforth area. 

“We're providing a beautiful family-oriented community with lots of amenities and larger units,” said Levy, part of his goal of removing the stigma of renting he still believes exists in Toronto though it’s embraced in many world-class global cities.

DBS’ 12-storey, 140-unit Metro Park II apartment building recently started construction in the Don Mills Road and Eglinton Avenue East area of Toronto. The tower is next to its 37-storey Metro Park condo that will be completed this year and a legacy apartment built in 1967.

“It's two different avenues for business and we're hopefully going to continue to do a bit of both,” Levy said. “But the primary focus right now is in the rental market, given where the condo market is.”

What residents expect

The Forest Hill Group is the property manager for approximately GTA 100 properties, predominantly at the higher end of the spectrum. CEO Rob Klopot said residents have become more sophisticated and now have higher expectations.

“A lot of things that were perceived once as high-end are now commonplace because the condo market has become so competitive and matured in a way where you've got a baseline of expectation,” he explained. “You may not have valet parking or porter service, but all of our communities have an executive concierge with hospitality training. It's trying to understand the lifestyle habits of the people that live in the building.” 

The Forest Hill Group has been consulting on One Thirty Eight, an ultra-high end 31-storey, 67-unit condo under construction at 138 Yorkville Ave. in the tony Toronto neighbourhood that shares the street’s name. 

It will offer high degrees of personalization, discretion and security and provide amenities you’d find in a five-star hotel such as around-the-clock porters, valets, pool attendants, towel and juice service.

Technology is being used to increase security infrastructure as safety, and knowing who’s entering and exiting, is a growing concern for people living in multi-family buildings. A walk-in vault where people can store valuables will even be included at One Thirty Eight.

Wealth migration and real estate

Greybrook is a Toronto-based private equity firm involved in the development and management of more than 80 million square feet of density across 115 real estate projects.

Greybrook Securities CEO and Greybrook Capital partner Sasha Cucuz said his investor base spans 30 countries and interest is picking up again in Canada because of its financial, economic and political stability and growth in its technology sector.

“We have a measured amount of risk management in how we approach economic growth,” Cucuz said. “That's been our friend over the course of our history and we're benefitting from that.”

Cucuz cited reports that Toronto ranks 15th globally for millionaires per capita and that Canada’s population of people with US$30 million or more will increase by 30 per cent by 2031 and the country’s population of billionaires will grow by 33 per cent during that same period.

This growing wealth migration is a driving force behind Greybrook developing One Thirty Eight with Cityzen and First Capital REIT, which KingSett Capital and Choice Properties REIT recently agreed to buy for $9.4 billion. 

While Cucuz wouldn’t disclose sales or pricing in the building, he let it slip that a sub-penthouse sold for more than $30 million and the aggregate sales total is well into nine digits.

Cucuz said the foreign buyer ban has had a significant negative impact on One Thirty Eight. He’s optimistic, however, it won’t be extended past its current Jan. 1, 2027 end date.

“The economic benefit outweighs the risk,” Cucuz said. “It has been prohibitive to capital formations to not allow foreign buyers of real estate at this point in time, especially at this level.”

Cucuz sees a lot of runway for future investment in Canada, which is one of the reasons he remains bullish on condos.