Toronto Home Sellers Aren't Panicking + Buyers Pushed to Hamilton

Toronto: Toronto buyers pushed to Hamilton, Toronto sellers aren't panicking and the mistake that cost sellers millions in last year's bubble. 

Elsewhere: The American housing crisis might be the next big political issue and two-thirds of world population will live in cities by 2050.

Toronto

Mortgage stress test pushing more Toronto home buyers into Hamilton market (CBC)

The stress test was introduced by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institution as a tool try to cool the country's hot housing market. Now, in order to get a loan from a federally regulated lender, home buyers have to prove they would be able to pay their loan if interest rates became higher than they are today.

Sellers aren’t panicking in Toronto’s weakened housing market (Toronto Star)

“The market is actually surprisingly relatively balanced,” said John Pasalis, president of Toronto-based brokerage firm Realosophy Realty Inc. “When you’re comparing yourself to a bubble, sales can fall 40 per cent and inventory can rise and your market is still balanced.”

The Mistake That Cost Sellers Millions When Toronto's Housing Bubble Burst (Move Smartly)

This is a question I frequently get and it is one that I am passionate about. While I believe it is impossible to predict the real estate market, being informed about it is a different matter - I believe that many of the mistakes buyers and sellers make are preventable had they known about the underlying trends in their local market.

TREB letter blasts Ontario Real Estate Association over negative portrait of market (The Canadian Press)

In a letter obtained by The Canadian Press, Tim Syrianos tells the president of the Ontario Real Estate Association -- whose chief executive is long-time Tory Tim Hudak -- that the organization should turn its focus away from political contests and affordability in the Greater Toronto Area, and stick to its mandate to promote the province's housing market as a whole.

The Photographer Who Watched Toronto Become a City (City Lab)

Goss systematically documented the building of new roads, sewers, transit lines, and many of the major infrastructure projects that came to define the burgeoning city. More importantly he was also a skilled social documentarian, photographing with skill and empathy scenes of terrible poverty in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that helped bring about public health reforms.

Canada

Sylvester Stallone, Pitbull and the Canadian Wealth Expo ‘circus’ (Financial Times)

Cases such as these are symptoms of the “psychology” fed by the Wealth Expo, says John Pasalis, president of Realosophy Realty, a Toronto brokerage. “ ‘You have to rush in, you have to buy, winners make decisions, they don’t sit on the sidelines’ — obviously, it’s not that simple,” he says. “I think it does contribute to the sort of irrationality you saw in the market last year.”

Legal challenge to B.C.’s foreign-buyers tax heads to court in June (The Globe)

A foreign buyer is claiming that the B.C. property transfer tax for foreign buyers is unlawful and discriminatory, and she’s setting in motion what could become a class action lawsuit, with potentially huge costs to the province if it were to lose.

World's Hottest Luxury Housing Market Is Victoria, B.C. (Sorry, Toronto And Vancouver) (Huffington Post)

Christie's says the Victoria market earned such a high ranking because it is seeing an influx of buyers from the United States and China and sales rates that rival frenzied and neighbouring markets Toronto and Vancouver.