Week In Review: Hot Housing Market Balances City Budget + Rental Housing Falls To 16-Year Low

 Realosophy Team in Media RoundupToronto Real Estate News

CP2412Photo Credit: CP 24

All you need to know regarding the housing market in Toronto, Canada and abroad.

This week in Toronto: The city balances the budget on the hot housing market, availability of rental housing in GTA falls to 16-year low and what the national housing strategy means for Toronto. 

Elsewhere: Realtors in Canada want you to be able to raid your RRSP to buy your kid a house, Dallas-Fort Worth moves to the top in the United States and Brexit swings a sledgehammer at Britain's housing market. 

Toronto

Toronto budget balanced on hot housing market but omits programs for improved transit, poverty reduction (Toronto Star)

The nearly $11-billion operating budget is also balanced using a 2.1 per cent residential property tax increase, which is the rate of inflation. Mayor John Tory has insisted on property tax increases that do not exceed the rate of inflation since his election in 2014.

Availability of rental housing in GTA falls to 16-year low, CMHC says (CBC)

Rental housing is getting harder to find in the Greater Toronto Area, although for those that already live here, that's not likely news. But a new report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation provides a statistical look at just how tight the rental market has become. 

Will the National Housing Strategy impact Toronto’s real estate market? Not anytime soon, according to this economist (BuzzBuzz)

Police investigating after alleged scam bilks west-end Toronto condo hunters (Global)

 

Canada

Surprise! Realtors want you to be able to raid your RRSP to buy your kid a house (Macleans)

John Pasalis, president of Realosophy Realty, agrees. “It’s a terrible policy,” he says, adding that it’s typical for real estate groups to propose ideas that stimulate demand in response to affordability issues. “They’re going to recommend things that drive real estate sales, independent of whether it’s good policy,” he says.

Special Report: Canada regulator ignored warnings on risky mortgage investments (Reuters)

That decision was part of a larger, more troubling pattern: From 2011 to 2015, Reuters has found, senior FSCO investigators rejected or ignored compliance officers’ multiple recommendations that the agency investigate or take action to rein in the marketing and sales of Fortress syndicated mortgages.

Home buyer who balked at foreign buyer tax must give up $180,000 deposit (Times Colonist)

 
A judge has found that a woman who had agreed to purchase a home in North Vancouver, but failed to complete the sale after B.C.’s foreign buyer tax went into effect, had breached her contract.
USA
 
 
The region ranked as the No. 2 housing market in the country, behind Las Vegas, based, in part, on the region's economic prowess, which includes a low unemployment rate and ability to build new homes for a fast-growing residential population, according to realtor.com's 2018 National Housing Forecast released Wednesday.
 
 
Whipple left New Jersey for college, but returned soon after. He estimates that 20 percent of his high-school friends still live within a 20-mile radius of Bogota, the small town in Bergen County where they grew up. But most of those friends’ kids have moved away: “They couldn’t afford it. That’s not a scientific survey, but it’s the scuttlebutt. It’s in the air.”
 
Realosophy Realty Inc. Brokerage is an innovative residential real estate brokerage in Toronto. A leader in real estate analytics and pro-consumer advice, Realosophy helps clients make better decisions when buying or selling a home.  Email Realosophy
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