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: Condos dominate the market, some neighbourhoods avoid the housing price downturn and falling prices signal a return to sanity.
Elsewhere: There are not enough Canadians to support high housing prices, one bank says there is a low risk of a U.S. housing correction and why do some cities become unaffordable?
Toronto
New home sales soar in June, as condos dominate market (Toronto Star)
New construction home sales, especially condos, are rising even as the re-sale property market continues to slump in the Toronto region. The gains in the newly-built home market are almost entirely due to apartments and stacked townhouses, which accounted for 91 per cent of the 6,046 homes sold in June, according to the latest numbers from the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) on Tuesday.
Condos buck Toronto housing slowdown as new construction sales hit record (Financial Post)
Toronto-area builders say the slowdown that continues to drive the existing homes market in the region has yet to impact new construction with condominium sales reaching record heights in June.
Ontario to roll out new rules for condo boards (The Star)
The new rules that take effect in the fall, are designed “to provide greater confidence and security for condo owners in their investment and greater stability in their day to day lives,” MacCharles said at Maple Leaf Square, one of the towers in a “forest of condos” near the Air Canada Centre.
Toronto home-price downturn? Not in these neighbourhoods (The Globe)
Toronto’s falling house prices signal a return to sanity (The Globe and Mail)
Ask a Boomer: Buying a House (VICE)
Seth Margolis and his wife Abigail Collins had basically given up on owning a home in Toronto. Prices were skyrocketing, people were getting into bidding wars over homes with crumbling ceilings, and even the couple’s last-ditch attempt to buy a place with a few friends had fallen through.
Canada
How to tell we're in a housing bubble (Vancouver Sun)
Searching through the currently active listings in the Vancouver area today (as of this writing), I was able to find 11 homes on the market that are currently tenanted. Here is a list of those 11 properties, including the current asking prices, rents, taxes and condo fees (if any). I've also calculated the cap rates.
Not Enough Young Canadians To Support High House Prices: CMHC (Huffington Post)
While declining incomes are expected to be a temporary problem, the slower growth in Canada's youth population could prove to be a longer-term problem — that, according to some analysts, could keep downward pressure on Canada's housing markets for years to come.
Covered bonds: the European link to Canada’s house price boom (Financial Times)
There is, however, another, less commonly discussed flow of European money into the Canadian market — one that operates through the obscure machinery of bank lending, subtly linking homes in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal to officials in Frankfurt.
This year’s survey, which covered 92 cities in nine countries, showed that as of late 2016, Hong Kong had the least affordable housing, with a price-to-income ratio of 18.1. That means that paying off a 30-year mortgage on a median-price home would cost a median-income buyer more than half of his or her income – and that is without interest.
