Recent News
Downtown condo market shows strange signs of life
“Some Toronto realtors are seeing an unexpected surge in condo buyers scouring the market post Christmas and the return of a phenomenon not seen in months — bidding wars.”
Home prices jump across the GTA
“Toronto-area realtors are seeing a surprisingly strong start to 2013 after a slump that began last spring.”
Developers raise fears about future of single family house as GTA rises up
“When former civic planner Bryan Tuckey strolls through North York’s Avondale Park, he sees what so many neighbourhoods across the GTA could — and should — look like two decades from now.”
Foreign investment cuts both ways in Toronto condo market
“Canada is a popular destination for global real estate investors seeking a stable place to park their money, given the two countries’ stable economies and financial systems that were mostly untouched by global turmoil.”
20 Observations on the New Mortgage Rules
“Three months ago, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told banks to tighten lending on their own. Now he’s doing it for them.”
Urbanation Reports Record High Sales Cap 2011
“What Does 2012 Hold for Toronto’s Condominium Market?”
CMHC predicts stable Canadian housing market
“Canada’s housing market will remain stable for at least two more years, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. predicted Monday, with the expected slow growth in the economy keeping house prices in check. CMHC, the Crown corporation that insures Canadian mortgages, expects little change during 2012 in prices and sales of existing homes, as well as little change in new home construction.”
Second-Best Year on Record for Sales
“Low borrowing costs kept Buyers confident in their ability to comfortably cover their mortgage payments along with other major housing costs,” said TREB President Richard Silver. “If Buyers had not been constrained by a shortage of listings over the past 12 months, we would have been flirting with a new sales record in the Greater Toronto Area,” added Silver.
Aging population helping shape future housing market – CMHC
“The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s latest study on housing trends predicts that an aging Canadian population will help continue to drive demand for condominiums and smaller homes, institutional buildings such as old age facilities, as well as a lively market for renovators.”
Toronto Housing Starts Slow in November
“There were 2,743 homes started in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in November. A relatively slow month with total starts 27 percent below the average November level since 2000. This decrease in starts was largely due to a slowing of condominium apartment starts to just 621, less than half of the number started in the same month a year earlier and the lowest monthly result seen in 2011.”
Alarm bells sound over our house prices
It could well become the cocktail-party question of the holiday season: Is Canada’s gravity-defying housing market headed for a fall?
Britain’s venerable magazine The Economist says Canada is one of nine countries in the world where housing is overvalued by 25 per cent or more right now — and among four where prices are in line with those in the U.S. “at the peak of its bubble.”
House of Horrors
“MANY of the world’s financial and economic woes since 2008 began with the bursting of the biggest bubble in history. Never before had house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so many countries. Yet the bust has been much less widespread than the boom. “