Home Prices Steady + Weakest Sales Start Since 2009

Toronto: Home prices are steadying but sales are off to weakest start since 2009 recession. 

Elsewhere: BC considers more changes to real estate regulations, examining why New York's schools are so segregated and a drone's eye view of Spain's housing bubble. 

Toronto

Toronto home prices are steadying, amid dramatic year-over-year declines (Toronto Star)

Jason Mercer, TREB director of market analysis, says the dramatic year-over-year differences “mask the fact that market conditions should support moderate increases in home prices as we move through the second half of the year, particularly for condominium apartments and higher density lowrise home types.”

Toronto Home Sales Off to Weakest Start Since 2009 Recession (Bloomberg)

Prices, however, continued to stabilize. The benchmark, which is weighted to account for differences in home type, climbed 0.7 percent from last month to C$766,300 ($595,700). The condo apartment segment helped boost prices, jumping 10 percent to C$495,600 from a year earlier. In contrast, detached home prices tumbled 10 percent from April 2017 to C$927,800.

Toronto home prices climb above $800,000 for the first time since May 2017 (Vice)

A couple of other factors weighed on the housing market. Between July 2017 and the present, the Bank of Canada raised interest rates three times, and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) imposed stricter requirements on borrowers, including a “stress test” to measure a person’s ability to afford mortgage payments in the event of an interest rate rise.

GTA’s hot condo market moderates in first quarter (The Star)

Rising development costs and high-profile project cancellations have injected a note of caution into Toronto’s hot condo market, with more project terminations likely to come, says development research company Urbanation.

Doug Ford assured developers he plans to open up Greenbelt to housing development (The Star)

Doug Ford has privately assured developers he will “open a big chunk” of protected land in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area to housing if the Progressive Conservatives win the June 7 election.

Canada

British Columbia considers halt to exclusive access for condo presales (The Globe and Mail)

Forcing developers to make preconstruction condo units available to all potential buyers at the same time and the same price is something B.C.’s Finance Minister says she is open to trying in order to help make real estate more affordable in and around Vancouver.

Canadians to begin feeling pinch from increasing mountains of debt, analysts say (The Star)

The country’s biggest banks began raising key borrowing rates last week, just as the busy season for residential real estate gets underway. In addition, the mortgage market looks set for a particularly heavy year of renewals in an environment where debt-servicing costs are already rising at the fastest pace in a decade.

Move Over, Toronto: Ottawa Is Canada’s New Hot Housing Market (Huffington Post)

The somewhat sleepy government town with pretty canals and gothic government buildings is now a real estate juggernaut, with rapidly rising prices, supply shortages, bidding wars and growing interest from foreign buyers.