The South Surrey Business Park in Greater Vancouver has been acquired by Crestpoint Real Estate. (Courtesy Crestpoint)
Crestpoint Real Estate Investments Ltd. announced Thursday it has acquired major properties in two Canadian metropolitan areas; the Centre on Barton shopping centre in Hamilton, and the South Surrey Business Park in Metro Vancouver, for a total expenditure of over $300 million.
Following these acquisitions, Crestpoint’s total assets under management have grown to approximately $5.3 billion.
“To grow the portfolio with such high-quality assets in a difficult environment, especially in the industrial sector, should provide long-term tangible benefits to our portfolio,” said Kevin Leon, president and founder of Crestpoint, in the announcement. “Despite a challenging year, Crestpoint managed to acquire over $700 million of high quality properties across Canada in 2020.”
The Centre on Barton is one of the few major retail transactions to occur in Canada since the beginning of the pandemic, which hit some sectors of the shopping sector hard due to government-mandated lockdowns and other restrictions.
South Surrey Business Park
The park comprises properties at 2920 188th St., 18899 28th Ave., 18880 30th Ave. and 2945 190th St, in Surrey, with easy access to the Canada-U.S. border,
South Surrey Business Park is a state-of-the-art, multi-tenant class-A industrial park which was built between 2018 and 2020 by Hopewell Development (the industrial/retail development division of Calgary-based Hopewell Group of Companies).
The industrial complex is situated on a 38.9-acre site and is comprised of four buildings spanning 731,000 square feet.
The buildings feature 32-foot clear heights, over 150 loading doors and an abundance of parking, Crestpoint says. Occupying a full city block, the property is located close to four municipal roads and multiple highways. It is fully leased to a roster of tenants which include Amazon and DSV Solutions.
“This acquisition provides Crestpoint with the opportunity to own a best-in-class industrial park that is fully leased to a resilient roster of tenants at below-market rents, presenting the opportunity to increase income upon rollover,” Leon said in the release.
The Centre on Barton
Centre on Barton is a 677,000-square-foot open-format regional shopping centre on a 66.4-acre site at 1275 Barton St. E.
The property is comprised of 23 buildings and is currently 87 per cent leased to over 60 national and regional tenants. It is anchored by Walmart, Metro and Canadian Tire and has a diverse roster of ancillary tenants including Shoppers Drug Mart, LCBO, The Brick, Staples and all five Schedule I Canadian banks.
Built between 2009 and 2013, the site offers local and regional access as it sits between the Queen Elizabeth Way and downtown Hamilton. It’s within close proximity to several bus routes and GO Transit stations.
“We strongly believe that this ideally situated, defensive retail asset is a great addition to our well-diversified portfolio of commercial real estate. This asset provides long-term, steady cash flow from strong credit tenants with great access to a large population base that can withstand the retail transformation currently underway.” Leon said in the release.
About Crestpoint Real Estate Investments Ltd.
Crestpoint Real Estate Investments Ltd. is a commercial real estate investment manager with $5.3 billion of gross assets under management.
Crestpoint is part of the Connor, Clark & Lunn Financial Group, a multi-boutique asset management company that provides investment management products and services to institutional and high net-worth clients.
With offices across Canada and in Chicago, and London, Connor, Clark & Lunn Financial Group and its affiliates manage over $85 billion in assets. For more information, please visit: www.crestpoint.ca.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
