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Beacause Pimco says so … What it would take for Canada’s housing market to crash, and why Pimco says it won’t  Image Source The world’s biggest bond fund manager expects a “cyclical decline” in Canada’s housing market, but says there’s little chance of a meltdown. We touched on the comments from Pimco late yesterday, but, given the angst surrounding the residential real estate market, thought we’d go for a deeper look this morning. “There has been much media attention on Canada’s housing market lately, with some forecasters calling for ‘the bubble’ to pop in 2014,” Pimco says in latest look at Canada. “While we think the housing market in Canada is overvalued and due for a correction, the correction will likely happen over several years.” That said, Pimco’s Ed Devlin, the chief of Canadian portfolio management, believes the decline will begin this  year, though he stresses that a correction is not “a bubble bursting in a disorderly manner.” Several Canadian economists are also calling

Roncesvalles fixer-upper draws a crowd and a hefty $803,649 sale price Elderly owner cashes out — big time — on dilapidated home even her realtor warned is ‘not for the faint of heart’. SUSAN PIGG/TORONTO STAR This home on Galley Ave. in Roncesvalles sold Wednesday night for $803,649. Toronto’s red-hot real estate market has turned an elderly homeowner into a wealthy woman — with the simple stroke of a pen. Her  dilapidated Roncesvalles home  sold Wednesday night for $803,649 — more than $150,000 over the asking price — after a flurry of more than a dozen offers from contractors and families looking to put down roots in one of Toronto’s most up-and-coming neighbourhoods. Interest was so intense — and competition so close — for the Galley Ave. home that listing agent Chander Chaddah plotted all the offers on a simple spreadsheet so they would be easier to understand for the owner, who is in her 80s and currently in hospital. “Whenever you’re selling a home for somebody, it’s a bitterswe

Warnings about a potential housing bubble in Canada haven’t held back the wealthy from snapping up homes across the country. A new survey of Canada’s high-end housing market shows sales skyrocketed last year, with more than two-thirds of major markets setting new records. According to the RE/MAX Upper End Report, 75 per cent of the 16 markets surveyed saw sales increases over the past year and eight of them posted double-digit gains. Vancouver, the country’s most expensive market, led the market with a 36-per-cent jump in high-end sales. It was also home to the most-expensive sale of the year, which was a three-bedroom, two-level condo valued at about $25-million. Greater Vancouver also experienced the largest bounce back in sales, with luxury homes posting the second highest year on record, which was 1,690 properties each valued at more than $2 million, RE/MAX says. Calgary and Edmonton were also strong, with high-end home sales rising 34 per cent and 32 per cent respectively. In Calg

Luxury house sales hit new records across Canada Demand for high-end houses, and condos, driven by wealthy locals and return of international investors Sales of luxury homes hit record levels in more than two-thirds of Canadian cities last year — including Toronto — thanks to surging stock markets, renewed consumer confidence and shortage of enough showcase homes to meet demand, according to a new report by ReMax realty. Pricier homes a hot commodity as Toronto money moves in HIGH END HOMES High end real estate is booming in Hamilton-Burlington. The latest edition of the ReMax High End report, which tracks the sale of the most expensive houses in the country, concludes sales of such homes rose 31 per cent last year. For Hamilton-Burlington, the report defines “high end” as anything over $750,000. It found 436 such sales in 2013, up from 334 the year before. Report raves about record sales in luxury home market RE/MAX released its upper-end market trends report on Tuesday and says deman

Toronto neighbourhoods home buyers might want to check out University students uncover some areas with potential you may have passed over A McMaster University professor recently handed his urban geography class an interesting assignment: Uncover Toronto neighbourhoods where a new resident would find just the right mix of lifestyle and value. Prof. Richard Harris asked students to find the ideal community for a hypothetical big sister returning from a stint in Hong Kong. He sent me a batch of the resulting essays after reading a column of mine last year about a real-life reader who was moving from San Francisco to Toronto and wanted advice on choosing a neighbourhood. House hunters boxed in by preconceived notions of Toronto’s “best” neighbourhoods may find the student’s outlook refreshing as we head into the busy spring real estate market. Stuck on High Park? Why not think Milliken instead? Or South Riverdale? Or the Yonge/Church corridor? Prof. Harris, who teaches in the School of Ge

