Realosophy Team in Media Roundup, Toronto Real Estate News
All you need to know regarding the housing market in Toronto, Canada and abroad.
This week in Toronto: The housing market finally takes a breather, anxious home buyers hold back and could auctions make Toronto's real estate market more fair?
Elsewhere: Could collapse of a Canadian mortgage cause wider damage to market, why coastal housing policy in the United States has gone wrong and details on China's next major construction project.
Toronto
Torrid Toronto housing market finally takes a breather (The Globe and Mail)
Toronto’s hot housing market showed early signs of cooling in April as prices for low-rise homes fell slightly compared with March after a surge of new listings came onto the market.
Toronto housing market frenzy may be subsiding, some realtors say (Toronto Star)
It is like a tap has been switched off. That’s how realtor Louise Sabino describes the housing market in the wake of the Liberal government’s provincial plan aimed at cooling Toronto’s scorching property prices.
As spring market swells, anxious home buyers are holding back, Toronto realtors say (CBC)
Boily said that more choice, combined with some "burnout" for buyers who have been watching "crazy bidding wars" over the last few months has resulted in what she describes as a "wait and see mood."
Toronto condo market heated up in the first quarter, amid new evidence of investor flipping (Financial Post)
“Following the recent strength in condo price appreciation, (there was) an increase in resale activity within newly completed buildings as well as more units transacting twice within shorter timeframes,” the company said in its release, pointing to the speculation.
Could open auctions make Toronto’s real estate market more fair? (The Star)
I think the auction system would have the potential to move the market up even higher. I believe that every day properties are being undersold here because they’re not letting the market take its course. If bidding is good enough to set the price of oil and most other commodities, why can’t we use that for property? If one buyer is prepared to go an extra $10,000, $50,000 or $100,000 over the starting or list price, I reckon there would be a good chance others would be willing to go with there too.
Canada
Stay tuned, Home Capital’s crisis may puncture Canada’s housing bubble yet (Financial Post)
HCG’s business model has been predicated on raising funds by offering higher rates of interest to savers and then lending it on, again at elevated rates of interest, to the very kind of borrower who struggles to get financing to swing a purchase in Canada’s booming real estate market, where prices in Toronto have surged 33 per cent in the past year.
15% of Canada’s economy vulnerable to a housing slump, RBC says (Global News)
If several housing markets across the country were to see a 30 per cent decrease in home sales — a scenario similar to what recently happened in Vancouver after the introduction of a foreign homebuyers’ tax — Canada’s GDP could shrink by one per cent to two per cent, RBC noted.
'We're so far behind': Canada unprepared for housing needs of rising senior population (CBC)
Statistics Canada 2016 census figures released on Wednesday revealed that the country recorded its greatest increase in the proportion of seniors. The increase in the number of seniors, who now outnumber children, could have implications on future policy making, in particular the housing needs of the elderly.
USA
This $2.5 million Palo Alto teardown shows how coastal housing policy has gone wrong (Vox)
People talk about buying houses, but the typical home purchase transaction in the United States actually includes two different things — a house and some land. And in the case of 280 Stanford Avenue, it’s clear that what’s worth more than $2 million is the land, not the house.
Most homes in St. Louis — and the rest of the U.S. — are still worth less than before the crash (St.Louis Post-Dispatch)
In 28 metro areas examined in the report, fewer than 10 percent of homes had recovered their value since the bubble burst in 2008. Las Vegas was the worst performer, with less than 1 percent of its homes returning to or surpassing what they were worth before the recession.
McMansions Are Killing L.A.'s Urban Forest (City Lab)
But a new study from the University of Southern California says cities, and trees, may be better served by preserving the waning leaf coverage that exists. Tree cover declined at alarming rates in L.A. County’s 20 largest cities between 2000 and 2009, during which time officials called on homeowners to plant tons more. One major disconnect can be traced to housing policy, as compact residences swelled into McMansions and sucked up trees in the process.
A joint statement released by the country’s two most powerful political bodies, the state council and the central committee, sees the new city as “a strategy crucial for a millennium to come.” The proposed city will stretch across three counties. Though details are scarce, early plans suggest it will be three times the size of New York City.
A Conservative election victory could spell the end of council housing (The Guardian)
Labour has promised a million new homes if elected, half of which will be council homes or housing association properties. The Conservatives meanwhile have presided over a fire sale of council homes, through increasing the right-to-buy discount and now attempting to force through the mandatory sale of “high-value” council properties, a move opposed by town halls across the country.
