In the City: Does 69% drop in sales give new buyers a chance and inside the new real estate mindset.
Elsewhere: Can Monopoly really teach you about real estate and Europe city centres to go residential?
Toronto
Home sales are down 69% — is this a once-in-a-decade chance to get into Toronto’s housing market? (Toronto Star)
While there are some opportunities in the COVID-19 housing market, experts warn those come with risk, and timing the low point is tricky for buyers. Even if this is a once-in-a-decade chance to step on the property ladder, it may be slipping away as the economy sputters back to life.'
TRREB Releases Consumer Home Buying & Selling Intentions Survey (Newswire)
GTA-wide, 27 per cent of survey respondents said they were likely (very likely or somewhat likely) to purchase a home in the next 12 months. While buying intentions were down compared to spring 2019 (31 per cent likely), they remained relatively inline with the five-year trend, especially after taking into account survey credibility intervals. Home purchasing intentions were above the GTA average in the City of Toronto (34 per cent), for younger people aged 18 to 34 (45 per cent) and households with children (37 per cent).
Mad scramble': Toronto restaurant sector sees flurry of dealmaking amid closures, struggles to pay rent (Financial Post)
In some cases, landlords are striking different deals with different tenants, and forcing tenants to sign non-disclosure agreements about the terms of their respective deals with each other. In other cases, landlords are renegotiating leases out of fear that rapidly declining rent prices will cause tenants to seek cheaper premises.
Reimagining spaces after COVID-19: From condo lobby to community nest (The Globe and Mail)
Of course Ms. Xuereb isn’t speaking about an average Tuesday. She’s speaking about what a condominium lobby could become if, say, Toronto finally hosts a sequel to Hurricane Hazel in the next few years.
Canada
Eight all-over-the-map forecasts for house prices (The Globe)
The importance of what happens with housing cannot be overstated. A sharp decline in prices would slow the rebound from the current recession and cause financial misery of a kind we haven’t seen in Canada in decades. There would be mortgage defaults and, eventually, foreclosures. Some owners would end up selling homes for less than they paid, an almost unimaginable outcome as recently as a few months ago.
Weakened housing market highlights how leveraged Canadians are (Bloomberg)
John Pasalis, president of Realosophy, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the CMHC's gloomy forecast for Canada's housing sector. He notes the country's real estate landscape is experiencing a tightened market.
The unintended consequences of doubling the minimum down payment on a house (Financial Post)
Siddall suggested increasing the barriers to take on mortgage debt for first-time homebuyers may provide better safeguards to young borrowers in case they ever had to sell their home at a loss. He suggested “a 10 per cent down payment offers more of a cushion against possible losses” than the current five-per-cent minimum.
What playing Monopoly during lockdown can teach Canadians about real estate and cash flow (Financial Post)
While the saying goes it’s better to be lucky than smart, I find that being smart means playing the odds and increasing one’s luck. As in the game of Monopoly, Canadians are in love with real estate but often end up making the same mistakes as those in the game do, leaving themselves at the mercy of a dice roll when economic trouble hits.
USA
Homebuilders climb even as housing outlook remains cloudy (Yahoo)
And yet, you wouldn’t know it by looking at homebuilder stocks. While shares in most of the builders are still in the red for the year, the majority of them have notched big gains so far this month that eclipse those of the S&P 500 by a wide margin. An S&P index of homebuilders is up 11.8% in May, versus a 1.2% gain for the broad-market S&P 500 index.
The US already had a housing crisis. Covid-19 has only made it worse (CNN)
Escudero is part of a group of housing activists called The Reclaimers, who this spring identified roughly 200 empty houses that had been purchased by the California government for a highway project that had been recently canceled. The Reclaimers took over 13 homes — without a lease and without permission from the state — giving each one to a family in need of a place where they could live and safely social distance.
Rooms by the Hour for People Weary of Quarantine (NY Times)
You need a break. Going to your office, a co-working space or a coffee shop are not currently options. So you flip to your Globe app and look for a nearby empty apartment to rent for a few hours. No overnight stays are permitted, and you have to send a photo of a thermometer showing you don’t have a fever to get access to the check-in instructions.
International
Europe's City Centers Pushed Out Residents for Tourists. Could the Coronavirus Reverse the Trend? (Time)
Da Cunha, 40, is among the residents she calls “the resistance” of Alfama, the oldest neighborhood of the Portuguese city of Lisbon where almost 60% of the apartments are now rented out as short-term accommodation. Between 2013 and 2017, Alfama lost 2,000 residents, and now—according to local group the Association for the Heritage and People of Alfama (APPA)— only 2,030 are registered as residents.
Australian Housing Isn't the One-Way Road to Riches It Once Was (Bloomberg)
While the Covid-19 pandemic has upended property markets from Canada to Singapore, Australia is more vulnerable than most to a housing slump. It has one of the world’s highest levels of household debt, the nation’s banks are heavily exposed to mortgage lending, and many mom and pop investors rely on income from rental properties, which are also under pressure.
Top Photo Credit: iStock/Getting Images
Realosophy Realty Inc. Brokerage is an innovative residential real estate brokerage in Toronto. A leader in real estate analytics, Realosophy educates consumers at Realosophy.com and MoveSmartly.com and and helps clients make better decisions when buying or selling a home.
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May 22, 2020
This Week In Real Estate |