Recent News
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. “
Making brownfields viable a win-win-win situation
For those who develop brownfields sites – where the soil and water are contaminated by former industrial and commercial uses – such expectations might have to be held in check. Cleaning up environmental messes, obtaining planning approvals, and building on such sites can mean long lead times and substantial costs.
The Market at a Glance
Resale market activity will hold steady in 2012. Sales will remain close to previous years with a total of 88,500 transactions, while prices will remain fairly flat with annual growth of one per cent.
Condo Starts Keep Construction High
New home construction moderated in the third quarter, yet maintained an annualized rate above 40,000 units for the second consecutive quarter. Single-detached starts grew to their highest point since early 2010, while apartment construction stayed close to near recorded levels.
International buyers undergird Toronto’s condo market
“Toronto has become truly international, and it’s because people are coming here from all over the world,” Lawlor says. “The one unifying thread on our sales floors is that all of these people are newcomers and their backgrounds are diverse, both culturally and geographically.”
GTA Home Prices are not Over Priced!
“According to The Economist, average house prices in Canada are over‐valued by some 22%.*Our calculation for the GTA using the same measure as The Economist – ratio of changes in Statistics Canada’s New Housing Price Index to changes in the rent component of the Consumer Price Index – points to a larger over‐valuation for the GTA.”