No end in sight for rising cost of single family homes Detached homes in Toronto like this one are becoming an endangered species. If it seems like high-rise condominium units are keep getting smaller and affordable single family homes are getting harder to find, it’s true. Prophet or contrarian? Economist’s grim reading of Canada’s housing market puts him at odds with the Street Bank of Canada Data from RealNet Canada Inc. for Toronto, to be released Wednesday, paints a grim picture for buyers hoping to avoid condominium living in favour of a low-rise home. It’s a trend that the chief executive of Sotheby’s says he’s seeing across the country. “It’s like a dog running away from you in the Prairies,” says George Carras, president of RealNet, in talking about the widening gap between prices of low-rise homes and high-rise homes. “This price gap between high rise and low rise housing is continuing to grow, a market condition that is the result of intensification policies in action.” It g

Rob Ford admits to drinking after expletive-laden video shows Toronto mayor rambling Toronto Mayor Rob Ford appears impaired, rambling in new video shot at and Etobicoke steak restaurant. Mayor Rob Ford was off the wagon at an Etobicoke steak joint this week, impaired and rambling, associating with accused video extortionist Alexander “Sandro” Lisi and hurling profane, expletive-laden insults at Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair. All caught on video while out with people Ford — who admitted Tuesday he was back to drinking — calls “friends.” “F—ing Chief Blair,” Ford says in a videotape made at approximately 1 a.m. Tuesday. “They chase me around for five months … you know how much that costs?” Ford is incoherent during portions of the video. In other parts he clearly uses Jamaican expletives that members of the local community say are “highly offensive” to women. Jimmy Kimmel thanks Ford after latest video Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel took to Twitter to thank Mayor Rob Ford afte

Toronto Condo Development makes Big Apple New York looks like Mickey Mouse … Emporis, a construction industry researcher from Germany, has provided some more fodder for the bubble debate over Toronto’s condo market. In its latest look at the number of sky-rises going up in North American cities this month, Toronto once again comes out on top by a wide margin. With 130 new towers under construction across the skyline, Canada’s largest city easily beats out New York City’s 91 projects. Read more here  http://globalnews.ca/ Development: Toronto Condo vs New York Condo Listings for Mon Jan 20

Canada’s largest bank cuts its two-, three-, four– and five-year fixed mortgage rates by 10 basis points each”> Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest mortgage lender, has quietly cut some of its mortgage rates this weekend. The move appears to be part of a broader dip in rates, although economists generally still expect an increase in 2014. Five-year fixed mortgage rates rose industry-wide for much of 2013, from their low of 2.64 per cent in April to their high of 3.39 per cent in September, according to Alyssa Richard, the chief executive officer of RateHub.ca . They edged down a bit later in the fall but had generally been steady at around 3.25 per cent since then. Read more @  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ Listings for Sun Jan 19

Real Estate Cheat Sheet: will house and condo prices ever fall? All the laws of Newtonian physics suggest that a thing simply can’t go up and up forever. And yet, Toronto’s real-estate market seems to exist in a universe where “down” isn’t even a concept. Everything goes up—the buildings, the prices, the population—and it can start to seem as though there’s no other way. It can’t always be like this, but, for now, the numbers indicate that things will remain as they are. Here, four reasons Toronto’s real estate is safe—for the moment. 1. Home prices are up, year over year According to  numbers from the Toronto Real Estate Board , there was no point during 2013 when Toronto home prices weren’t higher than they were during the same period in 2012. What’s more, the end of the year was particularly strong. In December, average sale prices were up 8.9 per cent over 2012. The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) expects average prices to continue to rise in 2014, faster than the rate of inflatio

Anxious Toronto house hunters start the Spring market – in January? In the opening days of 2014, John Quarrie and Lindsey Robins decided to spend a bit of time looking for their first house. They looked at one house on a Friday evening and 24 hours later were the victors in a bidding war on a different property. “The funny thing is they expected to spend a couple of months to find a place and ended up buying one in the first two days out,” says Shawn Lackie of Coldwell Banker RMR Real Estate, who helped them to make the deal Saturday. It seems they are not the only buyers who are not waiting for the ice to melt. Real estate ended 2013 with a burst of activity that surprised many economists. The Teranet-National Bank house price index hit a milestone in December with Toronto prices edging up 0.4 per cent. And despite concerns expressed by TD Bank chief Ed Clark who opined that bankers “should be worried about” the runup in house prices, buyers in Toronto seem more anxious than ever to g

