Realosophy Team in Media Roundup, Toronto Real Estate News
Photo Credit: q92timmins
All you need to know regarding the housing market in Toronto, Canada and abroad.
This week in Toronto: Housing in Toronto is really expensive, Ontario taxpayers take the hit for MaRS and the city's vital signs are a mixed bag.
Elsewhere: A Canadian housing decline could put retirement savings at risk, LGBT senior homes spread in the United States and the rise of the elevator.
Toronto
Toronto 2nd most unaffordable housing market in Canada (CBC)
Toronto is the fourth most livable city in the world and one of the best places to do business, according to a 245-page report card on the city’s overall health released today, but it's also the second most unaffordable housing market in Canada
Ontario taxpayers hit with $450,000 mortgage payments for MaRS (Toronto Star)
Ontario taxpayers are paying nearly half a million dollars a month to cover loan payments on MaRS Discovery District’s new — but virtually empty — 20-storey tower, newly released documents reveal.
Campaign notebook: Real estate board president blasts journalist over commissions question (The Star)
After Ford finished taking questions, the board’s chief government and public affairs officer, Von Palmer, stepped up to the microphone himself. Other board officials, including president Paul Etherington, watched from the side.
Checking Toronto’s Vital Signs: 2014 Edition (Torontoist)
Affordable housing is also a growing issue. The report notes that Toronto has again slipped in international rankings for housing affordability and that the average rent for a one–bedroom apartment in the Toronto region accounted for more than 40 per cent of the income of an average youth.
Canada
How a housing market decline could put Canadian retirement savings at risk (The Globe and Mail)
His advice to Canadians, especially those approaching retirement, is to pay down debt now and, if they have a mortgage, to lengthen the guaranteed interest term on it. The goal should be to be debt-free by retirement, Mr. Connor says. He will be making this point during a keynote address Wednesday evening at a pension reform summit in Toronto.
Condos push Canada housing starts higher in September (The Financial Post)
The homebuilding sector has shown resilience this year, bouncing back from weakness at the beginning of 2014 that was caused by severe winter weather, and the housing market generally has remained strong, defying expectations for a correction or crash.
Canada's Housing Market Draws IMF Warning (Huffington Post)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is reminding Canada that its overvalued housing market remains a vulnerability, even as it expects the economy to grow this year and next.
USA
Hudson Yards Rises above the Rails (Urban Land)
New York–based Related is teaming up with Toronto-based Oxford Properties to build Hudson Yards, a $20 billion project that is the largest private real estate development in the country and the biggest in New York City since Rockefeller Center was erected in the 1930s.
Homebuilders Offer Freebies as Booming U.S. Markets Cool (Bloomberg)
“When I saw this deal, it looked like a good business decision,” said Beben, who will pay $332,000 for a 3,000-square-foot (280-square-meter) house scheduled to be completed by February. “And I wanted a pool.”
Fannie Mae: America’s attitude toward housing rebounds (Housing Wire)
“The results of the past few months show that consumer optimism remains cautious and somewhat volatile, and we’ll likely continue to see bumps on the housing recovery path reflected in our survey results,” he concludes.
LGBT-friendly senior housing opening across U.S. cities (USA Today)
"This feel likes home," says Lund, who came out as a gay man during the AIDS epidemic and lost his job of 15 years in the early 1980s after his boss learned his sexual orientation. "As you get older, it just feels more comfortable to be around people who understand and share your background. It's also nice not to have worry about letting something slip out."
International
The elevator as cultural phenomenon (The Globe)
Movements for better housing proliferated in the fin-de-siècle – but the elevator became the key technical tool that ended the tenement era. By 1870, there was an elevator in a New York apartment house. By 1890 in Chicago and Manhattan, the new form of multi-unit housing – a tall, steel-framed stack of floors opening off a centralelevator shaft – was firmly established, and would remain the norm ever thereafter.
The housing sector in New Zealand is set to see a slew of reforms. Finance Minister Bill English, who is in charge of New Zealand housing, has criticised local government councils for their faulty planning and rigid rules for driving inequality and in escalating house prices.
Ebola outbreak shows why companies must plan for global threats (The Guardian)