Try this Stucco Lego-ish thing … It’s listed at  $1,585,000, 249 Glenrose Avenue – MOORE PARK  This is a 3+1 bedroom, 3 bathroom house on a 25 x 143 foot lot. The above photo is from Google Streetview because there isn’t a good street shot, so just ignore the garbage along the side of the house Because inside, this is a good house. The reno (which, according to the listing, was done by  Robert Davies ) is over 10 years old and there are parts of it that seem dated.  Or maybe it is just the posts in the kitchen that are throwing me off because everything else is great. There is something about it that makes it feel like a basement (I think it is the high windows), especially the dining room.  But when you get to the kitchen, the whole thing opens up to the backyard.  And it is a good sized yard. There are no pictures of the upstairs which I am really frustrated about because that staircase is amazing and I want to see if they hid the washrooms in a wall of closets up there as well! This

Canada Real Estate Market Ends 2013 in Soft Landing Mode Canadian existing home sales fell in December for a third month as the real estate market ended the year on a soft note after surging for much of 2013. Home sales in Canada down in December: CREA Sales fell 1.8 percent in December from the previous month, the Canadian Real Estate Association said today in a statement. In 2013, realtors sold 457,893 units through the Multiple-Listing Service, up 0.8 percent from a year ago with the average sales price in 2013 rising 5.2 percent to C$382,466 ($349,300). Canada’s house prices still rising but sales stall for third straight month The December figures cap a rebound year for a housing market that has defied predictions of a crash, bolstering the argument that home prices will soften gradually without destabilizing the nation’s economy. Canadian real estate will probably produce a similar performance in 2014, with moderate gains in sales and prices, said Doug Porter of Bank of Montreal.

Booming luxury market pushes Calgary house prices to records  Average sale and median prices at unprecedented levels Realtor Christina Hagerty inside one of her listings in downtown Calgary. CALGARY – A booming luxury market, and tight overall conditions with listings not keeping pace with demand, has pushed Calgary house prices to unprecedented levels. Average sale and median prices hit all-time records for the city in 2013 for both total MLS transactions and in the single-family home category, according to data released Thursday by the Calgary Real Estate Board. The average sale price for total MLS reached $456,703 for the year, up 6.54 per cent from 2012, while the single-family average price rose by 7.61 per cent to $517,887. The median sale price for total MLS was $401,000 and it was $450,000 for single-family homes. The median price rose by 5.53 per cent from the previous year for total MLS and it was a 7.14 per cent hike in the single-family market. Also, December capped a solid

Madonna is town selling Aura Condo. A while ago, we got Donald Trump of “You’re Fired” fame selling condos from Vancouver to Toronto … apparently …FAIL. Trump Tower: Toronto Epic Fail, Totally ‘Donald Trump Caterpillar’: Flannel Moth Larva Looks Like Real Estate Mogul’s Hair Trump Tower fail: the perceived value of a luxury suite in the building is now below $600,000 Schadenfreude-prone locals gleeful over the  Trump Tower’ s persistent problems got yet more fodder over recently. The owner of a 950-square-foot unit in the not-so-minimalist tower put it up for auction after noticing that 11 other Trump units have been languishing on MLS for months. The condo received a single bid of $550,000—well below the seller’s already-discounted reserve price, and a mere fraction of the $1.6 million that developer Talon International is asking for a similar suite. Ritchies Auctioneers  told the  Toronto Star  that several potential buyers missed the sale after Trump executives balked at holding it

Investors own less than a quarter of  Toronto condominiums : CMHC Pigeon Condo Annual housing report takes revealing look at Canada’s exploding condo sector Investors are a “strong presence” in both Toronto’s and Vancouver’s condominium markets, but exactly how strong still remains unclear, even in the wake of a new report by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. About 23 per cent of Toronto’s condo stock was being rented out by investor-owners in 2012, the federal housing agency says in its annual  Canadian Housing Observer  review, released Wednesday, which places a special focus on the national condo market this year, revealing some interesting details. But the review only looks at condos rented via the MLS system and doesn’t include investor-owned units just sitting empty or rented via free websites like Craigslist or word-of-mouth. “We think the number is closer to 50 per cent,” says veteran Toronto development consultant Barry Lyon. “The data they (CMHC) are using has som

Beware the perils of buying or selling a pre-construction condo In Toronto’s hot real estate market, it has almost been a given that if you buy a pre-construction condo, you’ll be able to sell it at a profit when the building is finished a few years in the future. But a few examples that have crossed my desk in the last few months show things may well have changed. In one example, a condo was purchased by Syrian immigrants five years ago, before the outbreak of civil war. When the building was finished in 2013, the buyers couldn’t get their money out of Syria and so couldn’t close the purchase. Nor could they find anyone to buy their contract, so they lost all their deposits, which were more than $30,000. In another situation, the buyer was approved for financing four years ago when the condominium agreement was signed with the developer. However, when the building was finished, the same lender refused to give the financing, stating that the buyer’s financial status had changed and tha

BY TMZ Ellen DeGeneres just bought an amazing house in one of the ritziest areas of L.A. — TMZ has learned. The house is so baller it has a name — The Brody House.  Real estate sources tell TMZ … Ellen paid $39,888,000 for the property. As for what she got … it’s a lot.  It sits on 2.3 acres. The main house is 13,511 square feet with 6 bedrooms, 9 1/2 bathrooms.  It has a pool, pool house, gym, spa, and tennis court. It’s considered the most iconic modern estate in all of L.A.   Ellen is really into design and architecture, and she likes to put her own touch on houses like this to make them more awesome. Ellen also sold her nearby estate for $21 Mil.  She paid $17.4 mil last year. Ellen was repped by uber-real estate agent Kurt Rappaport.   Listings for Fri Jan 10

Well, a condo developer surely think celebrities are better salesperson than real estate agents. we’ll see. Madonna launches fitness club in plug for Toronto’s slumping condo market Katia Dmitrieva, Bloomberg News   Madonna will lead a dance class next month at her Hard Candy Fitness studio in Aura, a new 78-story condo tower in Toronto, the tallest in Canada. Who better to promote Toronto’s slumping condo market than the Material Girl. The Material Girl will be auditioning partners for her dance class when she launches Hard Candy Fitness in Toronto.  Madonna, whose 2012 tour was the top-grossing act of the year worldwide with $296.1 million in revenue, will lead an “Addicted to Sweat” dance class next month at her Hard Candy Fitness studio inside Aura, a new 78-story condo tower in Toronto. The luxury development will also feature a sculpture-studded public gallery, a marble-lined lobby and a five-bedroom penthouse priced at $18.4 million. Aura, Canada’s tallest condo, is a monument t

Toronto Home Prices Up 8.9% From Year Ago, Sales Jump 14% Real estate boom continues in Canada’s largest cities December home sales in Toronto were up almost 14 per cent compared with a year earlier, the Toronto Real Estate Board said Monday. The board said sales through its multiple listings service totalled 4,078 for the month, up from 3,582 in December 2012. Sales for all of 2013 totalled 87,111, up about two per cent compared with 85,496 in 2012. “After a slow start to the year, sales growth accelerated to a brisk pace in the second half of 2013,” Toronto Real Estate Board president Dianne Usher said. “Despite the inclement weather in December, we finished the year with a respectable gain in transactions compared to 2012.” The average price for a home sold in December was $520,398, up 8.9 per cent compared with $477,756 in December 2012. Toronto home sales in December up from year ago, real estate board says December home sales in Toronto were up almost 14 per cent compared with a

Long-term mortgage rates to rise soon, Stephen Poloz says The market handled the tapering announcement well, though it put pressure on bond yields, including Canadian bond yields, Poloz said Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz says he expects long-term interest rates to rise this summer as the U.S. Federal Reserve continues tapering, but he believes that would be a positive development. Poloz, who was named  Canada’s top central banker in May , said he believes that the U.S. Fed will  continue to taper its bond-buying program throughout the year  and that will create market pressure on bond yields. “In the context of a firming global economy, especially the U.S., we’d expect to see some upward pressure in market interest rates, long-term rates in particular, where the quantitative easing has its primary effect,” Poloz said in an interview with Amanda Lang on CBC’s  The Lang & O’Leary Exchange . “So as a tapering occurs we might expect to see as we saw in the summer some increases

Real estate boom continues in Canada’s largest cities Homes in the Greater Toronto Area continued their robust rise in price, up 5.2 per cent to an average price of $523,036 in December, compared to $497,130 in 2012, the Toronto Real Estate Board reports. After a slow start to 2013, GTA housing sales …  More And this will go on because … Stable U.S. home sales hint at housing recovery November sees uptick in pending home sales after 5 months of decline The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy existing homes in November was essentially unchanged from October, suggesting sales are stabilizing after several months of declines. The National Association of Realtors said Monday that its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index ticked up to 101.7 from 101.5 in October. The October figure was revised lower from an initial reading of 102.1. Higher mortgage rates and strong price gains over the past two years have slowed sales. The pending home sales index had fallen for five str

PRICE DROP #3 – 19 Cardiff Road – BROADWAY When I first posted this house at  19 Cardiff Road in July 2013 , I thought it wasn’t a terrible looking new build and that for the area, it was probably priced a little low. It is a 4+1 bedroom, 5 bathroom house on a 30 x 104 foot lot. Thing is, thatsnow isn’t from this winter.  It is from last winter when this house was first listed at $1,689,000. It didn’t sell and the price was dropped in May to $1,589,000. When I posted it, I couldn’t figure out why it had gone down to $1,499,000. Then I saw the inside. And THIS…. WHY is the kitchen at the front door when there is so much space in this house!?! It doesn’t make sense.  And it isn’t something easily fixed. IF the kitchen situation didn’t bother you though, the place isn’t bad, but I still thought it would be a tough sell. It has been and in September, the price was dropped again to $1,449,000. Looks like another January price drop coming soon!   by  the MASH Listings for Sun Jan 5

Could be good ? Maybe bad ? Boom and bust cycle of real estate leads to winners and losers over long term By Don Pittis, CBC News  When real estate bubbles pop, those who bought into the euphoria too late are often the first to feel the pain. (Bloomberg) Don Pittis has been a Fuller Brush man, a forest fire fighter and an Arctic ranger before discovering journalism. He was principal business reporter for Radio Television Hong Kong before the handover to China and has produced and reported for CBC and BBC News. He is currently senior producer at CBC’s business unit. Rule No. 1: A property bubble isn’t a bubble till it pops. Whether it’s Shanghai, London, or Toronto, until the final blow-up, it’s just a rising market driven by rising demand. Just ask the people who sell real estate. They will tell you we are nowhere near a bubble. And lately we’ve seen a number of opinion pieces by what you might call “bubble scoffers,” who are reacting to the loose use of the term that ascribes bubble c

According Ben Rabidoux’s article appeared on Globe and Mail, CMHC does sound like a ‘crooked crown corporation’ … Instead of helping Canadians to own homes, it seems CMHC is “helping to enrich the filthily rich and their buddies – Mafia developers” ? What do I think ? Am I surprised ? No comment. The only thing I can say is I live long enough to just say “live with it” to a lot of bullsh*ts we see on every now and then … “Crookedness” is one of those bullsh*ts.. Four changes CMHC needs to make to rein in its mortgage market influence My nomination for the understatement of the year goes to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who in early December observed that “regrettably, CMHC became something rather more grand I think than it was intended to be.” Indeed. The Crown corporation, which originally had a humble mandate of helping first-time buyers obtain favourable financing, now insures $560-billion of some of Canada’s riskiest mortgages, more than double what it insured in 2005. To their cr

Bitcoin in real estate? The future of home buying in America may include fewer traditional greenbacks. A Manhattan-based real estate brokerage that specializes in residential rentals, sales and commercial leasing announced Thursday it will now accept bitcoin as payment for real estate transactions. BOND New York is believed to be the first traditional real estate brokerage in the U.S. to accept this fairly new – and somewhat controversial – form of virtual currency. The brokerage cited client benefits of using bitcoin on real estate transactions that include: easier mobile payments, security, low possessing fees and identity protection. Although it may seem far-fetched, the concept of using bitcoin for real estate deals in Southwest Florida may not be too far behind. Already, the currency is catching on with some Sarasota businesses. In November, the HuB business incubator in Sarasota become the first vendor in the region — and it says the first real estate landlord in the state — to o